The Palace is, well, Palatial

We've moved! We've moved! Oh the glory! Oh the aching muscles! Oh the unpacking to do!

Well we did finally hear back from the agent, funnily enough our applications 'became disattached' and I think they actually had Sarah competing for the house against Shelley and I - because Shelley got a call saying that we were accepted, but Sarah got a call saying that we had missed out! (It would be naughty to say that this could possibly mean that Shelley and I look like good tenants and Sarah squeaked in on our merits, so I won't say that.) Anyway, we sorted that all out, signed the lease on Thursday afternoon, handed over a sizable chunk of money for the bond, and commenced moving in!

Sarah and Winfred and a carload of stuff.

Have I spoken about the Palace properly yet? Well my previous house was called 'The Cottage', the owners referred to it that way, even though it is actually a house, but the name stuck. All last year the plan had always been for my wonderful friend Marcia to move over here for College in January, so we were all to get a house together. Then the plan enlarged to include Kim, who was going to move here as well. Then Sarah moved to Sydney, and told me that she was going to live with Kim, so I could just think again thank you very much, and not pinch her friends (paraphrasing you Sarah, paraphrasing!). But then Sarah also wanted to move with Anne as well. Then Marcia emailed and said she wasn't going to move til July, so we decided to throw caution to the wind, combine our forces, and look for a 5 bedroom house! Shells, Sarah, Kim, Anne and I. But then Kim moved to Brisbane. And then Anne moved somewhere else. So now it was just Shells, Sarah and I. The three musketeers. So we soldiered on, decided to find a 3 bedroom place, Sarah and Shells would share, and we would get someone else in for 6 months til Marcia got here, and then hopefully all would be settled.

Plus, because we were all proper Princesses, and were upgrading from a Cottage, we named the new place The Palace. (It makes sense to us)

And the new place is totally Palatial. Totally. I'm not even going to ramble on right now about all the features because it just may make you green with envy. Let me just mention, briefly, the built-in vacuum cleaner (oh yes! you just plug the hose into a socket in the wall and it takes all the dirt into the unit in the garage), the smeg appliances (oven, microwave and dishwasher!), the water features (huge palatial fountains, outside in the communal gardens), the lock up garage with automatic door... yes, okay, I'll stop :-)

Introducing, the Palace! (With added Gina!)

View from my balcony

Yesterday was the biggest moving day I've ever had. Actually the other day at work we all counted up how many moves we've ever done. I came first with a whopping 17. And that's just counting the different addresses I've lived at, there's actually been more moves than addresses (moving back in and out of mum's place a lot!). So this was no. 18, and the biggest one of all. We had a truck - a massive truck. We had 4 pick up points, and no truck packing expertise. We had 10 helpers who came to our rescue (God bless you all you beautiful angels of God!) some of them at very short notice, without whom we would have just a) chucked everything in the back of the truck b) driven home c) unloaded a lot of very broken furniture.

The largest truck I've ever utilised.

As it was everything was in one piece, relatively unscathed, the fridge was manouvered admirably into place, the (heavy) things that needed to go upstairs are all upstairs (thank you boys!) and we were all still alive. No injuries to report other than a few scratches and bruises and possibly also my sanity (but I think that was a lost cause from some time back).

Smiling, smiling...

Asleep!

Anyway, my other big news is: I'M OFF! If I could post a big OUT OF OFFICE on my blog I would! On Wednesday night I'm flying down to Melbourne for 11 fun-filled, non-work related, non-moving/packing/unpacking-filled days. And my wonderful sister Katy is coming with me too. Hurrah!

So the question of the moment is clearly - can you beat me? How many addresses have you lived at? How many moves have you made? And who can win with the most awkward object successfully moved? (If you can beat a heavy steel & glass 70's bar and an old-school one-armed bandit I'll take my hat off to you!)