We continue to pack, and say our goodbyes to our friends in Melbourne.

On Friday night, we caught up with Nicole and Jon for dinner in Clayton, probably the last time we do so in Melbourne for a little while. Nic shouted us to a delicious meal in a place called “Modu”, and we chatted about our plans and aspirations.

On Saturday, after our routine of brekky and walking the little guy, we spent the rest of the day packing. The sound of the packing tape being ripped as it unrolls and gets applied to the boxes, rang in my ears for much of the day. We ducked into Bunnings too, to pick up more boxes, when we realised we needed more.

Later on Saturday night, we met up with Ing Tung and Chin Moi, our contemporaries from our UNSW days. They too, have been moving and had just moved into their new home in Knoxfield so we caught up in a little restaurant in Knox, before adjourning to their new home, to see their new home and a bit of a chat. This couple have been warm, loving and long time friends from the first week of our arrival in Melbourne, back in 2004, when we renewed our friendship that was forged in the mid/late 80s in UNSW. It is a friendship we treasure and cherish. It was heart warming to see them settling into their lovely new home, with all 3 adult children having left home at various times, but still near enough to return for a weekly family meal. We spoke too, about our plans and aspirations.

On Sunday, we had our last communion service at St Alf’s, and continued to say our goodbyes. Later that arvo, after our usual lunch at Donvale, we returned for more packing. This time it was to unplug and sort of out the messy snaking cables behind the TV and cabinet. We unplug most of the cables, cleaned and labelled them, and got them ready to be packed. We left only a skeletal TV, radio and clock for easy last minute packing, early next week.

Later that Sunday night, we went and had dinner at the Hipos’. Gerry and Jesslyn had invited us to have their delicious homecooked Sarawak Laksa. We had known them since they were a young couple and saw the arrivals of both their girls. The older one is now a head taller than Tress and the younger one is almost as tall as Tress. They have grown in the years we have known this lovely family.

When we got home, we got a message from U Seng, asking if we could catch up over dinner. We continue to tee up goodbyes, even as I get increasingly excited about being closer to Kiddo, Mic, little Abby and the latest addition to that family. Kiddo had continued to send us videos of Abby and her wonderful toddle shenanigans. Mic continues to work hard and I’m just glad we can soon be around them to provide whatever support we can, to make their family growth and journey even more enriching and blessed. I continue to be grateful to our Lord.

We rented a space in a storage facility a few months ago. We kept lots of our stuff – stuff folks who helped with the sale of our home didn’t think would help sell the property. This facility offers use of a van and over a week ago, I booked this van. Tress and I were going to clear out our stuff from this hired space.

On Saturday morning, after a quick brekky and a walk for our little friend, we headed to the storage place and over the next 3 hours and in 3 repeat trips, cleared out our stuff, all of which now sit in our lounge, bedroom and dining room. Our home is slowly but surely resembling a home being moved. After returning the van, we headed out to Knox for some lunch, and then headed home for more work.

I mowed the lawns and gave the outsides a bit of a clean up, as well as working on the long process of clearing out the shed. At the end of that day, I was pooped and was glad that at least the storage unit chapter is now also, behind us.

Earlier in the week, we had caught up with more people to say goodbye. We met with our old friends, Ronald and Cat, for dinner at Balwyn on Thursday night. It was good, as always, catching up with folks from Klang, even more folks who also went to KCMC. Ronald and Cat were both my Sunday School teachers – that’s how far back we went. The next day, we got together with folks from the Bob Saker Oval. We’d known a lot of these folks since when we first moved into the area. We went to Sofia’s as it was a convenient spot for this group. I had the worst salmon steak I had ever had in my entire life – the food is always very ordinary there – but the company was always good. They gave us a collage of the dogs we’d come to know and love over the years – as much as the owners themselves.

On Sunday at St Alf’s there was the annual thanks giving service, where members were encouraged to share their experience of gratitude. I had prepared to say a quick word (at 31:24) of thanks and praise, so after the service, we had more conversations of farewell…

Yesterday arvo, we continued packing and clearing out. The process continues, and I kept my thoughts and envisioned when we’d be close to Kiddo, Mic and little Abby, along with her sibbling. It will be quite the ride, and I remain excited.

This popped up as a memory in my social, a couple of days ago. I’m no Trump fan but these are, no matter how much you hold the man in disdain, historic moments – all the more when you have an encore moment.

Yesterday at St Alf’s we spoke to Ben Clements, the minister for the service we attend. We told him our plans to move north so we’d be leaving St Alf’s early Dec. It was a sad moment for us. As we were waiting to speak with him, we spoke with Ruth McIntosh, a long time member of St Alf’s and we told her too. The goodbyes will go on for a few more weeks I guess.

We said goodbye too, to a couple of eateries in downtown Melbourne. Two well known ones. One amongst Malaysians and the other, more generally well known. We trekked into the city late Saturday morning, after walking the little fellow on our usual extended weekend walks. We took the train in, which had numerous well decked out folks – in suits and fancy dresses – all heading to Stakes Day, the last big event of the Spring Racing Carnival. We never took to racing which is a bit of a shame in a town that is crazy about horse racing like Melbourne. We stopped at Flinders Station, and walked up Elizabeth Street to look for Hardware Lane, where Lulu’s Char Koay Teow is.

It would be our first time there. I had a plate of very good Char Koay Teow that is topped with succulent cockles. Tress had a normal plate of Char Koay Teow.

After the very delicious plates of noodles, we walked around the city, and went into Emporium and took in the Melbourne downtown atmosphere, before walking towards Flinders Lane and Russell Street, where the famous Lune sits. There was the expected queue outside, and we dutifully lined up for our share of the delicious croissants.

The almond one we had was really good, and we took away a couple of others – a cinnamon bun variety as well as one with lemon curd. We had both for brekky on Sunday morning and they were really good.

We left the city mid arvo, and got back home for more work to clear out the shed. The mezzanine level of the shed is now completely cleared, and we also put out a few items on our nature strip, which were promptly picked up by passers by. We then went to FHC to drop off yet more cables and chargers that we retrieved from cupboards, and Tress placed numerous stuff on a FB neighbourhood “Buy Nothing” page that were also picked up quite quickly. I then gave the smaller car a wash – the poor hatchback hadn’t been washed for a while and it looked much better when we drove it to St Alf’s on Sunday morning, to continue our goodbyes.

We stayed in an AirBnB home in a place called Chapman, back in March 2023. We came to Canberra to welcome our grandchild (who promptly arrived 2 days later). Chapman was a beautiful spot. It is a beautiful spot. Tress and I would spend mornings and noons walking through the pathways and footy ovals. We liked it there. Little did we know, that some 18 months later, we’d move into the area.

We slept in our new home in the Weston Creek area, a couple of nights ago. We’re only here for a few days, for the Cup Weekend. We return to Melbourne soon, for a final push of our relocation sojourn. We’d be making the final move before too long.

We liked Chapman. We like Weston Creek. It’d take some work to make it as homely as Forest Hill has become, but we think we’d like the journey.