So our belongings finally arrived last Friday, a mere ten months after being packed away in boxes.  In the end, they arrived about an hour earlier than expected. I was still down in Mount Martha, but Jim was here and everything was successfully loaded into Lindsey and Ian's garage, apart from two boxes which had clothes and coats in them which were brought into the house.

We can't unpack most of the boxes - we don't have anywhere to put the contents. But on Thursday, when I happened to be in Mount Helen, we unpacked those two boxes, plus one marked Hats and another marked Books.  It was quite exciting to see what was inside them.  I had forgotten that I had packed some tea towels and have been buying them here against the day that we have a Kitchen of Our Own.  We are not going to be short of tea towels!  The box of clothes was mostly (very welcome) winter jumpers, but with a few other things included (such as the tea towels!)  The box of books included some of my Japanese study books and some cook books.  We have put back into the boxes things that we aren't going to use until we have a place of our own.

It was slightly puzzling that we had packed a big box of glasses wipes. Seemed like a very odd thing that we felt the need to transport them to the other side of the world. But then we remembered that we had asked the removal men to pack everything that was in the dining room except for the freezer, and the box of glasses wipes lived on the window sill in the dining room.  I wouldn't have selected them as being amongst my best treasures, but they will surely come in handy :-)  And in the event that we ever move again with removalists packing everything for us - I'll pack the clothes myself.  The coats were very scrunched up.  Jim's winter coat was so crumbled and squished that we had to iron it gently to render it wearable. He didn't like my idea that we should squish him into it and send him out into a torrential downpour to see if that would help :-D

It will be Very Exciting Indeed when we get to unpack all the other boxes.  Who knows what treasures we will find!

I stayed down at Mount Martha until Tuesday of this week.  Matthew and Belinda came for lunch on the Friday of last week. Wendy came for lunch on the Saturday.  Simon and his (adult) children came for afternoon tea on the Saturday.  Lindsey came on the Sunday and stayed over night.  Then on Monday Tony had loads of tests done at the hospital and was admitted after that.  Stella, Lindsey and I had lunch in the pub! Tony is now in the rehab unit, building up his strength. Stella is at home. Lindsey and I headed back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  My scanning box was delighted to see me.  It was very, very full.  It's still very very full despite me having spent something like 16 hours at it this week.  I'll have to try harder this coming week!