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 21st May. We will walk around our new home for the first time on the 22nd. We have already arranged the date for signing the purchase contract on 31st. As we land back in Sydney on 5th 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.
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