Moving on. . . (From Hereford Times)

Moving on. . .

10:54pm Tuesday 21st August 2007

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Time moves on rather quickly when you are getting ready to move. The months and months of waiting for the American Embassy to get their finger out and issue a visa to permit my husband to emigrate to the states seemed to take forever and ever but now that we have official dates and times to move as well as fly, the time is really passing faster then I would normally want it to.

Husband retired officially a week ago last Thursday. According to everything I’ve read I will now have twice as much husband and half as much money.

I think I sat down one time and counted all the houses I had lived in since I was a little girl just so I could say how many times I’ve moved. As I think about it now the figure I came up with was 35 or 37 times but a few more come to mind as well now so I suspect that the number is closer to 40. I can’t quite put my finger on a reason for moving so much except that for the most part we always lived in rented accommodations so if something nicer or less expensive came along, we didn’t mind moving.

Because we moved so often I had my own little routine. I soon learned after moving a few times that you better know what box you put the sheets into after having to rip open box after box just so we could go to bed the night of the move. In fact, I got to a point where I would set aside linens and towels for our first night as well as a clean set of clothing for everyone and personal stuff like shampoo and toothpaste.

I tell you all of that to say that this move is nothing like anything I’ve ever done before. For 6 weeks I’ve been selling furniture on eBay as well as other smaller more shippable items. What a learning experience that was! Furniture doesn’t really sell well on eBay but every now and then something would go for silly money. I watched a dressing table that had been listed 3 times but the last time ended with a bidding war and sell for a decent price yet other things sold for hardly anything at all. But at the end of the day we couldn’t take it with us anyway.

We’ve got 4 different areas of the house assigned to who gets what. We are shipping no furniture at all so what the kids didn’t want has been disposed of. My husband’s children have been through the sauce pans, dishes, paintings/prints and whatever we decided we didn’t need in Florida. So we’ve got an area for the Manchester trip, another for Reading, another for the removal company and still another for our suitcases to take on the flight. You have to be careful where you put something down because it might end up in the wrong pile.

We found in emptying the loft of what was stored up there that we were still storing a lot of the kids stuff. . .why do they move out but not take their stuff? Every friend we have who has adult children are storing the stuff their kids didn’t want to part with but didn’t want to store either.

When added up, we aren’t taking that much with us but still need to detail stuff for US customs and for insurance valuation. How silly is it to have count your underwear? And how eye opening was listing the number of shirts I own? Still trying to explain to hubby why I’m shipping 13 pairs of shoes and taking another 8 with me. If he’d seen what I got rid of before I moved here . . .well, maybe he’d understand more now. I did point out to him that none of them are Jimmy Choo’s or Manolo Blahnic’s. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any of them that I paid more than £20 for. I work on the theory that if I buy inexpensive shoes I can then own MORE of them. Today we are counting silverware and kitchen goods. The removal company gives you a guide for what sort of value you should put on things; for instance £5 for a glass. Right, we have 56 wine glasses we bought to have our wedding party 5 years ago. I paid £2.98 for a tray of 12, they are REALLY cheap glasses. I sure as heck won’t follow their guide on that particular item.

We’ve packed what we can but the removal company will not let us pack up breakables and still cover them for breakage. I am more worried about my scrapbooks making across the sea without being ruined then I am the china. Some things are replaceable; memories aren’t.

So here we are on the home stretch, counting underwear and forks (though not at the same time). Coordinating which day we take which load of furniture to what part of the country and trying to plan meals we can eat on paper plates with plastic cutlery since the removal company will have all of our stuff on a lorry on its way to be loaded onto a ship. Life is interesting and very, very busy!

I’ve been asked by a few people if leaving Hereford makes me sad. My answer is always the same. I have mixed feelings. I’ve been here going on 5 years and sometimes it seems like five minutes. I regret not having seen more of England, though not for lack of trying. Life interferes when you are trying to have some fun! I’ve made some lovely friends through the Red Hat Society – some I expect will even turn up in Florida now and again. Then it will be my turn to share my home. I shall miss the change of seasons, especially spring. And gardening – I do so love working in the flower bed but that’s a task I just won’t do in the heat of Florida.

There have been changes in Hereford since I’ve come here – the new Asda for instance and the dreadfully neglected, never-landscaped round about it brought with it as well as the not so nice traffic queues. The town centre with new pavers and a smarter look; stores that have come and gone in what seemed like a fortnight. I’ve seen the river flood numerous times and learned that no two summers are ever the same. Not to mention the winters, what a beautiful but treacherous snow fall we had this past winter. I’ve learned a lot of new ways to say things and have even reached the point where if I same something the American way, it just doesn’t sound right. Is it any wonder my children ‘think’ I have an accent?

But most of all I will miss the people. For the most part, people have been unfailingly friendly to me here in Hereford and with the exception of two very hurtful friendships long since ended, I carry with me many good memories. Elaine, who took over the chapter of Red Hatters for me so I could leave knowing what I’d started would go on (and became a life long friend in the process), Sarah who makes me smile (sometimes even laugh out loud) with every email she writes to me, our lovely neighbours who threw us a leaving do that started at 11 in the morning and finally broke up about 10:30 at night. We will NEVER have a neighbourhood like the one we’ve had here. Thank you Hereford for a wonderful five years of my life! I hope to see some of you across the pond at some point but don’t think we’ve left forever. Now that I know what a wonderful place England is, you won’t keep me away for long!