And so it begins

So all the packing has been done and anything we forgot to keep to one side is now in a box until who knows when. The cleaning too. Which is the worst part about moving ? The packing or the cleaning ? I think both.

All of this squished into the poor wee car and we spent one last night in a motel in the city before catching up quickly with a couple of people before heading on down to the ferry. What an awesome last few days you turned on for us Welly. Trying to melt the resolve about leaving the crap weather and incessant wind, huh ?

But actually the weather is only part of it, and leaving just has to be done regardless of how attached we might feel. There are some things I have absolutely loved about living in Wellington and others I have abhorred with a vengeance. It was never intentionally my choice to live there.

We moved when I was still at school, maybe 13. Part of the machinations of Government. A promotion for Dad - "You have been transferred to Head Office". It never really felt like home, particularly in those first years when every opportunity to go back north to visit family and friends was captured. But over time it changed. It was where Mum and Dad where when I lived in Australia and so visits back became "visiting home" - but home as also someplace else. The place I lived when I wasn't "visiting home". Then after I moved back permanently and had settled in the Waikato I needed to decide where the next "home" was going to be. Where there was employment, schooling and assistance as I started out on the next phase of my life. Wellington was the obvious choice again.

But no more. It is time to find a new home. It is a tad unsettling since all the well worn routines have been thrown into disarray, but it will get better I'm sure.

For now though, we are visiting with Mum and Dad who have made a new home which looks and feels like their home, albeit it not where we have always known it to be. There is still some work to do - creating a garden. We will be able to visualise what they are doing though, and how it might change, once we are no longer close enough to see for ourselves.

It's pretty quiet here. Good for recharging our batteries, but quite alien to the lives we normally lead. Time enough though to sort out how we are going to manage to make what possessions we have with us, stay within the allowed baggage weight when the time comes to leave.