The whole process of getting ready to leave started several months ago, in our minds at least, with goodbye lunches, dinners, parties and drinks. We have loved being able to meet up with small groups of friends and family, sharing some of what we hope to be doing in Zambia and spending time with people we love.
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| Steve's school friends BBQ at Lorraine & James' |
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| Yvette's work friends luncheon at Chris & Tracey's |
As we drove through the English countryside (we don’t like to drive motorway if the back route is more interesting) in the unusually clement weather this summer, I found it hard to keep a grip on my emotions. Sounds of George Butterworth’s “On the Banks of Green Willow” and “Jerusalem” – this green and pleasant land - floated through my mind. We listened to several BBC Radio 4 programmes on WW1, and that added to the heightened emotional perceptions.
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| <sigh> that green and pleasant land |
Callum asked for a goodbye party with his classmates, so we had a hectic but very happy 2 hours one Saturday morning just before the end of term playing educational games dreamed up by Steve for 18 of Callum’s school friends. There was a relay race ‘mining’ copper, (in fact £40 worth of 1p and 2p pieces) for the main export of Zambia. There were several water games to represent the Victoria Falls and a genius treasure hunt that spelled out the Luangwa, Zambezi and Kafue rivers, that are also going to be Callum’s new school houses.
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| Callum's class goodbye party |
The packing-up-in-earnest was as chaotic and tense as it usually is when moving house, only more so. And we have had plenty of practice. This is the 9th time we’ve moved since we were married 19 years ago. Shipping (300kg in 13 boxes) left on Monday, all the stuff for storage left on Tuesday and on Wednesday we finished clearing the house of all the stuff we couldn’t decide what to do with whilst the cleaners cleaned around us. We are very grateful for all the people that helped at various stages during the process. One of our previous au pairs Randolf and his girlfriend came over for the week before we left and helped get everything packed for shipping, along with Egypt Luci (so called because we have several friends called Luci and this Luci lives in Egypt) who has experience of packing to live in another country. Then Stu, Marcus and Mum and Dad Powell were at the ready to make trips to the charity shop, dump, storage depot and look after Callum and generally encourage.
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| Supper with Randolf & Caren on Reigate Hill after a day of packing |
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| Everything out of the cupboards! |
Our lives have been governed by lists for months now. Finally one was as finished as it was going to get. The house has tenants and the cats have a home!
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| The dreaded list board |
After vacating our house, we were going to go down to Devon with Mum and Dad to their lodge but one look at the impossibly large amount of stuff we had managed to fill Mum and Dad’s house with told us that we needed to stay behind another day to get a grip on it. So Mum and Dad took Callum down to Devon and we grappled in sombre mood with what should stay behind and what should go to Zambia.
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| Mum & Dad's living room - you should have seen the dining room! |
We had a great time in Devon, 4 days of complete relaxation, visiting Buckland Abbey (Sir Francis Drake’s pad – he of world circumnavigation and Spanish Armada fame), watching the marble runs at the House of Marbles, clambering over rocks at Hay Tor and Dartmeet, and lovely evenings playing games.
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| Away from the mess and madness of home - Hay Tor with Mum & Dad |
On the way back we stayed over at sister Eleanor and John’s, where Mum and Dad Hallaway were also conveniently staying. Callum spent most of the time with cousin Will charging around their huge garden or playing Minecraft on their separate tablets in the same worlds (no idea what that means). Apparently the latest one they’ve created is called My Poo – nice! I felt very Barbara Good-like going to collect the eggs in the morning from Eleanor’s four creatively named hens, Tiffany, Chardonnay, Chantelle and Lily-Maureen.
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| Important engineering work near Milborne Port with cousin Will and Eleanor |
We made our way back to Mum and Dad Powell’s and spent a further 2 days paring down our luggage. In between we had a lovely afternoon with Steve’s sister Christine, husband Darren and family. Callum and cousins Emily and Megan were very happy racing around the garden and in and out of our half-packed belongings.
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| Cousin Emily and Callum in their garden restaurant |
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| Cousin Megan doing her stuff |
Finally when we had gone through everything and decided that enough was enough, we found we needed another suitcase, so Steve rushed out and bought another one from Tesco. We then discovered that we had 6kg too much and had to unpack 2 suitcases and trim them down even further. Thank goodness for sister Rhona who is always good at practical exercises like this and has an infectious calmness about her (something neither Steve nor I had at the time). Creams decanted into plastic containers, files and plastic pockets for paper removed and extraneous clothes taken out and we made it under the required allowance.
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| All our stuff ready to go - in height order of course |
At the airport we Skyped with my other two sisters Andrea and Eleanor and children and said fond fairwells to Mum, Dad and Rhona. And that was that, we were on our own, making our way through customs and security ready for a new life. I’ve been waiting for this for months, perhaps years. It felt good, exciting. Roll on the next 17 hours of aeroplanes!
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| Emirates Airbus A380: Callum was disappointed we didn't get to use upstairs |
