Chores for the day

I only have Mondays off work now and they've become my busiest day.

I started out today with a list of things I needed to buy - from a shower curtain to a fan heater and a whole lot in between.  The general aim for the day was to gather everything we need to set up the bathroom out at the shed.  I spent the first couple of hours packing another round of boxes and put them in the car to take to the shed on the way home from my shopping expedition.  We don't want to waste a trip out to the highway!

I did the chores in Bendigo and had a quick lunch with my mum at my favourite Thai restaurant - Bunja Thai.  They do a great lunchtime deal with a changing daily special - a set lunch menu which is always delicious.  It's very popular with local workers because lunch appears at the table within about 5 minutes.

A passing comment from someone today turned out to be a very good idea.  We had intended to take the caravan out to the shed when Mick picks it up on Saturday.  Today someone said we should bring it to our place when we are ready to move and just pack the things we need to use over the next 3 months straight into the van and then tow it back to the shed.  We've decided we'll bring it home to begin with.  I can give it a good clean up with Mum on the weekend (thanks Mum!) and Mick is going to pull out one of the bedside tables and make a new base for the bed so we can use our queen size mattress.  All this will be easier done at home and then we can start to pack things into the cupboards.

Tomorrow we're off to Melbourne to sign up for our UK bank account.  We're impressed with the service from HSBC.  We had a phone call tonight to check that everything's going according to plan and to say to ring after we've handed in all our documents so the guy from the international department can check that it's been correctly processed.

A good days work on our plan.

Buy a caravan - tick!

Why, oh why, does time go so slowly when you're sitting back waiting for something but when you are busy and have a lot to get done the time seems to just whizz by. I feel as though we've been running around like demented chickens!

The house up the road was finished last weekend so the lease was signed, the tenants paid the bond, I filled in all the paperwork and met the tenants at the house for a final inspection.  Now just to get keys cut for them in preparation of handover on Friday.  All good.

Meanwhile I've turned the house upside down with packing.  After 10 months of it looking spotless at all times in case a potential buyer wanted to inspect it, we've now gone to absolute chaos.  There are boxes everywhere and cupboard contents emptied onto the floor.  It is so much harder packing this time than ever before, and we've done this quite a few times in our life together.  I'm taking extra care in how I pack things as I'm conscious that they may be in storage for a couple of years at least.  I've also been keeping in mind what we might want to pack in boxes to ship to England for our boat life.

The packing is often interrupted by visitors, both pre-arranged and unexpected.  I don't really mind this because we'll be moving out of this town in a few weeks so it's lovely of people to call in and ask where we'll be moving to and have a little chat.  My family members have come to check out the end result of the house up the street - my mum last weekend and my brother and his wife came up yesterday afternoon for a last visit to this house.  My sister in law in particular has spent a fair amount of time here as she's the one who looked after our dogs whenever we were away.  I made the most of them coming up by ringing before they left Melbourne and asking them to bring their Mitsubishi Triton rather than the sedan which is their other car.  We loaded up the tray of the Triton with boxes and other items and did a run out to the shed where we'll be storing everything.  It was a good load of boxes out the way.

Mick was out there for the last couple of days setting up the bathroom for us.  The plumber came and installed a hot water service and Mick's been building the shower.  We had agonised over what to use on the 3 walls of the shower as the panelling we used here at home is quite expensive and for a temporary bathroom it was a lot of money to spend.  I spoke to Rachel at sewing the other night (she works at the local carpet store) and she suggested "wall vinyl" which I'd never heard of.  Next day she sent me a message that they had enough left over from a job that would do our shower.  $30 thanks!  What a bonus!!

We set aside this morning (Sunday) to go and look at caravans.  We had found quite a few advertised but they were located all over the state.  We made a time to look at one that was just over an hour away and when I rang the lady she said they had a couple of others we might like to look at too.

We looked at about 4 of the caravans they had for sale and ended up choosing one $3000 over our budget (almost the amount of furniture we sold to our house buyer!).  We decided that we should get something we'd be happy to live in for a while and that we could use once we come back from the UK.  It also feels rather familiar to me because it is identical in layout to the one we hired 17 years ago when we were building our little house in Melbourne.  It will be good practice for living in a confined space.

Mick will go and pick the van up next Saturday morning and I'm hoping my mum will come and help me give it a good scrub.  I haven't told her this yet!!

So another item ticked off our list.  Here is our temporary home :

Bank account comments

Thanks for the comments everyone.
 
The reason we chose to go ahead with HSBC despite the fee they charge is so we can have the accounts set up now.  We want to start transferring money and we have 4 months until we go.  Plus we have a huge amount to do between now and when we leave so we're happy for them to deal with the paperwork.

It will save us having to mess around sorting out a bank account once we get there.  I'll do some investigating when we're there and we could change banks at some stage if necessary but this will get us by for now.  Once the cards have arrived I will change the address of the UK accounts to a friend in the UK so that by the time we get there we will have 3 months of bank statements with a UK address.  That should make it easier to change to another bank if we choose.

HSBC bank account

I rang HSBC's international department on Monday and they took our application over the phone for a UK bank account.  The pre-filled application form was then emailed to us.  Now we print the form, sign it, and take it to a HSBC branch with our identification and to pay the application fee of $200.  We will also need to open an Australian HSBC account at that time and we'll be able to transfer from our Australian account to the UK one.

Once the accounts are opened, I don't see why we can't just use Ozforex to transfer to the UK account.

During the conversation with HSBC I discovered a major difference between Australia and England's banking.  We can have a Visa or Mastercard as a debit card on an ordinary transaction account in Australia.  HSBC said you can only have a card for use at an automatic teller machine on an ordinary account.  If you want a Visa or Mastercard it has to be a credit card.  This used to be the case many years ago in Australia.  So, we also applied for a credit card account in the UK as well.

It's all been easy so far.   The cards will be sent here to us in Australia in the next month or so.  We will have to go to Melbourne to take the paperwork to a branch.  There isn't a huge number of HSBC branches in our state and all of them are in Melbourne.  We have another item on our list almost ticked off!

  *** See update 22 May 2012 ***

Please wait for us, dollar

We've been watching with disappointment as the Aussie dollar has crept down over the last few weeks.  With four weeks until our house settlement we just hope it doesn't tumble.  Over the last few months the rate has dropped by 5p per Aussie dollar.  That means that on $100,000 Aussie dollars we're now getting 5,000 pounds less than we could have.  It's a lot of money!!

Fingers crossed there isn't too much more of a slump before we have the money in the bank and converted.

Belated mother's day

My mum went to Melbourne for the weekend to catch up with her friends, my sister and nieces.  So today we went out for lunch together ..... after she helped me move some boxes.
Happy Mother's Day, mum!

Our house buyer

Yesterday afternoon we had a visit from the buyer of our house, Tracey.  She had mentioned to the real estate agent that she would be interested in buying a few items of furniture that we have... and we had mentioned to the agent that we would be interested in selling some of our furniture.  A good arrangement all round.

When Tracey and her friend arrived we immediately felt comfortable with them.  She was so obviously thrilled to have bought this house that we felt happy that it was her buying it.  We have a bit of a sentimental attachment to the place and I was desperately hoping that someone would buy it that loved it.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting about all sorts of things and agreeing on furniture deals.  We're pleased to leave some larger items behind - it will make the moving easier and mean less in storage. Plus, a little extra money in the bank for our adventure.

So... we are very happy to be handing over what has been a 12 year labour of love to a lady who we really like. 

Pick of the week - Elisa

Here is one from Apollo Duck : nb Elisa

There isn't a huge amount of information on this advertisement and we'd have to ask many questions but this is a cheapie that we like the layout of.  I particularly like the idea of the second cabin - especially now that it looks like I'll have work to do. 

There would be some money to be spent because we'd want to put in cupboards for storage and modify the second cabin to convert one side into a work space, plus upgrading the electrics.  Bit of a project for Mick!

Name : ELISA

Price : GBP 36,000

Length : 60 Foot

Stern : Semi Trad

Year : 2005
Manufactured by : Amber Boats Ltd
River / Canal Licence :  12 Months
BSS Certificate Expiry Date : 23/07/13
Engine : Diesel Barrus Shire (Yanmar) - New Engine Battery
Hot Water/Radiator Webasto Diesel Heater
Double Bed, 2 Singles & sofa which converts into a Double Bed
Bathroom : Shower, Pump-Out WC & Sink
Galley : 12v Fridge/Freezer & Gas Cooker
Wood Burning Stove
Electrics : 12v Lighting / 240v Electrical Sockets (Inverter), 2 New Leisure Batteries

More work!

Another great day today.  The job I've been doing since January looks like continuing while we cruise!  They asked me today if I'd do work for them while we're away.  YES!!!

I did tell them that I can't promise to work as many hours as I do now but even if I only do half we can near on survive on that once we've bought our boat.  We're going to work out a system and practice it in the coming months while we're still here - just to make sure it works.

Things just keep on getting better now that the house is sold.  Woohooo!

Notify employers - tick!

I've been very happy at the job I started early this year.  They've been happy too after having difficulty finding the right staff.  It was difficult today to have to tell them I'll be leaving in a few months!  I didn't resign but I did tell them we had our tickets booked and we'll be going.  They were disappointed but supportive.  Lovely people.

My one day a week in Melbourne is something we're planning with that employer that I'll continue with.  We're sorting out a method at the moment.

Every dollar of income we can earn while we're away will preserve our funds to stay longer if we want.