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It's been a very busy couple of days. On Sunday we moved out of our house and are now house-sitting at a friends house while they are on holiday. We've enjoyed feeding the chickens and the rabbit, though the rabbit is in the 'dog-house' [not literally!!] having made an audacious escape yesterday evening, only for his absence to be quickly noted. He was apprehended tucking into some foliage in the garden. Sorry Liz and Kevin.
Being in a fully equipped house, we were able to weigh our suitcases finally. We got a shock to find that we were way over our weight limit, which has lead to a frantic attempt to send a box separately by air freight to arrive in Christchurch next week. As I write, I'm waiting for the courier to arrive and pick up the (very heavy) box. It's the usual "anytime between 9am & 5pm" story.
Yesterday, we went over to Beverley to say good bye to Mum & Dad. As expected, that was very difficult, but it was lovely to spend a bit more time with them. We are so fortunate to have such fantastic parents and family. We will really miss seeing both the Mabbitt and Law sides of the family on a regular basis.
Though saying good byes over the last few weeks has been difficult at times and tears have been shed, it has also been brilliant in so many ways. We've caught up with so many people and realised how strong friendships and family ties are. It's been a real blessing. We tried to take a 'yes' attitude, accepting every invitation and opportunity.
Our lives have been busy with relationships, rather than with TV, radio, Facebook or even blogging! Funnily enough, the talk at church on Sunday was about not filling our lives with meaningless stuff but about living instead. Hopefully we'll take the same attitude into the next stage of our lives.
So tonight is our last night in the UK for some time. Please pray that we will have a safe journey and enjoyable time in Singapore before arriving in Christchurch on 1 August.
As we make final arrangements to leave our house, we've enjoyed another week of catching up with friends before heading off to Christchurch on Wednesday.
We had four nights in the Lakes with Mike's parents, which was fantastic and included those essentials of any visit to the Lakes, namely a decent walk (Coniston Old Man) and time in Ambleside's 'gear shops'!
In some ways it hasn't yet sunk in that this time next week we will be on the other side of the world in a country that we haven't visited before, but it's exciting and we're really looking forward to our stopover in Singapore on the way.
Ah well, back to varnishing windows and packing the house!
Wow! Where have the last ten days gone? In fact it's been brilliant but incredibly busy as we've taken the opportunity to spend time with family and friends, including visits to Leamington Spa last Saturday and to the Yorkshire Show on Wednesday. This round of farewells had started a month ago with a family picnic in York for friends from far and wide and continued with a lovely weekend with Ali's family two weeks ago.
It was the boys last week at school, including Matthew spending two nights on stage in a Yr6 production of Twelfth Night. Though the heavens opened on Friday, the last day at school was still fun with a Leavers' Assembly and limousine waiting for them at the end of the day. Josh's class presented him with a lovely book of best wishes from his classmates.
Preparations for leaving the house and settling in to Christchurch are moving on. The only big thing that we haven't done here yet is sell Ali's car. Any offers?
We all went skiing at Xscape in Castleford yesterday. We were using up our Tesco vouchers! It was good preparation for going into a southern hemisphere winter.
The last week has shown us what fantastic family and friends we have and we will miss you all dearly. But once we've mastered the mysteries of Skype, etc there's no excuse not to keep in touch. Relationships will evolve not end.
It's only 20 days until we head south to New Zealand on our big adventure.
The container with all our household goods is already on its way, having reached Valencia in Spain. You can track the ship (MSC Carina) on www.marinetraffic.com It's due in Christchurch mid-late August.
