Oh, this is going to give you such a BIG headache! I have heard various opinions on this, some are "take everything", others "start afresh".
Most of the contents of our house are prehistoric so we will leave (put on the tip) most things. One thing we are definitely taking is the computer - neither Bill nor I could survive without one for long!
I am just starting to sort out personal stuff. "bin it" "ship it" I must confess I am already getting quite a few boxes full with photos, my art equipment, few favourite books etc. mm... me thinks this will turn out to be quite expensive! The charity shops aren't doing too bad though, have had several black bin bags full of toys and house hold goods.
As we decided on the spur of the moment just to book flights and go with out the house being sold we only had four weeks before heading off to the unknown. We hoped to have several weeks to sort out exactly what we wanted to go into the shipment, but no, everyone we phoned said that August was one of the busiest months and all the containers were full! Why is nothing straight forward? Is it only us? Anyway it was a Monday evening and Bill was on the phone to PSS......"please, is there nothing you can do for us"..... "Well" the PSS man said "I have part of a container free, if you don't mind sharing and you are not shipping out a full house load".....We quickly jumped in with "No we're not, we will take it"......"OK" PSS said "we will be there first thing Wednesday morning to collect it" ......"AAAGH," I said, or something maybe a bit more expressive! "but that only gives me a day to sort out what to take. We were told it was that or nothing so guess who had absolutely no sleep that or the next night, yep Bill and I were up sorting and frantically packing.
PSS arrived Wednesday morning at 8am and took what we had sorted away. Am annoyed that I didn't start the packing months ago as found many things after they had left that I wanted to bring with me, but in the end had to give away, also the pressure we put ourselves under was overwhelming, I was getting close to being totally insane at times.
Our shipment was collected in August 03, we were told it would take 9 - 11 weeks to arrive in Adelaide. After a long wait and a few phone calls complaining we finally got our shipment on the 8th January 04.
Would we use PSS again I hear you ask? Yes, some of the delay was due to a storm on the ocean delaying the ship by a week and then there was some missing paperwork that hadn't been faxed over. Luckily we didn't need anything quickly or we may have been more peeved with the delay and chasing up, but when it did arrive everything was in good order. Out of all the shipments they do there are bound to be a few that don't go completely according to plan and ours just happened to be it. The cost for our part container was £850.
I have found the most useful item we brought with us to be the travel adapter and those multi socket thingy majigy things you get. We have been in Australia since Sept 03 and for many months did not change over any plugs. It was great when we first arrived to be able to plug in my hairdryer, lap top etc. straight away without having to worry about changing plugs.
Good luck to all
