[sarahw]

Hi,

Just thought I'd give a quick update on how our move is going... I'm sure some of you will be able to relate to this in retrospect and some of you lucky people have got this to come! :eek

Firstly - I'm sooo tired - my eyes actually hurt because the bags under them feel so heavy!!! Every night I think - I'm so tired I'm going to have such a good night's sleep - HA! never happens!!! Never suffered from sleeplessness in my life, but there I am up at 2am remembering things I have to get done and I don't feel like I've sat down for the last month and just relaxed reading a book or something... Every night this week I'm on leaving do's for work, or am seeing close friends for the last time.

I give up work on Friday this week but have had to come in early to do a presentation for our board meeting (board meeting on my last week I ask you!) today. :(

We've got our visas :mrgreen: :raebanana , house is still up for sale and the way the non-existent viewings have been going the last few weeks I'm sure we won't have any movement by Xmas :wah , so we've signed over Power of Attourney to my parents (phew - that's a weight off!). It looks like my car will sell this week :nice1 :nice1 but Ian's is still on e-bay waiting for bids - we've put them on sooo much less than they're worth but this isn't the time of year for selling anything!

Every day I'm bringing things to work to give/sell to people/drop off at people's houses. In between trips to the rubbish tip (gosh we didn't think we had much stuff!) Quick tip - have a really good clear out and do car-boot sales if you're considering moving - its worth to do it in advance so you're not rushing around like a crazy person for 2 or 3 weeks before you move!

Washing machine is on overtime trying to clean all bed-linen/towels from all rooms and everything we have to ship...

Our packing company - PSS is coming on Wednesday & Thursday next week to pack our stuff into a container and it ships out of the UK port next weekend :nice1

We then move into Mum & Dad's for a couple of weeks over Xmas - and I can tell you I can't wait!!! Oh to be in a house where the paperwork isn't breeding on the floor in front of you! Oh to be in a house where you don't have to spend your whole weekend cleaning vacuum cleaners and bbq's with a small brush and a bucket full of detergent, oh to be in a house where you know where everything is.... etc....

Leaving bash is organised & we're looking forward to it.

The light is at the end of the tunnel!!!! In less than a month's time we'll be in Wellington. :cool

Phew - the worst is surely behind us now and only 1 more week until I can sit and put my feet up! Yay!!!! Poor Ian is working up until Xmas Eve :wah

If you're at a similar stage, please share how you're feeling at the moment.

I'm not feeling emotional about going at the moment (although I think I had a lot of emotion the last couple of months!) and it feels really strange saying goodbye to our friends (but that's probably to come when I relax!)

[heimatseeker]

Sarah - I know exactly how you feel. We just got out of a similar situation and only as of this week are really settled in Wellington, after months of organizing and selling and cleaning and moving...and we didn't even have a house, just a small apartment.

The strangest thing during that frantic phase was for me that so many things just continued like before. Like you I was working till a couple of weeks before the move, and having that normal routine along with all the stress and excitement of new things to come can really mess with your head. Not to mention having to say goodbye and all the other emotional moments. Little silly things too, like going to the supermarket and thinking, "that's the last jar of peanut butter I'm going to buy here", or "my next haircut will have to be in New Zealand". And then you get a bit sad and a bit excited and a bit scared, and then you think, "but damn, *I'm* going to New Zealand!"

All I can say is that it was worth it. :smile

Good luck with your sale :hopeso and your move, and enjoy xmas with the family!

greetings from a new Wellingtonian :cheers
Sibylle

[pleccy2000]

Good progreess you've made.

I notice you're form West Byfleet... I came form Kingston, not far at all.

I used to go to a shop in West byfleet called "mini speed" for my car parts..

Small world!

[sarahw]

Firstly - Adam - we know Kingston very well - we're having our leaving party there! Funny how we both relocated from Surrey to Welly - spooky - just a shame you're not going to be there much longer - our flights will probably cross!

Heimatseeker, that's so funny about the haircut - I had that exact same thought last week! :laugh

[NickH]

Hi Sarahw

Blimey, are we going through exactly the same things as you! We moved out of our rented apartment last weekend (sold the house months ago - luckily) and are now staying at a freind's flat who currently and conveniently lives in Japan. We watched the PSS container lorry disappear down the road last week with all our worldly belongings. BIG moment.

Now, onto the rounds of family and friends goodbye 'parties' - not something we are looking forward to particularly. Christmas with our sons, then we leave on December 29th with a few days in Hong Kong for New Year, and then onto Auckland.

This is my last week at work. I've been here 16 years and I founded the %%$** company. And I'm leaving to go to the other side of the world. Am I mad I ask myself?

Talking of the wierd things that go through ones mind .. have you noticed that the number of KEYS you are carrying slowly diminishes? See how it gets to you ..you start noticing the daftest things.

One thing we have noticed though. We're sleeping better now that the furniture has gone, and that whole mad phase passed. There's nothing we can do about loads of stuff now, so we might as well relax and go with the flow.

Another piece of evidence that it's actually happening. We've got our PO Box number organised in Auckland, so somewhere there's a little bit of metal that is our first toe-hold in a new country.

For anyone else going through this period - "good on yer". For people with it still to come, you'll never forget it.

Cheers everyone :cheers

Nick

[leslie]

after packing for our return to the uk we shacked up in a lovely 5 star toronto boutique hotel for our final week (windsor arms - recommend). it was the loveliest ending imaginable - it wasn't too far from our former home, we had our friends come to us in its glamorous spaces, staff took care of us all day, brought us fresh truffles at bedtime. when they weren't harrassing the doormen the kids swam in the pool and tore around emptying the bowls of fruit and evian left in all the hallways. we even managed a couple sleepovers! a major move is an unusual situ and we thought it deserved special treatment. it was so relaxing. our memories are surprisingly happy - its a one-timer that i highly recommend.

[MelissaLG]

I can sympathize with all of you...we just went through the same thing...Allied rolled away with all of our belongings including our truck last Thursday. So glad to be done with the mad cleaning and organizing! What a stress! Not to mention finding out that our shipping weight was way higher than the moving company estimated (meaning its going to cost a lot more). Oh well, its just money, right? I am just looking forward to that day when we are in NZ, boxes unpacked, and we can light a fire in the fireplace. That will be a really good day! :yes

[lindajax]

Hi All,

Our stuff went last Tuesday and Wednesday after 2 weeks of frantic cleaning and packing and sorting and shifting etc etc etc.

When it went we then completed on the sale of the house on the friday and all at once after finishing work on the monday we were homelss and jobless. Freaked me out a little at first but then felt really chuffed to be shackle free.

Did think things would calm down but relatives are funny creatures and the M-in-law had organised family photos on Saturday and others a party on Sunday - its been a whirlwind couple of weeks. It is so very hard seeing all you've amassed packed in a truck and carted off by strange men!!!!!

Living with the inlaws is ..... different.

Trying to sort out bank accounts is ...... P I T A. especially with inlaws adding thier 'special' comments and Ali is C*** with anything money orientated and therefore its been a trail that has not been adjuorned yet!

I must say though now that we seem relatively sorted apart from little bits it is quite liberating and neither of us have ANY doubts whatsoever.

Looking forward to starting over and wishing you all good luck and lots of love

See you on the other side guys!!!

love Lindaxx

[sarahw]

Its good to hear other people's experiences are similar - doesn't make me feel so bad running around like a headless chicken! :P

Nick you're right about the keys... Did you arrange your PO Box number from here? If so - how can we do that? it'd be great to have that sorted!

Leslie - how indulgent - a hotel - ahhh in my dreams! I'm looking forward to getting to the B&B in Wellington - we're going to the same one we stayed at last time we were there - the people are lovely and they're so excited that we're moving over and have our residency! I think there'll be a bit of bubbly going down on our first night in Welly!

Melissa - I can relate to that! I'm so looking forward to having a house with a woodburning stove (although hopefully we won't need it for a few months!) to curl up in front of whilst looking out on a water view - ahh its not far off now!

Linda - nice to hear you - sounds like you're very organised, the bank account is the one thing that I'm thinking we may wait to do until we get there as I can't be bothered with getting any more certified copies of anything after the PR application! - Good luck with the move & looking forward to hearing updates when you get there (although we'll probably be without PC then!)

[NickH]

Hi Headless Chicken (aka SarahW)

We arranged the PO box over the phone. Go to this address:

http://www.nzpost.co.nz/nzpost/control/customerservice

and raise a support request. A nice chap called Robert helped us, took credit card details etc and has set us up a PO box in Auckland City. We can pick up the keys and sign the papers when we arrive.

Hope this helps ...

Nick
As there are no headless chicken 'smilies', my smilie
is here in the gap ...[ ]

[renrob]

More power to all who are on their way to NZ :clap . Hope you will all prosper and enjoy your stay in that beautiful place.

[Jodie]

Hi to everyone nearly on their way to NZ.

I can relate to what you're all going through - it doesn't seem like 2 seconds ago that we were walking out of our empty flat for the last time after chucking/selling/giving everything away before we left. (What a strange feeling of sadness and excitement all mixed together!) It was even stranger for us cos we got rid of everything we owned before we left - ended up with 1 car full of boxes personal bits and peices to store in Mum's Loft and get shipped out later and our suitcases! That was all we had to our names - a few boxes and 2 suitcases of clothes! :eek And we were coming out to nothing! Sounds absoultely crazy, doesn't it!

But we've been here for nearly 5 months now - it's gone so quickly! And we're still loving it so it must be good!

So good luck everyone - and for those heading for Welly, let us know when you get here and we'll have to meet up for a welcome drink! :cheers

See you all here very soon!

Jod
:nice1

[heimatseeker]

Jodie, that sounds familiar. We also sold/gave away pretty much everything and started over here in Wellington. Because we didn't come by plane, but rather by ship, we could take a bit more luggage with us than usual, so we had 16 bags between the two of us. When we got off the ship, we bought a car, loaded it up with those bags, and drove down to Wellington. I remember that during that drive we said to each other, this is about the most freedom you could ever get: no home, no job, and all your worldly possessions fit in the trunk, no, boot, of a car!

But it sure was also nice to soon thereafter trade some of that freedom for a comfy bed and a couch ;)

Good luck to everyone in the moving process right now. :nice1

[Lil]

How apt, I'm in shreds at the moment and cannot yet see the light at the end of that tunnel. Things are slightly different here because we decided to sell our house before making any further arrangements to actually go to NZ and chose to move into rented flat for a couple of months. The top ten list of my latest dilemmas:

(1) Packers are coming on Tuesday 14th December
(2) Still no sign of contract being exchanged
(3) Can't sign lease on rental til contracts exchange
(4) Buyer wants to complete on 13th Dec
(5) Medicals booked for 13th Dec
(5) We want to complete on 16th Dec
(6) Had a deadline to sign lease on flat 4th Dec (passed)
(7) New absolute drop deadline for rental 10th Dec
(8) My estate agent is a lying scumbag (no news there then)
(9) I'm washing and ironing for England
(10) Trying to get xmas cards organised to go with change of address

It's hell on earth, there's no time to sit down, no alchohol or drugs left in the house and very little food. So what's a girl to do? Scream and shout and throw things around a bit - it helps! :cool

I fear life will become very boring when this is all over, I have absolutely no idea what I used to do before all this, when life was plain old mundane. Can you get addicted to adrenaline?

[Diny]

Nice to know I'm not the only one teetering on the brink of insanity. We are just waiting for the house to sell (I won't mention that we had some folks here for a 2nd viewing this weekend and they made all the right noises in case it's tempting fate).

Because we're hanging around waiting until we get the green flag we've managed to get alot of things done at a more manageable pace. Have done the massive chucking out bit - garage sales - car boot - clothing bank - charity shops - etc etc. Have done alot of washing & ironing and 'putting away' of the bed linen and towels etc. Have been living with one set of bed clothes and one set of towels for a good few weeks now. We have to really get a pelt on to get the beds stripped, washed, dried and then made up again in one day (I never was that organised).

Mind you - having done all of this I'm by no means lulled into a false sense of 'job done'. I know that when contracts are exchanged and money is in the bank - all hell will let loose and I would advise everybody to operate a 200yds exclusion zone around our house.

Good luck everybody .... these final stages are just about the worst I reckon.

Diny

[sarahw]

Thanks Nick for the details - that'll help smooth things along - having a Postal bag! :mrgreen:

Lil, you poor thing - I hope it all works out for you :hopeso - yes estate agents are scumbags (sorry if there are any out there!) at least in NZ they have to be registered and the ones we met over there seemed more professional than in the UK (but that's not hard!) - there - got that off my chest! Ian managed to negotiate a good deal for us having dual agency yesterday as our current agent hasn't had a viewing round in 3 weeks - thank goodness really - the house has been a tip! I'm going to have to ban all viewings until the stuff goes in the container & the house is empty! There are suitcases everywhere at the mo! Its wierd but I've got 3 weeks of wearing my summer clothes in the UK when our stuff has shipped - lucky my Mum is the same size as me and has a wardrobe full of jumpers & coats! :cool

Diny - :hopeso :hopeso :hopeso fingers crossed - if I were you I'd be feeling impatient right now, but as you say at least you've been able to do things at a more leisurely pace :mrgreen:

[lindajax]

Lil,
It'll all pan out trust me!!!! once this mad period is over it just gets madder with all the lunches and meals out etc etc.!!!

Try to keep positive -I know this is hard - on Tuesday when we went to sort banking out - Ali and I didn't speak one civil word to each other all day we were like two snakes hissing at each other - STRESS but all is calm now for the next 10 minutes anyway!!

What doesn't defeat us makes us stronger peopel and the immigration process will not beat any of these forum members I'm sure.

Sarah - summer clothes -I so know what you mean!!! What we did was keep back stuff for winter that we could ditch before we go on 31 dec. and packed our suitcases with summery stuff. also kept some glitzy Xmas clothes too but the rest went in the container.

We soooooooooo look like destitutes and neither of us will buy new stuff at the moment but hey we never have to see these people who look at us so strangely here ----- went to the bank to hopefully transfer a very large sum of cash into a migrant account or off shore account and the guy from the bank thought we didn't have enought to have an ISA opened - we killed ourselves after. Maybe the jeans and mingy fleece coat did it!!!

Anywhooz, all of you keep your chins up and just drink loads of wine - all seems better then !
Love
Linda xxxxx

[sarahw]

Oh Linda, you really made me laugh :laugh I can reallllly relate to hissing at each other & not speaking a civil word. We've never had a bad word between us in our relationship & this is really pushing us to our limits - both of us are grumpy, tired and stressed to the hilt!

Has anyone else noticed that whenever you phone up your utility bills to change your address details (and when they try to sell you their services at your forwarding address) and you mention that you are emigrating...that the usually rude, grumpy staff at the end of the phone turn into honorary "Kiwis" and stop being grumpy & rude & get all whistful and chatty and about where you're moving to? its really made us laugh! Not one person has put the phone down without having a good chat about where we're going and how great NZ is! :cool

The wine tip is a good one - just sold my car today - so going to celebrate with some girls in the office tonight with a few bottles :cheers

Last day at work tomorrow - HURRAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :raebanana
(as you can see I'm not at all excited - hee hee!)