So apparently (with a cameo camouflaged foe)

 It is all kicking off soon...

The house sale process was going to happen a while ago but factors far beyond our control meant that we had a few days to get ready for Go Time on the house.

Of course, with my life being what it is at the moment, it really is only a few days.

A very few days.

Image is a black cat with a pink collar and yellow tag - very Carla Zampatti this season - laying on an old local newspaper and amongst unwrapped china. The green eyes evoke a defiant answer of wilful ignorance - or is it anarchy?

I work full-time - although chance and appointments have managed to break up every work week for the first five weeks of 2026.

My work has, through a business model imposed by their client's structures, required me to completely change a lot of rather nerdy things... But that wasn't what forced our delay.

Image is of a flood plain, lush and green and bisected by a large flood drain. There is a road with a right hook at a little bridge cleverly hidden by a power pole. There is a grey metal box that is something to do with the internet.

This weekend is a long weekend here. Monday is a public holiday and on this particular public holiday there is always a festival type thing at the public beach within walking distance of our house. 

So tomorrow a sign is being hammered in to our front yard to advise.

Image - this is not the sign that will be put in front of our house. The picture is of the local Catholic church up around the corner. I walk past it on my morning walk. The light behind the cross flicked out just after I took this picture earlier in the week. I don't know why - some people may theorise but not everything has to have explanation attached. Maybe just because.

However that handful of days that we had available to prepare did NOT include tomorrow as tomorrow I am travelling to be with my beautiful Mum and lovely sister as my father will be celebrating my cousin's 60th and my uncle's 90th in a town 350kn further on.

It's a lot of moving parts right now.

Image - the view the other way isn't bad either. Next doors wall accented by Alf's tree. Alf was our neighbour and the most interesting Guerilla Gardening Italian next door elderly gnome. When I first arrived 19 years ago he gave me tomato seeds but his last years were dedicated to his flame trees in council gardens so that his line of sight to the beach was marked well. A very lush lawn that honestly has grown since you were looking at it and in the distance an apartment complex.

And we too would love to see our new place - but we ourselves haven't found it yet. We have found a few places that will not be our new place.

Not a lot of them about either.

But I have confidence. It will happen.

6

Image: this is not a picture of current real estate prospects, rather appears to be a painting or print of one that my mother has had in our house for at least the majority of my life. It is an old weatherboard cottage surrounded by trees - there may be a water tank? It's on a hillside and the signature appears to be G Draiesford?

I have been listening to a podcast on The French Revolution - I am on episode 4 of the third series and we have been lurching from one disaster to the new.

I'll get through this.

Image - a meme stolen from the internet - I just googled and I am not the first to do so. Text says "One of the grand tragedies of history is that Maarten Nieuwenhove had a face born to wear an oversized Metallica t-shirt that smelled of weed but was forced to live in the 15th century" - nothing to do with French or Revolution I know. And unfortunately for Maarten, the only thing that he now known for unfortunately - a bit like Dr Guillotine I suppose.

BTW - things got interesting here while I was writing - a large stick insect had crawled through the slatted windows above the toilet. A BIG stick insect. 

V was advocating technology with a long handle via the vacuum. 

Paris had tried valiantly to be brave and capture it into a shoebox but her bravado failed at the last moment and so I was deputised (deputed?). 

I am the short one of the family and the slats are very tall. Unfortunately when the stepladder was brought in, the toilet blocked me horizontally so the tall ones had to work something else out. 

What worked in the end was a bigger stick for it to crawl upon then be moved back outside - it was last seen shaking it's fist at Paris - quite fitting.

Image - a meme. Text exchange between people approaching middle age that is somewhat amusing regarding technology and keeping secrets. Actuallychloehaseyes has typed "serious question for the millennials... my older cousin said she used to 'burn' cds for her crush. like... with (emoji of fire)?
was that a ritual? did it work? you guys were literally practising witchcraft just to get a text back? I'm scared of y'all (emoji of scary stuff)" beingiakezal responded "The old magic will not be discussed with the children of the new"