To the Tower

After a ten hour sleep, we were awake at 5.30am. What ?? A bit of early morning tv and then it was time for breakfast, which is included in the cost of our room.

And then we were off. To the station nearby where we got oyster cards and jumped on to the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) heading for Tower Gateway and the Tower of London. I had been before when I came on holiday in 2007, but there were parts I didn't go to then, or that have been altered since, so it was good to revisit. Being a bit of a history geek, I just want to turn into a sponge and soak up the atmosphere and store every bit of new information in an easily accessible part of my mind.

White Tower

Cradle Tower

one of the Tower Ravens

some residences of the Yeomen of the Guard (how cool would it be to live there ??!!)

centuries old graffiti

Tower Bridge which is actually only 120 years old

After we had seen all we wanted and had a sit down and a drink, we found a nice spot to watch the river and eat some lunch, then went to get HOHO tickets. 

The Shard over the river from our lunch spot

Turns out there are 3 providers of this service and 2 of them have vulture like salespeople who pounce on you while you are trying to absorb the facts and differences between each service. They also still will not leave you alone when you ask for time, squabbling with each other about the benefits of their tour compared with the other and actually forgetting the customer experience. 

Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge

Needless to say we went with provider number 1, the sales person for which had wisely withdrawn himself from the melee at the onset. We took the circuit all the way around in its entirety and by the end were suffering from information overload. But it has helped us decide where to go back to (or not) tomorrow. We left the tour at the stop where we had joined and went to find a coffee and tea before heading back to the hotel.

So what's in store tomorrow ? You will just have to wait and see.

And so it begins

So all the packing has been done and anything we forgot to keep to one side is now in a box until who knows when. The cleaning too. Which is the worst part about moving ? The packing or the cleaning ? I think both.

All of this squished into the poor wee car and we spent one last night in a motel in the city before catching up quickly with a couple of people before heading on down to the ferry. What an awesome last few days you turned on for us Welly. Trying to melt the resolve about leaving the crap weather and incessant wind, huh ?

But actually the weather is only part of it, and leaving just has to be done regardless of how attached we might feel. There are some things I have absolutely loved about living in Wellington and others I have abhorred with a vengeance. It was never intentionally my choice to live there.

We moved when I was still at school, maybe 13. Part of the machinations of Government. A promotion for Dad - "You have been transferred to Head Office". It never really felt like home, particularly in those first years when every opportunity to go back north to visit family and friends was captured. But over time it changed. It was where Mum and Dad where when I lived in Australia and so visits back became "visiting home" - but home as also someplace else. The place I lived when I wasn't "visiting home". Then after I moved back permanently and had settled in the Waikato I needed to decide where the next "home" was going to be. Where there was employment, schooling and assistance as I started out on the next phase of my life. Wellington was the obvious choice again.

But no more. It is time to find a new home. It is a tad unsettling since all the well worn routines have been thrown into disarray, but it will get better I'm sure.

For now though, we are visiting with Mum and Dad who have made a new home which looks and feels like their home, albeit it not where we have always known it to be. There is still some work to do - creating a garden. We will be able to visualise what they are doing though, and how it might change, once we are no longer close enough to see for ourselves.

It's pretty quiet here. Good for recharging our batteries, but quite alien to the lives we normally lead. Time enough though to sort out how we are going to manage to make what possessions we have with us, stay within the allowed baggage weight when the time comes to leave.

I'm going on an Adventure

 

I began this year being lost in a sea of belongings and "keep-me's" and spent many days and nights and weekends working though my possessions and redistributing them. I've become a big poster on freecycle in a quest to make sure the belongings I was discarding were going to people who actually wanted them. It's all free and feels quite cathartic saying goodbye to things as they leave with their new owners. BBQ, storage bins, christmas decorations, old vhs videos, recycleable shopping bags, painting equipment, gardening items and masses of craft supplies.

And to what end ? Well it's all so that I can have an adventure. 

I listed my house for sale, and it sold. It would have been great to have been almost mortgage free - like I should have been, had I not made other financial decisions - but I'll be okay. It was with some trepidation though that I actually took that step. I actually quite enjoyed living in the pristine order of show home world. But, I was quite an emotional wreck when the moment came to actually agree to an offer of sale - I'd spent more than 20 years living in this house. My daughter was just at primary school, and now she is an educated determined young woman with her dreams within her reach. I love that house, but it was time for a change for us both.

As I was dealing with all the emotions of the property market, I learned that my role at work was to be disestablished. What a long drawn out process that has been. I decided that it was a sign, that maybe it was reaffirming the other changes I was making, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with. The last four weeks have been the worst, I felt quite disenfranchised by the process, but finally the decision was made.

Now it does feel like the universe is aligned. House sale is settled on the same day I finish work, and then next step can begin.

This weekend I have had my possessions all packed up and put in storage until I decide where I want them to go next. Not everything is packed though, there is still a bit of a mess to sort out and tidy up. What clothes do I need ? What sentimental pieces to remind me of home ? And of course there is cleaning ! We really should clean behind our stoves, fridges and washing machine much more frequently - gross, to say the least.

And so the adventure ? I'm going to move to the UK. Pretty scary, but exciting at the same time. I've always wanted to do it, but life sort of got in the way. I don't know if it will be for 6 months or 1 year or 5, but I want to give it a go. I'm going to miss lots, people, family, the harbour in the morning on a calm day with the sun lighting the hills so that each layer has it's own dimension, tuis and other birdlife in my garden waking me each morning  and talking to me throughout the day.

But, life is full of experiences and I'm going to go and make new memories and experience new things; live on the edge for a bit and hopefully make a new life in a new place. And if it doesn't work out, I can always just come home and bring all my new memories with me.

And the best thing about this adventure ? I get to do it with an amazing young woman who wants to experience the same things that I do. My daughter. How lucky am I ?

Now back to the sorting...