Moving House

Sitting at the local Zion Riverside Food Centre, my local food hall, there was time for reflection. This was the first opportunity to relax here in about 2 weeks.

Moving apartments seems to get harder as the years pass. So far I’ve only moved 17 times, hardly an example of itinerancy.

Pioneers of itinerancy

Itinerancy is a feature of life for some.

The nomadic communities of the Eurasian steppes moved at least twice a year. These movements generally coincided during the summer and winter. Severe winters made finding shelter for animals essential. In the summer they moved to grassed areas where animals could graze.

Development of languages

While nomads tended to move in the same region over time they also drifted further west. As they moved they made contact with more settled communities, acquiring new languages and participating in a linguistic synthesis that produced what we came to know as the Aryan language group, though the tainting of the term Aryan through its misuse by European Nazis, ensured the more neutral term Proto-Indo-European came into common use.

Another way of looking at it.

The burden of possessions

Modern humans, at least those of us in the First World, are burdened by goods. We’ve long lost the economy of living a frugal life with few possessions and with tools and comfort that were enduring. This angsting over moves is a First World problem.

One week after the physical move I managed to move our own kitchen one step closer to being functional. I’m still working on my office, though out of the mess I’ve finished a new story.

Exhaustion set in

What was to be a highlight in June, the 10th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum’s opening, came and went. Somehow I managed to cobble together an audio-visual piece to mark the occasion.

The launch of a song by Héllena Micy, The Parthenon Marbles (Bring them back) came and went. I managed to watch its launch, in the British Museum, live. Yet all had an air of unreality about it.

To dry clean or not dry clean

Preparing for the move had taken a while. The end game, the handing over to an agent, came yesterday, but not before they insisted on us dry cleaning some flimsy IKEA curtains. After numerous attempts at negotiating with dry cleaners who wanted outrageous prices and 3-4 day waits, I realised the curtains were marked ‘Do not dry clean’. Next step was to wash, dry and hang them. Easy enough and a great view from the second top rung of a step ladder up against the window on the 19th floor

Stuffing up the optical fibre

So fatigue has been an issue in setting up the new place. At first, I was so tired I stuffed up the fibre internet connection. I had more robust optical fibre on hand, than the length our provider ‘Star Hub’ had supplied. In my fatigue, I reasoned that it might be like a water pipe. My piece was thicker. Maybe this would let more light in, so we’d get faster speeds/more bandwidth. Well, that was the theory. It didn’t work, and since ‘Star Hub’ retained the pin for activating the connection, my new configuration failed. Eventually, they came and reconnected us. Next was the challenge of the smart TV. It should have been a pushover, but in my fatigued state if took far longer than usual.

Needless to say, we’re connected. The speeds are not quite as good as our last place, but still way ahead of Australia.

I almost forgot to mention that in the midst of the process there was a day with a funeral in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon.