Are we there yet?

This time tomorrow night, we will be winging our way to Atlanta (17 hours). Then St Thomas (2 hrs) Than ferry to Tortola (20 minutes). We hope. We better be, because I can't take much more of this. Tyler and I are reduced to talking in text code ( r u nutz?) when we arn't either snarling or growling at each other.

The endless list of things still to do get done is soul-destroying. We are still driving around with a now unloved fishtank in the boot, for example. At least we are driving in a rented  (microscopic) Golf as opposed to the Audi, which went this afternoon.

We had farewell drinks at the Westcliff  last night (still to download photos) I had my farewell drinks at Ernst & Young tonight. I think we are now farewell-partied out, and everyone can't wait for us to get on that plane!  I also think we will  need a few weeks off, before we start with the round of welcome parties on the island. We have sounded less than enthusiastic when these have been mentioned.

I had a lovely email from my new employees saying " no rush" to start work, so loving the Caribbean already!  Plans for next week - once we've snorkeled a bit - will be spent settling the boys into school, finding a house to rent, buying a car, getting new cell phones, internet connections etc.  The boys start school on Wednesday.  It's so soon, we're thinking of getting the school supplies from the Norwood Hypermarket. Not sure that they will be carrying the uniform however!

Here's a picture of the boys new school - Cedar International  and a link. http://www.cedarschoolbvi.com/

Will try and post from the airport tomorrow. Afterwhich we will have a few days of radio silence, whilst we get new internet connections etc. Will also try another round of emails tomorrow. We are also staying on our South African cell phone numbers for the forseeable future, and we are sorted island-side.

Now need to pack about 150kg of luggage, so better put my flippers on.

Mummy, are we there yet?
http://www.cedarschoolbvi.com/

Limboland

We are all in limbo, waiting for things to end and begin. Tyler has taken the boys off to gym at 8pm in the evening. We normally don't do things like this, but we are all  going slightly crazy. The boys seem to have a homing pigeon need to constantly check-in in that all is still well. This means that our normally very independent little boys are not moving much out of a 10m range from us, and we are constantly being treated to hugs/kisses/rugby tackles and farty underarm spectaculars.  I learnt a few years back, when we were stuck on the Sundays River in a drowned Hilux, that parents are like lighthouses. As long as they are still standing and the light is going round, the world is OK.  Tyler and I are trying to be lighthouses.

Life is also currently one big checklist. Normally this is my native habitat and I crosscheck & tick-off with a great sense of achievment ( Type A tendencies), but  we have reached the point now that we almost cannot look at another list. They are taking on gargantuan portions (move money out of country) and yet are so banal in their execution. Maybe I am cured and am now a Type B personality.  Maybe this is my unconscious getting me ready for life on an island.  I suspect it is really because we are frazzled and wish for it all to be over.

Today we 'phoned the island'. We have booked into a hotel right on the beach for when we arrive on Saturday. We can fall out of our room on Sunday and go snorkling. I think that that is our room, bottom left. Tyler has packed the flippers for this along with the assorted flotsam and jetsam that one seems to end up with when you pack up a house, a life and a country. We have vuvuzelas, sheets, winter clothes, gym things, little-bowl crap, school clothes and other weird things, all winging their 23 hour flight to the Caribbean.

We only have 4 days left now in South Africa.  We are tinged by sadness, but next weeks diaries are starting to fill.  We have one foot in our new lives, and as hard as this all is, one cannot but look at the picure above and think mmmmmmmm!

Surviving the latter days

We have now been homeless in Johannesburg for a week, ensconced in the serene Joubert Snr flat in Killarney. We are living dangerously with 3 little boys and wall-to-wall pristine white linen, but apart from that it is perfect. We started out life in Joburg in Killarney, and we end here - so full circle.

The Week of the Move will go down in the Dawson annals as truly awful. I ended up back in bed and only got up when it had to be packed. Georgie got scarlet fever and ended up in bed with me. We cowered in our bedroom, where everything piled up around us like a UN relief staging post. Tyler literally had to do everything. By the end of the week he was humming hymns and looking a bit shellshocked.

We finally handed over the keys at 10pm on Friday evening. I'd taken to the bottle at Brad & Sal Jacksons gorgeous dinner party for us and then preceded to take a sleeping pill at 3am before we had to get up at 5am to fly to CT. They were the slow-release type. Needless to say I only woke up in the swanky new Woolworths at Cape Town airport, to buy some shoes (as you do).

After a lovely lunch at Groote Poste in Darling Hills (highly recommended) we had sort of recovered. The rest of the weekend, apart from family farewells was spent teaching my 81 year mother computers and emailing - which since she can now read this blog, I have to be polite about (hey Ma!).

The boys have said goodbye to their schools, my office farewell drinks is on Thursday. We fly on Friday evening, 23 hours via Atlanta,  St Thomas, Ferry, Tortola. In many ways, I wish it were tomorrow and then we remember about another 50 things that we need to cancel, transfer or shut-down. It's beginning to feel like the Long Goodbye, and I'm sure it is starting to tire everyone out a bit, but this truly is our latter days.

PS Am now going to try and do quick daily updates.

Packing up a home is like......

Things are moving rapidly. Supersonic. In fact, I have a speedwobble, last experienced when skateboarding with Noel in 1978. Georgie had his class farewell party today (thank you Francis xxx) and William has his tomorrow. We've been told that he musn't go to school on Friday, as this would only confuse the kids as he has already said goodbye and has therefore left. I so understand.

The boys all went to the Kruger National Park for the long weekend and had a wonderful time seeing lots of animals, having braais and Tyler said it was all "very Boy" in the car, so I can only imagine. We have not been to the bush much during the Baby Years, mainly because of malaria. Anyway, the boys can now safely hold their heads high when they say they are from Africa, and yes they have seen lions etc.

The packers arrived yesterday morning. We had been told that they would take 3 days to pack the house and one day to pack the container (ie we move out on Friday). I think we had visions of people packing quietly in the background whilst life carried on as normal.

Not a chance.

A team of seven chaps arrived, crackling with Stanley Knives and bubble-wrap, and were quite keen to get it all finished in one day. Every time a rather wild-eyed Tyler and I mentioned how fast everything was going, we got this kind of benevolent “ho ho ho neurotic emigrating whitey” kind of chuckle. By 10am the kitchen had been packed (Boni hadn’t even finished the washing up from the morning) and at Noon I stopped a toolbox-wielding person from dismantling the beds, at which stage I had a hissy-fit, as it was all rather overwhelming. Tyler phoned the shipping agents, who then told their very efficient Headchap to calm down a bit. I cannot imagine what rubbish has been packed.

We have 10 years of everything here - kids toys, mystery pantry items and mostly 10 years worth of MAGAZINES! After diligently tearing out 10 years worth of House & Gardens and Elle Deco’s, I’ve gone mad looking at investment banker's homes and donated the rest to charity. The Martha Stewart’s go with us however.

Anyhow the shock of going from home to deconstructed nothingness in a few hours, has made me take to my bed. I have Overdone Things. I can only compare packing up a home to being a dragonfly and having your wings and legs pulled off slowly, or maybe in our case, very quickly.

Farewell parties + hurricanes

28 days today until we leave. It's all getting a bit blurry, but that could also be due to the copious amounts of vonkelwyn been drunk at various parties, farewells, school events etc. We had our family farewell party last Sunday and everone was chilled, drinking lots of rum cocktails and feeling relaxed about the gazillions of children running completely rampant through the house and garden, saying "just as well you don't own the house anymore".

We are meant to start packing up the house today (we move out on Friday the Thiteenth)and then we get to live out of suitcases for the foreseeable future. This is all rather Zen, but is provoking the ultimate "what to pack" crisis, as we are not too sure what to expect from our New Life in the islands. My view is that we should pack the minimum (board shorts, chef whites for T)and then take ourselves off to Puerto Rico (our nearest 'shopping island')for a Banana Republic/Gap/Target shopping-spree befitting our new island life. The Tory Burch collection, as recently seen on my about-to-be-neighbour India Hick's blog, will have to wait.

Anyhow, the jet-setter in our family is Mimi the cat, who gets to fly First Class to the Caribbean, which might be the only thing which will redeem her love for us after 6 weeks of quarantine, rabies injections and dips. Ooooh, she is really going to hate us. Jasmine, the screeching parrot, however, gets to come with us. Being an African Grey, her multi-coloured Amazonian cousins are going to think her rather dull, with her little grey body and red tail feathers. It's going to be interesting to see if she picks up the new Caribbean dialect (she does quite a good Dudu/Boni impersonation at the moment - so room here for some inter-continental parrot identity crisis).

James had to do a project on hurricanes this week. His mother took an inordinate interest in this, not knowing too much about hurricanes herself, and downloaded everything there was on the internet about hurricanes in the Caribbean (a lot, it turns out). Thankfully Tortola dosn't seem to be too beset, but my new best blog site is Miss Mermaid and the Carib Hurricane Network - so think of us the next time you hear of Hurricane Bonnie or whatever. Apparently the best thing to do during a hurricane is to have a party - so bring on the rum cocktails.