New House

It has been a very busy two weeks since we moved. I am now officially on maternity leave though, so hopefully will have some time to relax before the baby comes.

Our move went pretty smoothly this time around. We were all packed up and ready to go by the time the movers came, and they worked very efficiently to clear out our flat in Prahran. It took a while to go up and down the lift to get everything out and we were relieved when we got to our new house, which is on one level so no stairs or lift required! The moving company we used was called 4U Services. The two movers were friendly and efficient, and the price was reasonable ($66 per hour plus a $50 flat fuel charge). I’d recommend them and use them in the future.

 

Rose bushes outside the house. Will have to ask my mom how to maintain them!

I tried to help as much as I could and was feeling pretty good during the move, but pretty much crashed once it was all over! Getting started with unpacking is such an overwhelming process. The first night in our flat was pretty crap… we were very unprepared for how cold it would be. Prior to this we have only lived in new apartment buildings. The good thing about these flats is they are well insulated with double-glazed windows, so in the winter they stay pretty warm. Houses here, on the other hand, are NOT well-insulated and central heating does not seem to exist. I feel like Melbourne is in a bit of denial about how cold it actually gets here in the winter! This weekend the temperature dropped to 4 degrees at night, and at that temperature the house is absolutely freezing! We have since sorted out the heating in the bedrooms with timers so its not too bad, except that when you need to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet (which happens often when you are pregnant!) you have to run through the freezing hallway to the freezing bathroom and tip toe on the freezing floors! I am worried that my mom is going to be very cold when she gets here…. We may have to invest in an electric blanket for her. I am dreading the moment when we get our first electricity bill, as we are running the heating far more than we did in any of our apartments. The good thing is that the living room and kitchen have lots of windows, letting in the sunshine which warm up the house during the day, so I won’t be cold at home all day with the baby.

Other than that things we are pretty much settled in the flat now. We got a new (used) sofa which I LOVE and most boxes have been unpacked. We are still waiting on the Internet which always seems to take ages to connect here. The Internet is a funny thing, when you have it you don’t really think about it, but boy do you miss it when you don’t! I think I just want to be able to look up whatever I want whenever I want., and maybe it’s a good thing to not be able to do that all the time.

Living room before shot!

Living room with a sofa! 

My last day at school was pretty good. I have a Year 7 class of all girls and they wrote me some very sweet cards and I got spoiled with gifts for the baby from them. Some boys in my Year 11 class also surprised me with a thank you gift (for me, not the baby for once!) and a lovely card. 16-year-old boys can be much more thoughtful than we give them credit for! It was the end of term at my school on Friday so it doesn’t really feel like maternity leave at this point as everyone else is also on holidays.  Andy still has one more week of school unfortunately, but then we have 2 weeks off together before baby Nobes is born.