Moving house
 

So I’m moving from one unusual location to an even more unusual location which will involve transshipment of all of our chattels onto and off a 17 foot passenger ferry and via wheelbarrow to our new address. This will happen in February. It does make you look at the contents of your house with a different eye, I can tell you. We’ve been having a bit of a clear out for some time now.
Over the summer we had a mahoosive sheet music clear-out which has been very beneficial.
Mr Limey was very ruthless with the vinyl and has kept a small boxful of precious records. The others went as a job lot to a local guy who has since said what a great and comprehensive (“classical music”) collection it is, a little short on opera and late 20th/21st century music is all. Nice to know it’s all gone to an appreciative new home.
I’m trying to be as tough with the books and it is hard! I’ve found a local Russian who may well want my shelf-and-a-half of Russian language classics. And a local (online) bookseller who will want the books of local interest and some of the Art books I hope ....
Today by chance I found a home for the harmonium locally, and secured the “retirement” home for our pet snake.
There are other furniture items which are posing a problem. I’ll keep you posted as I find solutions [emoji846]




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Good luck. We sure do accumulate stuff don't we?

I threw away three rolls of chicken wire fencing a couple weeks ago. Somebody took them from the curb.

Stuff is overrated.

I'm trying to clean out shit also, Goodwill will take most anything. I'm trying to find people who will use and appreciate the tools and machinery. I've found homes for one of the compressors, and one drill press, plus the surface planer, but you wouldn't notice it being less crowded.

Wood I can always cut up and burn, but things like a 2 channel oscilloscope, arc & gas welding equipment, granite surface plate, or glass furnace, just ain't fireplace fodder. :haha:

Craigslist can be a bit of a hassle, but the nice thing is the people come to you, no delivery necessary.

I know someone looking for a welding equipment.....

Craigslist is OK for just getting rid of stuff to strangers but that's not difficult.
Welding equipment costs a fortune to ship as it's heavy by nature.

If I had the space, I would come begging to you, Bruce. But you have seen pictures of my shop, and it's even more cluttered now.

Yeah, no, ain't nobody from CL coming to MY house...:headshake

Meet at Wal-Mart.

Or the poelees station parking lot.

I always wanted one of those, but never had a use for one.

I guess one could use it for a guitar-ya-built-yaself tuner! Maybe?

Like from a surface grinder, or an instrument base?

Instrument base, not big but heavy as shit.

Wait a minute, who the hell has a glass furnace in their shop? :)

We do...

Are you losing musical associations with this move? Will you be looking to make new ones?

Good question. One long-standing musical association for Mr Limey and I had run its course by the end of the summer this year.
Door-to-door it will not take longer to get to our summer music camp and associated weekends.
From Easter or thereabouts we hope to join a weekly windband. This will mean an overnight away from home each week but this will be less expensive and less intrusive on our routine, we reckon, than a similar commitment from our current location.
There are also as yet unclear occasional opportunities with some of the occasional residents at new location.
So on balance although it looks more remote there seem to be more opportunities....


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Well, that's 16 instruments delivered to their new home. (To be fair, they are the spares for the local brass band). Instrument No. 17 (an American Organ (suction bellows reed organ)) is off to its new home between Chrimble and New Year (a gift to the brother of a friend locally). No. 18 (an antique serpent) is off to a collection in the States in January. I'll let you know when you can go and visit on my behalf.
Later, I'll tell you roughly how many instruments will be coming with us to our new, smaller home ....

Wow. I hope the redistribution was appreciated!

The 16 brass instruments belong (have always belonged) to the brass band. We were just temporarily housing them for the band. The reed organ is a gift I'm happy to give away, the serpent is being sold for what I paid for it.

:cool:

That leaves just +/- 16 instruments coming with us.
:)

Ha!

But they're mostly just little brass things of the Tuba, French Horn, Euphonium, Sousaphone variety. :lol:
Oh, stuff like Limey's squeeze box that must stay dry.

Are you moving to another of the islands?

Yes. One of the slate islands ....


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Is their cheese any good? :eyebrow:

No cheese. Things we will have to import from Arran on a regular basis: cheese, whisky, chocolate, gin.


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What kind of 3rd world land of the lost are you moving to?:3_eyes:

:p:

Lead-Not-To-Temptation Island. ;)

So today I reduced a box (15 × 15 x 20 inches) of my late dad's papers to a one inch file to take with us; a book, some narrow guage railway tickets and a photo of a dog for my brother; a two inch pile of genealogy correspondence for the cousins- once-removed; and a lot of stuff for the bin.
Quite therapeutic once I got stuck into it
I didn't have the best relationship with my dad. He wasn't an easy man to know or love. The papers I've chosen to keep include the testimonials from his earliest jobs which describe him as a younger man, more rounded and willing to become involved (less ground down and cynical, perhaps) than the man I remember. And the synopsis and introduction to a book he never wrote about man as an animal (he was a zoologist and an educator).
I found some old family photos I didn't know I had and scanned them before adding them to the pile for the cousins.
Another box tomorrow, though I am more sue of what's in it.


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You've sorted and examined everything so you know what you're binning. I'll bet $100 you won't regret divesting yourself of that baggage. :thumb:

Today instead of facing more family stuff I destashed about a kilo of yarn.


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I found this picture on the net, but Limey tells me it's not really boxing day, it's January 3rd.
I acquiesce to her knowledge of empty liquor bottles. :haha:

I’ve not done well in keeping you guys up to date here. We’ve just spent a weekend in our new home, are going back to the old place tomorrow to prepare for the final move on Saturday.
We dropped the moggies off at a cattery on the way here so that they miss out on the worst of the upheaval.
It feels like home here already. It was more like arriving at a holiday cottage than a newly bought house on Friday. Warm, welcoming, well-stocked drinks cupboard, beds ready made, coffee and milk in the fridge, fire laid ready to be lit. Just perfect.
We’ve had one sunny day and one rainy day.
The house sellers were extremely well liked locally even though they were holidaymakers and not living here full time. One canine neighbour came to the door, he could hear that someone was here and so barked, expecting to be given, I think, a welcome and a dog biscuit (there’s a box of them in the kitchen cupboard). He’s going to be disappointed from now on, as we have to think of our cats’ welfare here now. Other locals who will feel the change include the bird population in the hedges around the house ...


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When do the Cats come home?

11th or 12th February, when we’ve quelled the mayhem in the new house a bit. We miss them already. [emoji22]


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Poor Kittehs, they miss you also.

So did you buy the place furniture and all so you can leave furniture in your old place for renters?

I plan to rent it btw.

Does Easdale have a lot of birds, a lot of types of birds?
I wonder if there are enthusiastic birders on the Island. :unsure:

This wee boat is the ferry. Household removals all take place using this vessel. This is why the sellers of our new home left just about everything behind.
Yes, it is handy in that we will leave or Arran house furnished for our tenants. There will also be a bit of furniture swapping as we take the things from Arran that we want to live with, and replace them with similar items from our Easdale home. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0d7c87d516.jpg

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I don't think it is especially a twitchers' paradise. There are five other cats resident there at present I believe.

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Thank you, I didn't know bird watchers are called twitchers. Not even 7am and I've learned my thing for the day so can coast.:D

How is refuse/garbage handled, is it shipped out some other boat?

The term twitcher, sometimes misapplied as a synonym for birder, is reserved for those who travel long distances to see a rare bird that would then be ticked, or counted on a list. The term originated in the 1950s, when it was used for the nervous behaviour of Howard Medhurst, a British birdwatcher

Just so you know.

Yes, there is a garbage barge. You *can* commission it to bring larger/heavier loads over but apparently that is expensive. Residents are encouraged to compost, to burn burnables (just about everyone has an open fireplace or stove to heat their home), and to take recyclables to the council recycling bins in the village across the water themselves.


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Thanks, fargon! I didn’t know that!


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How is drinking water and sewage managed?

One of the dirty little secrets of a lot of the islands in Maine is that they have a pipe that goes a few hundred yards out into the ocean, and the sewage just gets drained untreated into the ocean.

Right where the lobster boats operate? :yelsick:

Drinking water is piped over from the mainland (200 yards away, undersea pipeline I believe).
My house has a septic tank and soakaway, so I expect every house does. I have the same here on Arran, and I’ve not had to have the tank emptied in 17 years so I must be doing something right in managing it ....


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The lobster boats are a little further out, but you get the idea.

One time I was standing on the wharf of Monhegan Island and saw a big bubbling foam blob pop up out of the water and disperse. I wondered WTF, and then as I looked around, I saw them. A handful of rusty cast iron pipes that blended right in to the brown rocks, dipping down into the water. They came from every building on the edge of the water. The coast is so rocky there, you can't have a functioning septic system. Not enough soil.

There must be some sort of grandfathering in of older buildings or different rules for different sized islands, and maybe some of the more populous islands near Portland have big pipes that go to the mainland and pump the sewage to be treated, but the small ones, like Monhegan, just try to be quiet about it. It's a big ocean, and it's biodegradable.

Edit: And my "Pipe that goes a few hundred yards out into the ocean" comment earlier is an exaggeration. This is individual houses doing it and it's only a hundred feet or so.

And it is, naturally, referred to as "the garbarge," correct? If it is not, your neighbors are doing something wrong and should be ashamed of themselves. Please rectify post haste. ;)

Semi-educated guess: drain field?

Trashy McRubbishface

I must be getting slow...

:D

I got two questions;
1) What happens if you come home late, 3:00 Am after a nite of carousing, how do to get home?
2) Do you Pay the Ferryman before you get to the other side?

But this is Scotland, rules, even customs of the world, don't count. :lol:

It says "Bewaur Ye Who Crosses Wi Me" on my Claymore.

I think it's Who, but the engraving is damaged there. Pretty sure it's 3 letters and the first is w but there's a "dot" like an i would have between letters.

Me too!

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I asked that first question. You can arrange a late ferry on a Friday or Saturday night (11pm I think) but it has to be booked 24 hours in advance and is at the ferryman's discretion. Or you make arrangements to sleep elsewhere (hence the move towards a campervan).
You pay the ferryman before you get back to the first side (on the return journey).

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But... the campervan can't fit on that little ferry... I guess it's parked permanently somewhere on the opposite shore?

Exactly. All vehicles are parked “over there”. So if we get stuck over there we’ll have a place to sleep.


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