When I was about 8 years old, my parents decided on a round-Australia road-trip. I talk about it on a long post over at Happy Hamby Campers (my main blog). I remember lots of packing. Proper tea-chests were bought to safely house our belongings, those that would be stored in my Granny's garage till the end of our travels.
Those tea-chests were made of plywood and some still had small amounts of tea in them, which was fun!
The younger me was tasked with selecting toys and books for my brother and I keep in the caravan. Yep, I've been culling and packing from a young age! Scroll forward 40-plus years and I'm once more culling/packing, faced with a moving deadline set by someone else.
We were given our Notice to Leave a week ago and have achieved such a lot in that short space of time. I'm very chuffed with all that's been managed so far. We've sourced 56 great boxes for packing and four of those were stuffed with packing paper - bonus! Nick and I collected some boxes, swathes of bubble wrap and foam sheeting from a retail dumpster and I was also given other packing materials via FaceBook marketplace. We bought two tape guns, heavy-duty tape and special tape labels from Bunnings, for just under $50.00, which is our only outlay so far.
I read one marketplace ad where the seller had purchased all-new moving boxes etc for $700.00! Just amazing. We've always strived to spend as little as possible on moving, so mostly do our own packing - using whatever boxes and packing materials we can find. (Once we've unpacked, we've happily given away boxes, paper and so on).
Although we've been fortunate to stay at one address since moving to Queensland in February 2017, we have a lot of moving experience. (In 2015 we even self-packed a 20-foot shipping container for interstate relocation and only suffered a couple of breakages). I talk about those moves in more detail here, which was the starting point for our Great Cull of 2015.
We had 110 days notice of our 2015 deadline. Queensland's notice periods are different, so we have just 60 days - which will see us very busy till mid August.
I wake early, have my breakfast - and start packing. When I was little I would watch my Granny wrap freshly-laid eggs for us to take home with us. She'd roll them deftly, using half-sheets of newspaper - two eggs per neat little parcel. I was reminded of those compact packages when I was packing fragile china and glassware this week. I used white packing paper but there was a similar rhythm of tearing sheets, rolling, creasing and so on. The house is quiet and my mind drifts doing this simple, repetitive work. Little concentration is necessary. At this early stage, packing is almost enjoyable. Almost.
Week 1 tally. Boxes sourced: 56. Boxes packed: 27. Boxes donated: 5. Tape used: one roll.
