It’s the end of an era.
Probably not a significant one in world history but on a personal level it’s about as big as they get; after getting married, birth of your first child (and subsequent ones), getting divorced, having a close friend/relative pass away ….
Amongst all those comes emigrating.
While we aren’t brave enough to move to another country we are moving to Australia’s south island, Tasmania.
For me, leaving Sydney is no big deal, I’ve done it a couple of times already.
However, this is the first time Danita has left Sydney.
She’s travelled heaps more than I have but never on a permanent basis – so this is a really big one for her.
It’s fascinating what you start to notice when you know your time is limited.
Today we crossed the Gladesville Bridge with its spectacular view across Sydney Harbour to the Harbour Bridge.
It was fortunate I was driving because I think Danita became a little bit teary when she commented how much she loved living in Sydney.
We then had a couple of experiences of Sydney drivers which made her feel better about leaving but there was that special moment where something touched her heart and maybe even her soul.
Sydney, in all sorts of ways will always be with us.
Drawing on this week’s Thought For The Week which was a quote from Paulo Coehlo’s book “The Zahir”, it’s time to move on and leave those experiences in the past.
(In case you missed it here it is again: “It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”)
So here we are at the end of our house-sitting and lives as Sydney-siders.
We leave tomorrow seeking out fields of green, timbered forests, fresh air and pure water – a little bit of our own Green Acres.
But before we go here are some stats about our house-sitting career.
As mentioned in my post a couple of weeks ago, Triskaidekaphilia, the combination of 1 and 3 are significant indicators for me that I’m moving in the right direction.
In that post I pointed out a few interesting instances of that combination:
– we have been house-sitting for 62 months (31×2)
– the last day of house-sitting is July 31
– the house number of our last house-sit is 13
Added to that I’ve just found a new one; 1st August, the day we leave, is the beginning of the 31st week of the year – it just gets better and better.
Here are some other important stats from this phase of our lives:
– we’ve stayed in 29 houses
– 23 suburbs
– 16 repeat bookings
– paid rent for 47 days ie just under 7 weeks
– shortest booking was 7 days
– longest booking was 18 months (another of my favourite numbers)
– 8 households we went back to more than once, some 3 times
– 2 friends helped us out by letting us stay for a few weeks when we had nowhere else to go
– most hectic was Christmas 2014 where we had 3 houses we were responsible for simultaneously
– house-sits have covered the area from Rose Bay in the East to Hazelwood (Blue Mountains) in the West, North as far as St Albans and South to Birchgrove (which is really the Inner West for you pedants)
It’s been a great experience, we’ve met some lovely people and gained new friends as a result.
We’ve learned to travel light (OK maybe just lighter than most people), how to pack up a house and re-establish ourselves in the new one all in under 9 hours, how to work from pretty much anywhere, what works in a house and what doesn’t, what appliances are worth getting and lots more.
And through it all we’ve had Sancho, our trusty and trusting canine companion, who often was the only sane member of the household.
As Paulo said “It is always important to know when something has reached its end.”
House-sitting has reached its end.
As we close the door to that phase of our lives we look forward with excitement, anticipation (and a little trepidation) to the next big thing.
Stay tuned….