The absolute stress of moving home.
The first home move we ever had to endure was from Zimbabwe to South Africa , that was in 1973 when there were no cell phones, no computers and certainly no internet. In fact, when I think about it, we did not even have a telephone at home.
A stroll down the road to the ticky box (public telephone), a few calls and the next day several polite and well dressed employees of the different packing and moving companies arrived with pens and papers to give us quotations.
After careful assessing, the relevant paperwork was handed over with all the details and costs easy to understand and no fine print hidden at the back of the pages. One, two, three – eeny, meeny, miny, moe, close your eyes and wherever the pen lands, is who will be doing your move.
Mention must be made that as I did not have a motor vehicle or bicycle (just as well about the bicycle as I have a habit of falling off the things); it was up to shanks pony to get myself from A to B. As always, with sensible shoes afoot, off I toddled in the early morning coolness to the local municipal buildings where it was a simple matter of filling out one form, arranging when the electricity meter was to be read, a hearty farewell from the young lady behind the counter, a quick stop at the grocers for a few things and back home to welcoming cats and dogs.
The next step in this great trek was to make the decisions of what to take, what to give away and what to abandon. Zimbabwe in those long ago days of struggling to see who in the end would win was not an easy place to leave, as the government of the time, lead by Ian Smith, was trying it’s hardest to prevent folk taking all their assets when they emigrated to distant lands, (alright, alright, in our case across the border.) Our allowance was Rhodesian $2000.00 cash and goods combined, even in those days it was not a lot.
We were not able to take the car, but with careful planning and sorting out the favorite pieces of furniture, books, records and personal things, all was loaded onto the truck. The animals, two cats and two dogs were taken to the local kennels for a four week quarantine period before being flown to Johannesburg .
We spent our last few days in Zimbabwe with my parents and then boarded the train bound for South Africa , each with one suitcase and Rhodesian $500.00 between us.
In so many ways, although many possessions had to be given away or sold, this was an easy and straight forward move; simple times tend to make for simple things.
The next moves were more straight forward as there were no borders to cross or mountains of paper work to be dealt with. As our family grew with children and pets the moves got more stressful, we had to start looking for homes that would be close to childcare and school facilities, in safe neighborhoods and close to all other public amenities.
We moved for various reasons, work, needing to change schools for the children, bigger home needed, smaller home needed, until in the end both children were comfortably settled in the own nests with their own nestlings to look after.
Off to the country Ray and I went, what bliss, long walks on dusty quiet roads with a dog and a stick for company. Solitude that I was able to blast with classical and country music or peace found under a coral tree in the quiet shade of a sunny afternoon. To me in so many ways this was the greatest move of all; it gave me the time to find things out about myself, to iron out self made problems and to put a few new wrinkles on my face from happy smiles and regretful tears. No matter, that is all under the bridge now.
Then horror of horrors we had to move back to town life and found a delightful home in a small village named Rayton. I fought hard with myself to get used to the closed in freedom of safety behind high walls and security systems. I missed my loud music and the solitude when a day could go by without hearing a passing car.
Slowly over a few short months I got to make friends with the neighbours and settled in better than I would have thought possible. We were close enough to the big cities, yet far enough away to forget their existence for weeks on end, a best of both worlds situation.
Time passed so quickly without being noticed, it was there for convenience more than something that had to be adhered to at all moments of the day. Alas the time came when we realized the ideal life was not suiting Rays working conditions, he was having to travel over 100km to get to his office. This was making his days long and working out expensive with fuel costs.
We knew we had to make yet another move and so the hunt began. We took a map of the area that Ray works in and then drew a 25km radius circle around his work place. We now had a sensible plan for the area in which to look for our new home.
A new home found, with huge garden, almost a desert, the move took place with lots of hassles regarding electricity and water disconnections and connections, transferring telephone accounts, re-linking with the internet and all the other paraphernalia that goes with a modern move.
We are here now, the garden is slowly coming on and the house is warm and cozy, suiting our needs perfectly. The neighbours are loud and unfriendly and cannot even bother to greet each other as they pass in the street.
It is home, and has all my beloved possessions in it, however it is not Rayton, and I miss my friends, so now it is me that gets into my little car “Annie Three” and asks her nicely to take us there to spend a day with my friend and catch up on all their news.
Ah well that’s life!