According to King Solomon, said to be the wisest man ever:
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens”

The current season is one of rebirth and renewal – it’s Passover, Spring/Autumn equinox (depending on which hemisphere you’re in), the transition to Aries (and so the beginning of a new astrological cycle), Easter …

Renewal usually comes accompanied by chaos and craziness.

Danita and I have been having that in spades.

Last week we settled on our new house and got the keys on Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday was scheduled for our initial move – we had been clever and arranged a staged move so that part of our stuff would arrive on Thursday with the rest coming on Tuesday – the Easter long weekend meant nothing would happen on Friday or Monday.

As well as moving we had arranged a little “party” at our new house.

The beginning of Passover is marked by a festive meal which includes a signifiant amount of ritual practices recalling the Exodus from Egypt of the Hebrew people over 3000 years ago.

It’s usually a time for LARGE family gatherings.

For us, it meant dinner for 10 people.

“No big deal” I hear you say and I pretty much agree.

HOWEVER, doing that the day after you’ve moved into a new house does make things slightly more “interesting”. 

Knowing this was going to happen we had requested an earlier settlement but that was turned down.

Because we were well aware of this situation well in advance, we planned and had everythig sorted or so we thought.

There is a saying: “Man plans and G-d laughs”.

Last week He was laughing hysterically.

On the previous weekend I had heard that my 90 year old aunt wasn’t doing very well.

She’d had a fall and was in a bad way.

On a number of occasions previously she had been at death’s door and had made a recovery, so I was hoping this would be another instance of her will to live.

Sadly, it was not to be.

On Tuesday morning she passed away and I received a message to say the funeral would be on Thursday – perfect timing for our house move.

After some agonising about what to do I booked my flight to Melbourne for Thursday morning to return on Friday morning.

Minutes after making my booking I received a call from my cousin telling me not to book yet as the Coroner had become involved and they could not confirm the funeral details – it could be days or even weeks given the holiday period.

More agonising about what to do and I decided to stay with the original plan – I would go to Melbourne and leave the house move to Danita.

Fortunately, she’s an exceptional woman and was able to get it all done without too much stress (just enough to keep things at a managable level of insanity.)

“Getting it all done” involved being at one house to give instructions to the removalists as to which things needed to go in the first delivery, be at the new house to take delviery and be there for the Foxtel and caée blind installers, arrange the power to be switched to the new address and and and …

Meanwhile I had arranged with my sister that when I arrived in Melbourne I would get the Skybus from the airport to St Kilda.

Getting confused messages and directions I managed to miss two buses (leaving every hour hour) so that put me into a great space by the time I met up with my family.

After this chaos, everything then went as planned; the funeral was on time, the house move went smoothly and our Passover event was a great success.

So there you have the short version.

We’re already feeling very much at home and settled (a new experience after years of housesitting and renting) and are already thrilled with being in our own house.