melvania

This morning we got the last of the bank forms signed and handed back to our consultant at the bank. And I just got back from our regular bank with a cheque to give the conveyancer, covering the last little bit to pay for the house in full. I'm dropping it off this afternoon when I pick up Darrin from work. And then the next thing we'll probably hear from anyone is Friday afternoon sometime, when the conveyancer tells us we can pick up the keys from the agent.

And then you may not hear from me for a while because I'll be too busy unpacking everything, and we'll only have a modem at the new house for the first few days.

Grrr. Hate spam.

Now they're spamming my recipe section. I just deleted over 800 spam "recipes" this morning, dating back to the 20th of October this year.

Yeah. That's what I wanted to see when I woke up this morning.

It's hot. Stinking hot. Friday was something like 42.3, yesterday 41.6, today we MIGHT get some rain, because there's a cold front off in the southwest. At the moment the radar just shows it moving sideways, but we're really hoping it comes north. Especially me. I can't sleep in this kind of weather.

I don't know what the deal is though. The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia has the forecast ready a week in advance, and they're usually CORRECT. When I lived in Wisconsin and heard weather reports that far in advance, I thought "yeah, when pigs fly!" Because they could never get it right for more than two days in advance. And the forecast for next Saturday looks pretty good (28 C/82 F), so it'll be a little warm but not disgusting for moving house.

* Inside joke between my brother and me. Probably wasted because I don't think he even reads my site. Slacker.

Okay, so it was a lot more polite than that, but the sentiment was there. Five more weeks of tenancy left and ten more days of living here.

And there was much rejoicing (yay).

How long after we move out of it is the rear flat of 125 Glynburn Road, Glynde, going to get knocked down for townhouses?

My guess: six months.

So today we went to see the real estate agent and signed the paper that says we're moving the settlement date up by a week. So we should be able to get the keys sometime after noon on the 15th. And we had a couple questions about the house, so he said, "Do you want to go have a look again?" So we said yes. And we got to experience for ourselves just how good a job the air conditioners do of cooling the house. The temperature today was 35 C/95 F, and we walked in, and it felt a little warm, but really not bad. And he turned both the coolers on, and within minutes even that warmness was gone from the two rooms they service. Even the back of the house, which faces north (and remember, folks, we're in the southern hemisphere so the sun's in the north), didn't feel hot. So we must have some pretty good insulation in the house.

We saw two bits of fence that'll need attention at some point, because they're falling over a bit. And the tap for the rainwater is in the laundry room. And there's only ONE power point in the soon to be computer room. But that's okay, we have an electrician in the family.

The big shed is smaller than I remembered, and the little shed is bigger, so it all comes out pretty even. And we definitely have an orange tree, and a lemon tree, and as for the other fruit trees, I don't think they're all apricots. Unless there's two different varieties of apricot - one with fuzzy skin, one with smooth skin. Otherwise I think some might be peaches or nectarines. Whatever they are, they need a drink. It's been a dry year.

Oh. And that doorbell has GOT TO GO. A simple "ding-dong" is fine. But this one plays Brahms Lullaby. And it goes on forever. And it's not exactly at a soothing volume, either. I think it was meant to wake the dead.

The official word is: settlement on the 15th of December. 11 days and counting....

Yeah, so this is the stuff we have to do before we move house.

• Arrange for phone disconnect/connect - done
  
• Arrange for electric disconnect and electric/gas connect - done
  
• Arrange mail fowarding - done
  
• Notify Internode (our ISP)
  
• Tell the landlady we're leaving - done
  
• Clean the house
  
• Change address with the bank, insurance companies, work, etc.
  
• Send out Christmas cards with our new address - working on it!
  

So our settlement date is getting moved up, from the 22nd of December to either the 13th or 15th, a whole week earlier than originally planned. So possibly moving all our earthly belongings as early as that Saturday, the 16th, meaning we have two weeks to get packed instead of three. All the better, really. The sooner I can get into some air conditioning, the better.

Yeah, so the first time we saw the property online was the 16th of November, and we could be allowed to move in as early as the 13th of December. That's a whopping 27 days total - 21 days from making the offer to settlement. Not bad at all.