Bloxham sunrise

September 30th, 2006 at 8:55 am by james

I’m sitting with Sophie watching the sun rise over Bloxham. It’s been a busy few days.

On Wednesday the removal company managed to get a container parked outside the house and load it with all our stuff. On Tuesday they’d thought they might need to ferry the stuff to the truck parked somewhere else. I missed it all because I was at work; Michelle, as you would expect, did an excellent job of directing operations despite having had a late (great) night out with her friends on Tuesday.

When it was all done we showed the girls around the house and played with echoes. Josie’s comment when she’d looked inside the container earlier in the day was, “But Mummy, a boat will sink if you put that on it.” The pictures of cargo ships on the ‘net obviously hadn’t conveyed an appropriate sense of scale. We went to Wagamamas and then drove to Phoe and Nin’s for the night. The girls were fast asleep by the time we got there. It was the first time Josie hasn’t woken being carried up to bed.

On Thursday what we thought would be a three-hour clean-up of the house took until 6pm. We also dropped off the car with the new owners and picked up a hire car (which is nice). We ate at the ShinyShowShop (Josie’s rendition of Chinese), where they treated us because it was our last time, and headed back to Phoe and Nin’s.

Yesterday we finally got the girls’ travel documents from the Royal Mail depot. It is a comfort to know that we’ll get them into the country legitimately. I’d begun steeling myself for the interview rooms at Jo’burg International Airport. In the afternoon we drove to the Schonkens and got the call from our Solicitor on the way to let us know our house sale had completed.

So here we are, languishing with our friends – well, sort of languishing, Josie eventually went to sleep last night at about 10.30 but is, fortunately, still asleep now. It feels good to be able to start unwinding. I believe we’re going shopping today, so I should probably make the most of the peace while it lasts!

We’ve taken a few pics over the last few days when we’ve remembered and will post them soon.

9 Responses to “Bloxham sunrise”

  1. Ben Says:

    Even though I was little at the time, I remember the debacle of going to and from between the (Transkei/Ciskei??) and home in Durbs – what three times? I think I remeber it because I think they wanted my birth certificate.
    Glad you guys sold teh house abd are ready to go. When is your departure date?

  2. james Says:

    We leave tomorrow (Tue) evening Ben. We fly into Jo’burg and have a wait for a few hours before we fly to Cape Town. We thought a stop for breakfast at that end would be better than a stop for dinner at this end, but we shall see!

  3. Mark Says:

    James,

    Just want to say thanks; thanks for those times in The Goat and The King Harry [as well as Wagamama etc], particularly fond memories of cigars in hand back in the Summer 2003! I look forward to raising glasses in March in the Southern Hemisphere. Hope your journey is uneventful and that once you’ve arrived you can actually have a break without getting back on the work treadmill too quickly.

    Mark

  4. Ben Says:

    Here here (or is it ‘hear hear’ ?!) to the work treadmill thing

  5. james Says:

    michelle says
    what on earth are you doing up so late at night mark?

  6. Mark Says:

    I have done some work documents reviewing recently – get the old chargeable hours up… but I think the clock was out, it definitely wasn’t that late!!

  7. Mark Says:

    Just worked it out… 12.29 pm is lunch time had it been late it would have been am… phew I was worried then that my sub conscious is so upset with your leaving that I was sleep typing 😉

  8. Tim Says:

    Looking forward to seeing you all, welcome back to SA.

  9. Kerry Says:

    Yay, yay, yay. Another victory for Africa! Can’t wait to see you guys. Please come and stay. We have open house between (about) 20 Oct & end Nov (but I’ll be in UK last two weeks of Nov). Would love to have you for a sleepover.
    Hugs
    K

Leave a Reply