Our container full of stuff arrived from England on Friday and I am not sure how I feel about it. Although it is undeniably brilliant to be reacquainted with things like our bed and my bathrobe, it was strangely liberating to live for six months with just the contents of our suitcases.
Unfortunately the tenant in our house has been messing us around by saying she will move her stuff out every weekend for the last four weeks and not doing it. She has not been living there for the past month and has paid no rent but is technically still the tenant until she hands back the keys. All this means we had to have everything delivered to the house we are renovating and then schlep it all up the road when she finally goes.
Great excitement Saturday morning however, when the man who lives next door to the house (we befriended him and his wife when our power came on days before theirs after the storm and we let them come and use our shower) came trotting down the road to tell us that the tenants were there moving their furniture out, yippee! So we are hoping to get a call from the agent today to say she has the keys.
We have gathered a few bits around us while waiting for our furniture because recycling and make do and mending comes naturally to Australians and they are far less of a throw away society than we Brits. There is a marvelous system for disposing of unwanted household goods called the large item pick up. The date for the pick up is announced a few weeks in advance and residents start to leave their junk at the roadside in front of their houses. And of course, one man's junk is another man's treasure so, while it sits there, everyone ferrets through and takes what they want. This is completely acceptable, in fact positively encouraged as it means there is far less for the council to pick up, I have heard stories of people furnishing their whole homes this way.
We picked up a sofa and a couple of chairs to tide us over, Ian started to become a bit addicted and turned up every day with something else under his arm, I'm still finding things now, so I was quite glad when Port Stephens Council finally came and collected it all.
Luckily it was all picked up before the storm or the mess would have been unimaginable with all that lot blowing around!
As it is, there is still some clearing up left to do after the storm but we are getting there and we certainly won't be short of firewood this winter.