And we've moved from Cafe Rata

Having left our lovely home, Cherswud, in Johnsonville back in 2014 to move to Waikanae into our much smaller but lovely home in Rata St, I was sure we were never moving house again. In fact, I am sure I told David that at the time!

But here we are now living in Parkwood Retirement Village. We put our names down here shortly after we moved to Waikanae (much gnashing of my teeth and grumping as it was David's desire to have a plan for our old age and I was a reluctant participant...) 

We have checked on our progress up the waiting list periodically over the intervening years and were always happy that there were still lots of people still ahead of us. Then in September we went for our annual conversation, this time to let them know that we were ready to be ready to make the move, i.e. by October or so in 2023, not October 2022** (see below).

However, Debbie said she had a villa we could look at now. So we did, and made the decision on the spot that we could happily live in it. Debbie was stunned that we could decide so quickly as many people turn down 6 or 7 places before saying yes. Every place in Parkwood is different - none of them have the same floorplan or exterior, so there is nothing cookie-cutter about this village. Check it out here: https://parkwoodvillage.co.nz/

Since then it has been a whirlwind of selling the house in Rata St and all the work and stress that that entails: packing, cleaning, giving away stuff we won't use (or haven't in years), taking stuff to the op shop (about 7 loads and having them come to collect big items), cleaning, wrapping wrapping wrapping everything and packing packing packing stuff into boxes, vacuuming multiple times, removing paintings and picture hooks, and finally shifting. This last entailed lots of bootloads of belongings to our temporary home over several days, as well as David shifting everything out of the house into the garage for the removal people to take off to storage for a few weeks until we can move into our new place.

Ashleigh came to help us do a final clean (she had cleaned the garage prior to our painting it, and gave me a hand with cleaning prior to the house going on the market - she is a treasure). On her second day with us she had to bring Evie who is a very happy little kid. And she really likes pastry - and salmon pie even though her mum doesn't...

Lyall was keen on my pink hi-vis gear. It didn't make the mattress easier to carry.

Luke, Diane, Mads and Bevan had all come to help us pack. We moved our bed over to Brian's place. Did you know that tempur mattresses have no supporting structure to make them easy to lift? They are dead-weights and very awkward. It took 5 people to get it on the trailer - I of course was official photographer.

In the removal people's parlance, these items count as the uglies - not boxes, not standard pieces of furniture. So the garage was stacked in categories - uglies to the back, boxes on the left and furniture in the middle. Beds would have been stacked on the right, but our bed had already been moved out.

 

Furniture in the middle

And while all that was occurring, I've also been involved in decisions about the redecorating and renovating of the villa we have purchased the Licence to Occupy in Parkwood: 

• new kitchen, 
• changes to one of the bathrooms, 
• replacement of all windows and exterior doors with doubleglazed, 
• replacement of all interior doors and new door furniture, 
• new garage door, 
• complete repaint of the interior, 
• changing a coat cupboard to a second pantry and extending the wardrobe in the main bedroom,
• new carpet and vinyl, 
• all new appliances,
• trellising and concreting for the clothesline area and the patio outside the lounge... 

The last decisions to be made are for blinds (roman and sunshade) and insect screens. I am meeting with the curtain person on Thursday morning to sort that stuff out.

In the meantime, here are some photos of progress to date:

The cabinets went in on Monday and Tuesday last week.

 

Doors, drawers feet in the lounge - they were all in place by Wednesday.

Very much a work in progress: This is our new place from the south west. The room with the little window is the second bathroom. The room with two windows is the second bedroom which will be David's office and the spare room. The room next to David's office which you can only see part of is our bedroom. The garage has the laundry in it and the washing line will be erected on a piece of trellis which will extend out from about 700mm out from the corner of the garage to the stick and then along at right angles to level with the end of the brick wall (obscured by the manuka bush at the moment - that will be relocated somewhere).

The end wall of the lounge - the awning was removed for cleaning. There is a new outside box of workings for the new heat pump ... A couple of weatherboards have been replaced too.

Through that end window into the lounge dining and the kitchen. Plus reflections in the glass ... You can see that the door/drawer fronts have been put on in the kitchen.

From about the same position but looking towards our bedroom. The stick in the centre right foreground shows where the patio concrete will come to. Those bushes are going and I will be planting feijoas and roses.

Our bedroom with some of the old windows and doors propping up the wall ...

And more old windows and doors - someone who lived here previously had a cat ... Still remedial work to do around the bathroom and toilet windows and a new patio to be poured once the cobbles and concrete have been dug up.

We have been extremely fortunate that a friend has lent us his home to live in in Parkwood for the period between settlement date of 15 Rata St and our moving in date. It's been a real boon! Brian's garage now contains a lot of our stuff in boxes plus our freezer full of food. David has taken over part of the very large lounge as his office and is working away on Weaving Memories work as I write. 

And in a few days the other part of the lounge will be our grandson Olek's bedroom - he arrives from Scotland to stay with us on 1 March and will be here in NZ for 6 weeks. Yay!!

David has been working very long hours during the packing and shifting process - much longer than I have. He has more stamina to keep going even when tired. Of course, he occasionally has a regenerating snooze ... Here he is on the sofa at Brian's place. As Julia would say "Bless"

Listening to podcasts about US politics is very soporific for a tired man. (NZ Politics is anything but restful with the crap that the conservative politicians spout ...)

Mel is happy here at Brian's place. Beside him is part of our stack of paintings and prints - the rest are in the lounge beside and behind a sofa.

A big part of the boon of having Brian's place is that I am able to produce batches of cheese scones (interspersed occasionally with blueberry and banana muffins and once with date scones) for the tradies who have been hard at work. It's a short walk between Brian's place and our new place so scone delivery is simple. And I learned from Luke some time ago that cheese scones keep tradies happy... 

Another boon of being here is that we are already getting involved in the social events here. On Friday we went to a BBQ at the social centre - the food was lovely, the people are really friendly and welcoming. There was music - all 60s and 70s tunes so we all knew the words ... And there was dancing - who knew old people still like to dance?

** We move in to our place on 7 March, then head away in the motorhome with Olek on 10 March until about 11 April, and then on 18 April we head off to the UK for 5 months. We will be back in late September - so essentially, apart from about 10 days of sleeping in our new place, we will actually really be resident here just before October 2023 anyway ...