The first step

The house is empty, keys handed over or in our case, the keyless entry reprogramed for the new owners. The house scrubbed up good. No surprise. The new floors shine, funky wallpaper front and center (we assure the new owners it grows on you), the essence of a warm and happy house oozes from every room. This is a house content with itself. The yard alive with whistles, calls, and flapping wings. A catchment for the likes of me (Judy) who loves to collect the Iridescent, black tipped white, blue & yellow, yellow & green, green and red, the kaleidoscope of feathers that Australian birds offer everywhere, every day. The pool glistens in the strong summer sun. Beckoning to us, once more for old times’ sake. Who are we to ignore such an invite? We wait for the cover of darkness, wrap our naked bodies in towels and take a moonlit dip. It’s enough. We have both said our good-byes to this house that was our home. We dry off and make a dash for the bus, to new adventure.

First night is a bit rough. Neko isn’t feeling the same adventurous freedom as us. She should have taken a dip as well. At least she would be cooler. We wake several times through the night in order to take on the parental duty of calming the cat. Morning finds us tired but still giddy from our first night on the road.

About that…on the road. We have only moved two houses up on the same street. The trip hasn’t quite had the start we expected. It is Wednesday, we are told the Prado will not be ready until Monday. Roll with the punches is our motto (or if it’s not, it should be) so we move in front of one of our neighbours (remember all those awesome neighbours), put our utility trailer in the yard of another neighbour (see I wasn’t kidding) and settle in to get to work on the bus.

First day is spent cleaning and trying to make enough room so we can move. We may have too much stuff in the bus, hard to say really as we prioiritised getting out of the house which meant shoving crap everywhere. The brilliant part to that is that we have all the time in the world to sort through it and find a home for said “crap”.

Second night we get the sleep we so need and probably deserve. Thanks Neko. She really is settling in quite well now that she understands (or we think she does) that this is her new home.

There are some slight hick ups. The bus is still warm. This has been tested out by a 37-degree day. We are working on it but perhaps need to work faster. On the flip side we could just wait as summer should be almost over! The pump for the macerating toilet does not seem to be working like it should. It could be that only the grey water from the shower goes into flushing it and we haven’t used the shower yet. We decide to make the bathroom sink water go into the grey water holding tank. Or, at least we have added that little project to the list. Also added to the list is the drinking water tap that seems to be leaking somewhere under the sink.

We did put one of the new double-glazed windows up and it looks beautiful. A hand on the window confirms it is doing its job as it is much cooler than the other windows. Yay. A huge success. We are on a roll, so we decide to order the wood we require to start the wall behind the kitchen benchtop. Late in the day we experiment with the blinds that will fit between the double glaze. We (Al) cut the blinds to size, we attach the bottom to the (little) sill and then add wood to the top so we can attach the magnets that are going to be used to open and close each blind. We put the double-glazed window back on, add the other magnet and voila nothing moves! Shit. The magnets are not strong enough. Another lesson in this little experiment is that the blinds should be glued, not screwed, to the wood, and glued to each other so they remain fluid. Either way, we are back to the drawing board on the magnets. The concept is a good one but just needs a bit (a lot) of tweaking.

Slept all night the 3rd night. Wahoo, thanks again Neko. That last sentence was uttered a little too soon upon realization that Neko has peed in the bathroom. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if her litter box was in the bathroom, but it’s not. She peed on the floor. We decide (if she could talk) there could be a couple of explanations, first of which is that she also pooped in her litter box at some time in the night and she doesn’t like to pee in a litter box that has poop in it. Do you see where this is going? Yes, a fricking spoiled rotten cat, that’s where this is going. Second reason could be that she is trying to tell us she is unhappy and somewhat unsettled after being ripped from a perfectly good home and planted in a tin can that her owners like to think we could live in for a couple of years. We are going with the first explanation for now.

Late in the day we are informed that the Prado will not be ready until the end of next week at the earliest. This could be a slow trip around this big country. Stay tuned!