moving – Far North Queensland and Beyond

We got a houuuuuuuse. Yesssssssssss.

It’s in a lovely place called Coconuts. I assume it’s called that because there are coconuts absolutely EVERYWHERE. I plan on learning how to crack and scull ’em as soon as we’re settled in, and I might even get into making ‘fresh young coconut’ – you know, the drink with the delicious, crazy amounts of sugar-syrup that you get in every Thai and Vietnamese restaurant. I’m sure the local cane-growers will appreciate my new found love of sugar (gib job plz, cane-farmers).

I’m really just super relieved though, because living out of a motel, even if only for a week, is… not great. Cannot stress that enough. Don’t get me wrong, the motel is completely serviceable, and would usually be more than enough, except I’m actually living in it ’round the clock, instead of just using it as a stop-gap between tourist outings.

That and the cats are driving me fucking nuts. Their truce was short-lived it seemed, and when the still-as-of-yet unnamed kitty isn’t constantly attempting to ‘play’ with Grace [i.e. jumping on her back and biting her on the neck], she’s either crying for her third serving of food, or pooping unfathomable amounts.

The closest they’ve gotten to each other post-carrier, without hissing and clawing.
Kitty looking smug/suspicious after getting reprimanded for smagging Grace.

Thank god for free WiFi, a Netflix account, and a now mangled cat-toy.

I have however, perfected the art of cooking in a motel-room, without a stove-top, microwave, or even a kitchen-sink. All we’ve had access to is a kettle and fridge! Suspecting something like this might happen (and that it would take the government-contractor forever to move our stuff), we did pack a couple of kitchen things in the car. Cue a visit to the local Woolies – which has a surprisingly good Asian-food section – and I devised the following ~delicious~ recipe.

Cook the vermicelli rice-noodles with water boiled from the kettle. I insulated the pot with tea-towels in a somewhat futile attempt to keep it warmer for longer.
Warm-up the can of satay-sauce in a bowl full of hot water (again from the kettle).
Warm the pre-cut veggies and cashews in… you guessed it! Warm water from the kettle!
Drain the noo-noos and veggies in the bottom of your motel shower (don’t forget to stomp any left-over pieces of food down the drain!).
Finally, mix the noo-noos, veggies, satay-sauce, and cashew nuts altogether in a bowl. Add some ABC hot-sauce (it’s better than sriracha), some salt, and it’s pretty alright.

Adapt. Overcome. Survive.
Surprisingly edible…

Bone-app-the-teeth.

Moving house can be fun.

I actually usually like doing it. I get a fresh start, it’s an excuse to de-clutter my crap, I get to um-and-ah over all the brand new ways I can store and display all my stuff in a brand new house. It’s pretty all right.

It’s also an opportunity to show-off how great I am at packing and unpacking a house. No joke, after 20-ish house-moves in more than 20-ish years, I can confidently say that my one true, undeniable skill in life is the ability to pack and unpack an entire house in a ridiculously short amount of time, without a trace. The record I believe was unpacking EVERYTHING in three days, only a couple of days before Christmas, when we hosted eleven people, and no one could even tell we had just moved. It’s true, THEY TOLD ME SO.

That said however, moving cities blows.

Moving with cats kinda blows.

Moving 17 hours away in a State that says you have to view a property before signing a lease, therefore leaving you technically homeless, definitely blows.

What blows most of all though, is moving with the proviso that a government-contractor has the sole responsibility of moving your belongings, and that said government-contractor is currently super duper busy. Too busy to move your shit.

Can I organise it myself and get reimbursed later then? No.

What if I find something cheaper than the contractor? No.

Could you have told me this four weeks before the move instead of one? No.

Can you tell me when you’ll be able to get my shit up there then? No.

What if I give you a very specific date by which I need it to be done, can you at least then tell me if you can’t do it, so that in the meantime I can maybe organise for my shit to get temporarily stored elsewhere, because my lease has ended and I don’t want everything I own to end-up on the curb? No.

No? NO? ‘Kay. Cool. Whatever, I guess it’ll all just figure itself out then.

On the bright-side though, my cats were incredibly cute, albeit annoying on the drive-up, and I lived in constant fear of them over-heating, even with the air-con blasting the whole way.

Exhibit A. While these two started their new-found acquaintance hissing, clawing, and otherwise growling at each other, they eventually bonded over their shared hatred and/or trauma of spending 17 hours in a cat-carrier in a moving car.

Exhibit B. On one of our frequent breaks, Grace decided she’d had enough of our shit, and was jumping ship. Jokes on her though, this is why we got the leash. The as-of-yet unnamed kitty didn’t seem to mind the car as much, but still wanted to see what all the fuss in the bushes was about.