Empty

Four weeks to go.  Sarah’s turned into a relentless house clearing trojan who, over the last week or so, has made it her full time work to “git ‘er done”.  Cupboard by cupboard, drawer by drawer.  She says she doesn’t want to be doing it at the last minute and I can understand that, but she’s a woman on a mission.

Just as well, because I’m resisting it all rather, I’m finding it quite difficult emotionally to let go.

I have managed to let go of my need to pay to store a few sticks of furniture, crockery and the like.  I’m only keeping a few sentimental bits & bobs to be stored by my daughter and long-suffering ex-husband, plus a very few pieces of quirky art, collected when I owned the hotel in Worthing, The Acacia.  I’ve sorted out the two cupboards in my bedroom and my book / office cupboard in the dining room and that, pretty much, is that.  I’m not a hoarder, really, and having started all over again in 2010 – 2011, I haven’t accumulated much clutter.

I hate how different and bare it all looks now but I have to show willing, Sarah’s working so hard, and I’ll just have to get used to that.  I’m a last-minute merchant, me, so I’d still be hanging on to the familiar look and feel of my surroundings until about 2 weeks before we are due to depart.  Funny how just a few unnecessary things going makes all the difference though.  A coffee machine and set of knives from the kitchen, a wooden bowl that we used to keep fruit in….it all adds to the “lived in” feel.

She’s mostly selling it off via the local Facebook Selling Pages, it’s not making a fortune but it’s adding up, where I’d probably have paid a house clearance person to take it all away, due to not being able to bear spending my every waking moment clearing, photographing, listing and then answering the door incessantly.  Oh, the chit chat, I’m out of practice.

I came back from getting a haircut yesterday to find my work desk (her old glass dining room table) being cleaned and photographed, ready for sale.  I’m camping out now on my old Ikea folding table which we are going to be leaving for Heather (our middle sister, whose house it is) as a wallpapering table.

This is why you’ve not seen a blog post from Sarah yet.  She’s very solo focused and if there is anything, anything else to do first, blogging just comes last on the list.  She writes really, really well, so you’ll have a treat when we get to Stoupa and she joins in with the blogging too.  She takes a great photo so that’ll be a welcome addition.  Not my strong suit really, graphics and pictures.

I’ve told her that she’s got to write her first blog post by Friday, as that’s the day that this new blog’s URL is announced on our podcast “Own It! Your Business & Your Life” but I’m not holding my breath.  As I say, she needs to clear the decks before she can turn her attention to blogging.

I’ve notified all the utilities of my date of vacation and my new UK address – we are too early for the electricity and gas, it has to be done within 28 days apparently.  I’ve checked on my one-year multi-trip travel insurance and it’s valid only for the first 45 days after leaving the country, so I’ll be checking out WorldNomads.com for my ongoing health and gadget insurance after that.

My podcast co-host Judith and I have just had a very dark but quite funny conversation on Facebook Messenger about whether life / health insurance is worth it if you are single, as presumably if you drop down dead in foreign parts and nobody claims you, they’ll just dispose of you locally.  But I don’t want my kids to be burdened with the worry or with funeral costs, here or abroad, and we both agree that we would quite like to be medi-vac’d home to good old Blighty’s and the NHS if we got really sick or hurt somehow.

Judith’s sanguine about her chances, but Steve’s sudden departure has made me realise very forcibly how fragile life is (he died of a heart attack in his sleep).  It’s especially made me question the unspoken assumption that you will wake up again each and every morning.

And if I don’t, it would be worse for those remaining – locally or here – if they had to make arrangements of any kind in foreign climes.

Cheery, eh?

Actually, I’m feeling quite a bit chirpier of late, the scent of travel and adventure always does that to me.

Judith’s been camping out in her flat in London for five months now, in spite of having a buyer who didn’t involve an estate agent.  She got rid of everything in the confident expectation of exchanging and completing fast and due to admin hold ups, has been sleeping on a sofa bed while working from a garden chair, ever since!

Only 4 weeks to go.