I didn’t cry when I left my home of 22 years in Melbourne, but I cried when I left the apartment in Runaway Bay. This beautiful place which we called home for more than eight months, came to represent a peaceful oasis, a lovely transition period in our move. It was comfortable, in a beautiful setting close to the ocean. Life was simple and easy. In this tranquil setting we were able to focus on the job at hand: finding a home to buy. We went about this methodically and consistently. Now we were embarking on the final phase of our move: making our new home our own.
After settlement we continued to live at the apartment for a further two weeks while the house was painted and central air conditioning fitted. We purchased a bed and mattress and a secondhand fridge. They were delivered to the house just before we moved. In early July we left the apartment and ‘camped’ in the house. We had the bed and a couple of folding chairs and a bare minimum of crockery and cutlery and condiments we had purchased while living at the apartment. And the fridge in the garage. Our belongings, which were still in the containers, were two weeks from arriving, as we were having the floors redone with vinyl tiles laid over the existing ceramic tiles. We decided that after 22 years of living with cream ceramic tiles, we didn’t want them again.
On our first evening in the house our Gold Coast friends visited. Some brought food in plastic containers, which we stored in the fridge. One couple brought kiribath (milk rice, a traditional Sri Lankan dish that is eaten at auspicious times such as when first moving into a new home, and on New Year’s Day), fish curry and sambol which we all ate while sitting on folding chairs and chatting.
A few days after the floors were done, we waited in anticipation for our belongings to arrive. Jerome had made a spreadsheet indicating where the big items were to be placed, so we could direct the removalists. The first container arrived and the piles of boxes kept growing. The kitchen bench was eventually obliterated by the many boxes piled in front of it. Some items of furniture didn’t fit where planned and we had to do a quick pivot to relocate them. Eventually the furniture and all the big items fitted perfectly.
By the time half of the second container was emptied my feeling of alarm increased because of the sheer volume of boxes. Where were we going to store the boxes, but more importantly, where were we going to put all that was in the boxes? Finally, the removalists left. We would discover in the following week that a TV, Apple TV, speakers and a couple of other items had been stolen, despite both containers being locked with padlocks before they left Melbourne. It was disappointing because we had a very good experience with the moving company up to that point. We decided to accept the cash payment offered by the company, which refused to accept liability for the items being stolen. The settlement amount did not cover the items lost but we decided to cut our losses and sign the waiver that we would make no further claims.
The furniture was all in place. Now came the colossal task of unpacking the boxes. The bulk of this work fell on me as I better understood where everything went in the kitchen, linen closet and study. The kitchen alone took me several days. The study took several more days. It was probably close to six weeks before we felt like we had made inroads and only a few boxes remained. The walk-in closet was in a reasonable state and the pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel slowly evolved into a glow and then an even brighter glow. We were getting there.
We took time to sit outside and enjoy the garden. It was winter but the days were balmy and except when it was cold or rainy, we ate breakfast on the patio. We felt really comfortable and as if we belonged in this new home. Jerome got busy getting the pool sorted, taking water samples to the pool shop, adding chlorine, adding salt and so on. I kept unpacking the last boxes and finding a place for their contents. As the unpacking progressed, I had made many trips to the local op shops with several boxes and bags of things we decided we didn’t need.
About four months after we camped in our new home with a bed and a couple of folding chairs, we were feeling settled and happy. We could use the pool and enjoy the garden. I revelled in my new kitchen, where storage was not an issue and there was space to move around. There were still a few boxes to unpack, things to sort out and pictures to hang, but we could take our time with these. We were home.