At the beginning of the month there was a total Eclipse not far from us but we chose to watch the partial version from our house instead. We were lucky enough to have already seen a full eclipse in Oregon in 2017. Dick still managed to get some pretty good photos though!
The sun looks like the moon!
Here I am wearing lots of layers as it was quite cold when it became dark!
Dick using the proper glasses.
In the mean time, moving jobs don't stop!
- We had to remember to cancel any ongoing accounts related to the house itself in advance- the pest exterminating company and the paid compost pick up, for example. Regular subscriptions and deliveries were also cancelled.
- We set up a new forwarding address in the US. This meant finding a company that mail can be sent to, digitally scanned and was available online for us to see and act upon if need be. We found that in St. Brendan's Isle based in Florida. Forms needed to notarized and sent too. We ended up forwarding our mail a whole week ahead of time to see if the process was working, and needless to say, all it takes is the regular mailman to be away and our mail was delivered to our house as usual! This continued on and off after we had left the house and we received emails from our realtor asking us what to do with our mail. In the end we gave our new mailing address to both her and the new owners just in case.
- We decided to go and get an International Drivers license just in case we needed it in the UK, though it turned out that we could drive on our American licenses for up to a year. We originally thought we had to send our MA licenses off to get new English ones but that was not the case in the end. More on that later.
- We started disassembling some furniture that we wanted to take with us so that it would take up less room in the container, for example the IKEA chairs and sofa bed. We also took pictures of the process so we could remember how to build it all again :-)
- We also asked the new owners if they would like any of the furniture that we were not taking with us. We found out that they were currently living in furnished rented accommodation and were willing to take anything and everything that we wanted to leave behind. They even asked about our cutlery and crockery! That was the only 'no'. This meant that there was less to get rid of, sell, donate etc. which took another big load of my mind. It also meant I could leave many of the small electrical items behind too- kitchen gadgets and lamps etc. Most importantly it meant that we could use everything left in the house right until we walked out of the door for the last time.
- Dick prepped his VFR 750 motorbike to sell on a specialist website- he took photos and sent it off for approval to sell but they turned him down. Then, he went for a last long ride and changed his mind. :-) More on that later too!
We also arranged to go on a pub crawl in Beverly for Dick's birthday and had another good afternoon out with our friends and neighbors. All those things you do when you have less time left to enjoy each other's company!
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