yeah I agree with that, I only said to Mark yesterday that stuff on the Island is starting to sell now, have noticed 3 sold signs in the last 2 days. You never know you may beat us out!!!! lol xx

STOP PRESS! Agent just rang again & guy is coming back this evening between 5.30-6.00pm with his wife for the 2nd viewing!
I'll be at work, so Andy will be here with the kids....better have another quick tidy up!

Just to update you all. Couple came, guy still really interested but it's between our house & a house near where their friend lives in central Romford. Wife prefers to be nearer to her friend Did find out this evening that our agent had told us a little white lie, he told Andy that they had a mortgage agreed - turns out they dont! Again they stayed for over half an hour & guy was talking about all possibilities for extending etc with our house (that they haven't got with other option)... So i guess we'll have to wait & see if they make an offer - and if they do & it's an acceptable one - whether they can sort out their mortgage as we wouldnt take the house off the market until it was sorted.... I hate this selling a house game!

Excellent news Cathy, that sounds really promising. I don't blame you for not taking the house off the market until they have a mortgage in place, I'd do the same. I really hope this is the one for you.

Great news on your brothers house sale too Corinne, is that the one who is also contemplating coming to Tas?

It sounds like the low interest rates over there has injected some movement in the housing market. That is good news.

Hi no save the receipts to get a discount off fuel I love Greek food

just found out we were on getaway last night, would have watched it if i'd known. apparently they showed how the new golf course at Barnbougle is going to look? reckons to be a full on resort when its done. it is very beautiful

seems your not that far off the mark, visa applications have been put on hold according to the gov website.


thats pretty naughty of the agent Cathy, still it sounds positive

Hi All, hope you've all had a lovely weekend?

We're still waiting to see if the couple that came for a 2nd viewing thurs will put an offer in on the house... I think if we haven't heard by the end of this week then it's probably a No
Didn't have any viewers this weekend - but at least it gave Andy a chance to paint the kitchen ceiling and give the kitchen walls a coat of paint - so it's fresher and brighter out there.... Weather was awful over here Saturday but fairly nice yesterday. Sun is out today - bit nippy still though!

I think i may have asked this on here ages ago - but did anyone ship out wooden garden furniture in their containers?
We have a wooden table & 4 chairs which we're debating on whether to leave (they do need sprucing up as we've neglected to stain them for the last year or so!). Not sure whether to take them or invest in a metal set - have seen some really good sets around for quite good prices... Is outdoor furniture expensive on the Island? Is it better to buy here or wait till we get there? I've always been a fan of wooden furniture - but lately have seen some really nice metal sets with either mesh table tops or glass table tops...

Cathy

Hey Cathy

I found this on the BigW website to give you a rough idea of garden furniture prices. http://www.bigw.com.au/home/patio/outdoorfurniture.html
Prices aren't too bad, so you might want to think about leaving yours behind and buying new. We didn't ship any garden furniture out, we only had plastic crap that was hand me downs from my mum anyway, so just gave it away on freecycle.

I hope you hear from your viewer soon, they might just be playing it cool. You should ring the estate agent and see if they know what the score is with them, just to put your minds at rest.

We had an uneventful weekend here, although we had glorious weather considering it's meant to be autumn. But today has been decidedly chilly, I was shocked when I went outside, I actually needed a cardigan!! I've had the wood burner going all day so it's cosy and warm in our house at the moment.

Hi Kerry, hope you're doing ok? Getting any bigger?

thanks for that link . I've just been having a little nose on all the sections on there! I like the patio furniture & the prices are much less than i'd expected . I think we'll make do with what we've got for now then & buy new when we arrive! Just need to get some stain on ours before the summer sets in though - same applies to our garden bench!
I know you shared a container so wouldnt have brought out as much as we're planning to - but did you bring plant pots?
We've a few big ones that were quite expensive & one was bought me for as a pressie by my friend who passed away so would hate to leave it behind. We know we are allowed to bring them but wasn't sure what people use to clean stuff like that - is it Jeyes fluid type cleaners?

Hope you're right about the viewer. Time is ticking by so quickly - still cant believe that we'd have had our visa's for 2 years on the 11th April!!!

I was looking at a website on other stuff last night & saw some lovely pictures of Tas and it really made me want to be there...

Glad you all had nice weather at the weekend - we've been wearing cardies for virtually a whole year over here seeing as last summer was a virtual washout There's actually a tv advert on at the moment for outdoors stuff & the narrator actually says "here's hoping for a nice summer" - how English is that

Cathy

No we didn't bring pots, I ended up giving mine all away. But yes you would need to clean everything thoroughly in Jeyes Fluid or something with a strong disinfectant smell so that they smell it at customs when it's all opened up. We had a nightmare cleaning all of Duncans tools, if you can imagine they were thick grease, it wasn't a fun job!

Yep I am big, well my belly is anyway, I am actually carrying the weight of a full term baby now-just to put my belly into perspective for you! I still have at least 3 more months to go! I have lots of energy but my legs and back feel like they should be attached to a 90 year old. I'm getting scans every 3 weeks and seeing the obstetrician every 3 weeks also, just to check they are both growing at the same rate. So I am being closely monitored, and to be honest it's great seeing them on the screen. They are becoming very vigorous and moving a lot, I think they might have had a punch up in there tonight!

I can imagine you had a nightmare with greasy tools! glad Andy's dont get too dirty with his job & what he uses at home! I think he's planning a trip to Bunnings to get a few new bits though - i'll have to blame your Duncan for that what with that wander him & Andy took to Bunnings that evening plus
Andy had a good nose around the one in Perth as well

Glad to hear that all is going well with the pregnancy. One of my friends had twin boys - so i remember how big she got and how quickly - so i can imagine you're getting pretty huge!!! It is lovely seeing them on the screen isn't it?
I used to enjoy that, must be even better seeing two of them twisting & turning around though. Do they do the 3-d scans in Tas? I never had them
with either of my two - i think they were becoming more popular when i had Jared - but quite a few people pay for a private one over here now - the closeup's on them of babies faces are amazing.

Anyway, you try and take it easy & rest that back & your legs as much as possible! Plenty of time for running around once they're here!

take care
Cathy

Hi hun no its the brother who split up with his wife. No chain supposedly but at least its going so he can move on. Hows those bubbas doin?? Hope your back and legs aint too bad hun. x

Hi Cathy, you have to make sure that you clean everything thoroughly with Jeyes Fluid. Our removalists said if you clean all you can with Jeyes they wont question the standard and strength of any other disinfectant. We jet steamed it all first and then scrubbed with Jeyes!! yuck what a job. Any news on the house?

Hi Cathy

We didn't take much outside stuff, should have brought more of it though, for instance we had a water sprinkler and hose reel, we didn't think we would need them so gave them away to neighbours, but now we have had the new lawn laid, I've had to go out and buy them again!!

We didn't use Jeyes on anything because I was worried the smell would linger on everything in the container but we did scrub all of the shoes, boots, the bikes were spotless and all of our garden tools (spade, fork etc) we sprayed with a tin of silver hammerite stuff. The customs opened all of the boxes that said shoes, garden things and Christmas decs, so I was glad we were so thorough. It makes me laugh though, because no one checks your shoes in your suitcase, they could be covered with dirt!

But I would certainly bring as much as you can possibly fit in the container, because if you need it in the UK you'll need it here. Because our container went a full week before we flew, we made the mistake of not really thinking what we needed for that last week, (and we should have lived on take aways instead of cooking food at home, we wouldn't have needed any kitchen stuff then) so ended up with quite alot of stuff being left behind and then we had to give it away.

Sam

hi Corinne, i can imagine it's going to be a horrible job when we eventually get around to cleaning all the outdoor stuff! No news as yet on the house, waiting to hear back from this couple as to whether they will make an offer or not - if they aren't going to we want to change estate agent as our contract with this one is almost up so need to give the 14 days notice asap really. Said on the news this morning that mortgage lending was up quite a bit this month compared to february which is good.


Hi Sam, i think from our garden we want to bring the big pots, the patio heater, kids playhouse (only plastic and folds up quite easy), some outdoor toys, 4 bikes, 2 plastic storage shed/box things (but only if we can get them clean enough) & virtually all the other contents of 2 sheds which includes things like Andy's tools, gardening equipment, gazebo's & foldup chairs etc.
I presume people dont bring their lawnmowers because of cleaning them?
I think Andy's said before he'd probably give his one away to friends or family.

How true what you've said about the dirt on shoes though! They certainly dont check as you say any footwear that's in cases...
I imagine because of the waiting for the container we'd probably pack most of what the kids have footwear wise so hopefully when it comes to it we wont have too many of mine & Andy's shoes in the actual container. I guess it depends on what season we'll be arriving in Tas during!

I've a few plates/bowls that have recently got chipped - so i've said to Andy i'm going to keep those for when our stuff eventually gets shipped & we'll save a couple of really old things to use kitchen wise that we wont be fussed about bringing with us. The kids use a lot of those melamine sets (you know the disney/tv character types) so i can keep them to use & pack them in their case without their cup/plate taking up much room at all. I might just borrow a few bits of cutlery & a couple of saucepans from my Mum!

Definitely not shipping both our leather sofa's out now or any beds at all (might just ship the 2seater one which would be handy if we ended up with a 2nd living area one day to put it in), so we should manage to fit everything we want to ship into a 20ft container (i hope!).

I think depending on when we sell the house it's still a strong possibility that we'll move into rented accomodation for a very short time before making the big move - just so that we can finalise certain financial things, and so that i can work my long notice at work once the sale has gone through ok & we can take our time without feeling rushed with everything to do our goodbyes to family & friends. The one good thing about that is we will have a bit extra time once we're away from this house to sort through all our stuff again before it all gets shipped. This might also allow us perhaps to ship our stuff out at least a month before we leave - giving all our stuff a good head start.

I said to Andy that i'm gradually going to start getting a few new bits - just ordinary everyday stuff like bedding/towels etc so that hopefully by the time we move a lot of what we ship will be fairly new anyway...

I need to get some quotes from shipping co's again this year - just to see whether the credit crunch has lowered their fee's at all? Will be interesting to see if their prices have changed much if at all...

Cathy

We've had our shoes checked by immigration, because we'd checked the box on the landing card saying we lived near farm land and at the time the foot and mouth outbreak was on.