Still no word from Multiplex

I've still had no word from Multiplex regarding settlement but I will be staying on here, renting the house for two weeks with provision to extend it by another two weeks so moving will, hopefully, be a leisurely process.

D2 and I went to the "Grand Opening" of the Claremont Centre. It was an exclusive "300 guests by invitation only" cocktail party where we were served warmish French champagne to the unbelievable noise of an amplified band which precluded any sort of conversation and with not enough food to counter the alcohol until we started making serious efforts to catch the attention of the food carriers.

We left at about the time they started bringing on the cocktails and, one would hope, more substantial food to mop up the spirits. D2 was on call from midnight and I didn't want to stay any longer.

This weekend is a council junk and green-stuff collection and I am amazed at how little there is left to get rid of; except, of course, the old paint cans. However, the person on the desk at the Council offices assured me that the transfer station in Shenton park would take them - at a price.

Herself has taken me to a furniture fabric shop and an upholsterer just around the corner from the fabrics and I have delivered the barrel-back chairs to be prettied up. They should look gorgeous when they are done and the colour should blend in with the seats of the dining-room chairs so they can live in the dining-room when we move.

Himself is going overseas for six weeks, flying out this evening. I had assumed that I would have been truly settled into the new apartment by the time he gets back but I suspect that I might still be here. He is, amongst other things, visiting Malta for the testing for his doctorate. I wish him well.

Things are starting to fall into place, finally

Things are finally starting to settle into place and the only thing which is still uncertain is the settlement date for the apartment. However, the Multiplex contact person told me that Multiplex is aware that I would like settlement for the apartment to take place after settlement for the house, so that means the last couple of days of May or into June.

I have booked into the Swanbourne B & B from 24th May to give the removalists and cleaners a free go and have said that I will be there for at least a week, possibly longer.

Most of the stuff I am not taking with me is either already taken or is promised but I will need a mini-skip to remove the odd bricks and broken buckets and pots.

Last Friday, Herself and I were allowed in to measure up the apartment. It is big and white with the most fabulous views of the river but I was rather dismayed with the kitchen which is galley style and the oven and microwave are at knee level which will mean getting down very low until I have familiarised myself with the microwave's controls.

I also felt concerned that I was going to lose my bed, with its all-white bedding , so I have bought some new quilt covers to add a bit of colour. I have also bought an entertainment unit which is very big and extremely heavy and is not particularly beautiful but somehow looks as though it will be 'right' in the room.

I still need to contact iinet and the removalists but will wait until after easter to get quotes as they tend to only hold for four weeks. All in all I am starting to feel much more relaxed about the move but still looking forward to getting it over and done with.

Click on the pictures to see them in their full glory ...

I have done everything I can ...

Today I went to West Perth to the girl who is doing the settlement for this house and handed over all the relevant documents. Now I just have to wait until the money is deposited in my account but I am still not sure which day. She said 27th May so I am working with that date and have emailed a request to the Boarding House of my choice and asked about the availability of a room from the 25th or 26th May until such time as Multiplex decides that I can move into the new apartment, whenever that may be. Their latest date is "towards the end of May".

My ex's brother died on Monday evening (today is Friday) and the family is converging from all corners of the world so it will probably be a fairly large affair. D1 is flying over from Sydney on Tuesday evening and is staying until Sunday morning which will be lovely ... except that she will not be happy with me refusing to use the kitchen for anything which might need cleaning before I move out. I have been invited to sit with the family; not sure that I really want to but so many of them are friends that no doubt I will join them in the front rows. There is to be a Wake afterwards ...

More on all that at a later date.

My house has been sold, but ...

My house has officially been sold, as of this morning. I didn't get as much as I'd hoped for but it seemed that we were only going to get one offer although there were about six interested parties.

The problem now is that Multiplex/Hawiian has moved the goalposts and settlement for the apartment is now set for the end of May; no reason given, just the bald statement. The Realtor has negotiated a 90-day settlement for the house, which takes us to 26th May but there is nothing to stop the goalposts being moved again. The settlement documents are to be posted to us in the near future so I suppose that will fix a date and I will be more easily able to plan my move.

Shouting from the rooftops ...

I HAVE WRITTEN PERMISSION TO KEEP TWO CATS IN MY NEW APARTMENT!!!!

So now I am trying to organise to get a pair of Bombay kittens. The difficulty is that settlement is in April but there are thirty days in April and that is a long time for a kitten so I might have to settle for a pair of teenagers. There is a pair of boys aged about 15 weeks at the moment and a pigeon pair aged six weeks. What I really need, if I want young kittens is to wait for the next litter to be born ... if there is going to be a next litter.

I have phoned and left a message to talk to the breeders so that I can get some sort of idea about what is and will be available and at the same time let them know why I am vacillating at the moment.

The new part of the shopping centre opened yesterday so the apartments can't be too far behind. Hopefully someone will have bought my house by then. There are about five or six couples circling but no-one wants to be the first to make an offer. Fingers crossed - tomorrow is a full moon in my financial sector according to one astrological prediction and I am choosing to believe it. Perhaps I should braid my hair just in case ...

More on the house, the apartment and the cats - sorry ...

I have been reading up on the by-laws for the Apartments and I can have two cats if I have written permission from the “Council”. As there is no council yet I can’t do that but the Strata Manager will be on the council and our Multiplex Rep suggested that I should email him and send her a carbon copy to speed things up. Unfortunately he is on holidays until 21st of this month so I will have to contain myself in patience and probably miss out on the two little boys who seem to be available.

The MR has finally come clean with an address for the apartments so I’ll have cards printed and a stamp made at some stage soon.

Since the web page for the house went online there have been 1199 hits (to 9/2/2011) which the realtor says is almost unprecedented; there were 33 enquiries and there are six interested parties although none has fronted up with a price to start the bidding. The house will be open for inspection again on Saturday (today is Thursday).

The computer lounge at COTA started up again this week and I had two very nice clients, both wanting word processing help although the second one, as soon as we started was able to remember all that she has learnt before. Unfortunately she has a new computer which she bought some months ago but hasn’t used, and no-one told her that she would need to charge the battery for 16 hours first up so it wouldn’t fire up at all; not even a flicker. Mine refused to load (I spent most of the afternoon restoring and error checking it and it seems to be working fine now) but that left us with the COTA computer and I was trying to explain about the sort of information one could get from the internet when her eyes lighted up and she asked me if I could find out about a large number of skeletons on St Helena from a body dump by slavers in the 19th century. We found a news article about it and she went off happy to see if she could get it printed at the library with the help of the key search words I used and the name of the article. Naturally, the COTA printer is not connected to the computer I use …

The house is in Selling Mode

*****We have finally moved into the proper selling mode. We have had the pre-previews and the previews and in two days we will be having the first "Home Open".

*****In the mean time I spend my time keeping everything looking Inspection Ready which means wiping up every stray crumb and every splash of water on the sink, vacuuming the pool on a regular basis and keeping the potplants and hanging baskets looking flowery and looked after.

*****I have found that the house stays much cleaner now that I don't have any cats but I am moving more and more towards getting a cat when I move into the apartment. I would like to get two so that they have companionship but we are only supposed to have one animal and since I will be home most of the time anyway a companion animal (dreadful phrase) is not likely to get lonely except/unless I have to board it for a while.

*****With my painful hip I thought that my travelling days were over but D3 suggested trying fish oil and I must say that after two days things are feeling much better. I am not holding my breath at this stage and I keep expecting things to hurt so I am tending to still favouring the right leg.

*****I have an appointment with the physio tomorrow and I'll see if he can loosen my neck a bit more. It has been much better since it was forcibly manipulated when I fell and hit my head but it still hurts and that annoys me. Since I have waited for a couple of months for this appointment I decided that I'd keep it, not cancel, and since I will be having lunch with my Lotto group across the road from his rooms almost straight afterwards it all works out very well.

*****The sign above says "Endless Summer" and that is the way it feels from here. The rest of Australia is having cataclysmic floods and now a huge cyclone in Queensland while we are having drought and heatwave conditions.