The Point of No Return

The sign has gone up. Our cottage is sold. This week, I read in the local paper that Penrith has been re-zoned for high-density housing, and the ground for 13-storey apartments is already being broken.  The plan is to cram another 50 thousand souls into this “city” within the next ten years. Our timing is spot-on.

On Sunday we fly to Galicia. We will land at Santiago de Compostelo airport, via Frankfurt, on the 21^st May. We will walk around our new home for the first time on the 22^nd. We have already arranged the date for signing the purchase contract on 31^st. As we land back in Sydney on 5^th June, if all goes according to the plan, we will already own a house in Spain!

We will then have exactly a month to vacate our little home of seven years; pack it up, see it taken away in boxes; our furry pals entrusted to a pet-transporter, who will see them safely to their new home in Spain.

I cannot describe how I am feeling. I am on auto-pilot, in project-manager mode. I have had to disassociate myself from the personal elements of this move. At the start I realized that this could not be done easily if I acknowledged emotional attachments to place and possessions. So, I imagined that a really good friend asked me to project-manage them moving to Spain. In this way I have been able to make clear, clean-cut decisions, while consulting with Sarah on the elements which will impact us on a more personal level. This has worked for me, although I underestimated my emotional connection to my garden and work-shop/potting shed. Getting rid of the old fencing I was planning to turn into planter boxes was very emotive. Selling my drop-saw was actually quite a “moment!”

On Sunday someone will arrive with a trailer to take away our wood-pile. My carefully seasoned iron-bark will warm another family this winter. I have shared the secret of saving its fine, powdery ash in an old garbage can, to use in the garden as a miraculous, free,  clay-breaker. My gypsy mind is already wandering off, to the woodshed in Spain, where pine-logs are stashed. I will select choice logs to burn, to celebrate my new fire-pit (yes, projects are forming already!) which will mark the Winter solstice, when I hope to host a small gathering in my new garden. It will be the end of an exciting year, but we are not there yet.