Okay, so I sold our stuff by any means possible. I bought the plane tickets about 2 weeks after Adam left so had a date set - 23rd February - for leaving the UK. That was in Feb half term, so Lani and Zach could finish up at school and nursery nicely. We had to move out on 15th Feb, so I spent the last week of the school half term staying with Karen and Eric (the lovely in-laws). We moved to theirs on Fri 11th Feb so I could have the weekend to clean the house and make sure we got the bond back. And my goodness, did we clean...
During the week Mo and Maddelene came to help because they couldn't come on the saturday and did a fabulous job of the windows (Mo) and the main bathroom and downstairs toilet (Maddelene). On Saturday I had an awesome team of helpers - Gail, Harold and Kinnear Elliot, Aaron, Janine, Sandy, Keeley, Karen and Alastair. They did a fantastic job helping me clean all through the house, taking stuff to the charity shops and tidying up the garden. Then on Monday I cleaned the carpets and had the window cleaner do the outside top windows. I had the inspection on the Tuesday and it went really well, the only thing they weren't happy with was that the carpets hadn't come out too well, but everything else was actually in better condition than when we'd moved in. In the end the landlady agreed with the letting agent that that weighed out the fact that the carpets had gotten worse and we got our full bond back - yay! Couldn't have done it without everyone's help though, they were amazing.
During those final few days I was also calling round utility companies and the like to cancel things and finalise bills etc etc. But after that inspection on Tues I felt like quite a weight had been lifted and I could relax a little.
I went to the cinema to see The Kings Speech that night with Sandy and Janine to celebrate. Excellent film. The next couple of days were spent seeing people to say goodbye. Dad came up on Friday night and on Sat morning we packed up his people carrier with all our stuff - there was A LOT. But we managed to squeeze it all in - just!
Got to Mom and Dad's in Reading and then the great re-packing began to do the final sort through that could include Mom and Dad's luggage and their weight allowance. The lounge was covered with our stuff and I was constantly sorting through, weighing, re-packing, re-weighing etc. It took a good 2-3 days to sort out. Then on Wed Jess and I drove to the airport with the car full of our luggage and Mom, Dad and the kids went on the train (couldn't all fit in with the luggage as well!).
We got to the airport pretty early and got all the baggage through without any problems - total of 8kgs over the limit for all 6 of us, but it was allowed without any question. Then came the really hard part of saying goodbye to Jess :(
Next update to follow shortly... (it's a big story to tell and I don't have the energy to do it all at once!)
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