The night of Sunday the 21st, Yvette started feeling unwell. Monday we had to rush down to the emergency room at the RPA as she had been throwing up blood. After 5 hours we were sent home after being told that her stomach lining had come away a little and she needed to cut down on booze, cigarettes, coffee and spicy food. I swear the doctor looked about 16. We called him Bambi.
That week, Yvette was out of commission and spent most of the time sleeping and trying to recover surviving on a diet of Mylanta, licorice and slippery elm powder. I was still working and had to go in everyday and start the handover to my replacement and try and clean up 7 years of emails, files and other ephemera I had accumulated. Those who know how I accumulate will appreciate the enormity of this task.
We had also organised the 27th as Yvette's 40th birthday party and after looking 'round a few venues had decided to have it in our house. Saturday was therefore spent trying to make a house in the throes of packing presentable for 30+ people. Yvette was slightly better by this stage and we managed to get everything sorted. It turned out to be a fantastic party with the little house bursting at the seams with people all wanting to wish Yvette a happy birthday and possibly farewell to the two of us. Highlights were a very drunk TK who needed to use everyone he came close to as a leaning post, an amazing caterer/cook who supplied a seemingly endless amount of food and the cake from La Chocereve which was chocolate and gran marnier.
Sunday of course was a write-off and I spent most of it in bed. No packing and no cleaning was done that day although Mick and I did manage to do a dump run in his ute and get rid of a few things.
Monday and Tuesday we both had to work, the party seemingly curing Yvette's stomach problems. Tuesday was my last day of gainful employment and as of Wednesday I was a free man albeit a free man with no income. It was a liberating feeling. The rest of the week was spent preparing for, and thinking about packing and cleaning. Yvette had her last day on Friday. We celebrated with beers at the local with Jess and Jason.
Saturday the 4th was Packing Party day. We still had a lot of booze left over from the party, and invited some friends to come around and help us pack and drink. We had a wonderful group of people all turn up and without them we would have been well and truly screwed. Pete, Vera, Stefan, Dave and Mick - thank you so much. I think we would still be there if it wasn't for you. We stopped packing about 9pm and had some pizza and a few more drinks. I went to bed at 1.30am but Yvette and Mick continued on 'til 6 in the morning. Needless to say, Sunday was not very productive...
Monday Yvette's brother Gareth and his wife, Ros hired a 3-tonne truck and came to take away our furniture and all the other stuff we weren't taking with us. Another very busy day with much lifting, I managed to start cleaning and Yvette continued packing. She got to bed at 1.30 in the morning in order to get everything ready for...
Tuesday the removalists came and took away all the stuff we are taking with us. They were fantastic. I only wish we'd had the money to get one of those services where they come and pack everything for you AND take it away. After they left, it was down to the serious business of cleaning. The removal of our furniture and our boxes left nothing in the house except what was going in the car. We had one fold-up chair to sit on and a mattress on the floor to sleep on. Cleaning took all day. We went out that night for a final farewell with friends in Ashfield and after a few beers at the Crocodile, we had some of the best dumplings in Sydney at Shanghai Night. The day was still not over as we had to dump some rubbish in the skip at my old work and drop back my (now ex) boss's brazier and work keys. We ended up staying for a couple of ports and he said some very nice things about me.
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