I type this email from my new study. The autumnal sun is sufficiently far across the sky to reach me now - Crumble's study gets all the morning sun. I'll cook in summer I’m sure, but right now it is lovely. When I started this Quake I was back in cotton – ha ha – it’s being behind glass that does it. A week later and there is decidedly more of a chill on the air.
Our container cleared customs and all that jazz on Wednesday 11 May so The Shift happened / began on Monday 16 May. Two guys only arrived to empty the truck, and achieved that in a surprisingly short time. They then filled in time ‘til knock off time putting big / heavy things where we directed them.
End of day one was very satisfying because you can really see progress being made. Slash wrap with Stanley knife to reveal – fridge. Ta da. Slash next wrap with Stanley knife to reveal – lounge suite. Ta da. And so it goes. The house is nearly furnished. But then on day two, reality hits. Open box to reveal – millions of paper wrapped parcels. Open first parcel to reveal – one crystal glass. Ta da. Into the crystal cabinet. Only another 7 red wine glasses to go. And then there is the set of white wine glasses and the set of champagnes flutes and the set of water tumblers etc etc. Takes a lot of bending and straightening and unwrapping to fill a crystal cabinet, let me tell you!
I think I may have mentioned previously the guys doing the uplift from Poto Road commenting ruefully that “Geez lady you’ve go a lot of books.” They were right. We realized on the Tuesday, after the boys had well and truly gone, that we had issued quite a number of misdirections. Not helped by the fact that nearly every box was labeled N Study, regardless of eventual contents. Boxes of books upstairs when they should have been downstairs, book cases in one room when they needed to be in another. We have subsequently done a lot of shifting of pieces of furniture and boxes of books from room to room. Boy oh boy aren’t they heavy.
Unaccustomed to physical labour, I have been absolutely stonkered by it all. Crumble not far behind I might add. The Osteo (for Quake) and the Chiro (for Crumble) have been working overtime to patch us up as we go along.
Two weeks later and Wridgways have now come back to collect the mountain of flattened empty boxes and mountainous plastic bags of packing. The removal of these has made room in the garage for the cars. Ah. On the topic of cars, we bought a Volvo sedan last week. The ultimate sensible car, it has a back seat, huge boot and the backrests of the back seats fold down to give a pseudo station wagon. I figure that a black Porsche and a white Volvo average out as the equivalent of two silver / grey Holdens.
The fridge is full, we are hanging works of art and I am up to a Dr Quake to avoid my guitar and my cello, so I guess you could say that we are pretty much sorted. Except for communications. A landline or not? That is the question. Well actually, it is just one of the questions.
On the music front, we went to a jazz concert recently. Bob Sedergreen and Friends at a converted church in Warragul. Yes I know a long way to travel but we heard about it when visiting long-standing Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar friends the Beesons at Easter and it sounded good. It was in fact a fabulous night. Dinner at a very good restaurant beforehand, terrific wine from the concert sponsors at the start and interval, great music from four very fine musicians and then back to Janalli to stay overnight in sumptuous luxury with Phillipa and Alan!
We are looking forward to seeing Paco Pena’s dance troupe in July. That’s it culturally to date. The King Tutankhamen exhibition at the museum is on the to do list – we have been a bit busy and apparently it is crawling with people at present. Trouble is I suspect it on of those shows which will crawl for its whole season. Booking essential.
I had my next Leadership Victoria program last Wednesday. In anticipation of questions, the LV Experience Bank is a program rather than a course. There is pre-reading and we are encouraged to reflect as we go along. It isn’t quite sure what it is on about I think. The web site does not really articulate clearly what to expect and the participants all have very different expectations so it is quite a fractious group I think. Its point seems to be about building social conscience and social capital and recruiting talent for the not-for-profit sector. This most recent day was a field trip looking at a range of social enterprises across Melbourne. From the pre-reading / viewing I anticipated that it would be particularly interesting. I can feel this topic has the greatest resonance with me and is perhaps where I would like to head. But we’ll see. After one more seminar day we regroup and work on a project for the rest of the year. That could be interesting.
On the past two Saturday mornings we have driven past the complex of netball courts on Belmore Road which swarms with girls of all sizes sporting the uniforms of many familiar schools. Crumble has offered to stop the car but I’ve been able to resist the temptation! Similarly, driving through Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs in the private school zone at pick up time I have been appalled by parental behaviour on the road and around the crossings and gleeful that it is not my problem any more!
Well – that’s all for now from
Dr Quake (Jill) & Dr Crumble (Neil)
