Ten days and two open-houses into the house sale process I heard from our agent that he had shown the house to a family who had made us an offer. Half an hour later the sale price was agreed on and we shifted gear.

No more open house Saturdays. No more scurrying around on Saturday mornings to make sure everything was perfect. No more last minute fixing up of things. Instead of tidying and preparing the house to be shown off in all its glory, now the focus has moved to packing up and organising ourselves to go. Almost.

Actually it feels as if we are in a race and we have been called into the marshalling area and are awaiting our turn to line up and go. We know that we have a buyer, we've even met them and can see how keen they are, and that the contracts have been drawn up and are sitting with our respective solicitors, signed and ready to go, but until Wednesday when they are scheduled to be exchanged it is not a certainty. Sometime on that day, if it goes ahead smoothly, I expect to hear the starters gun - the phone call to tell me that we have exchanged and can start off - and then I intend to be ready on my starters blocks - in position - with my running shoes on- ready to set in motion all I have been working on. And thats quite some list.

1. Let my manager know what my last day at work will be;
2. Advertise the big pieces of furniture that we can't sell the house easily without, but that we will have to sell before we leave - like the TV, the lounge, our beds, the fridge;
3. Finalise the children's enrollment in distance education and inform their respective principles of their imminent leaving;
4. Get final reading dates set for our electricity and gas accounts;
5. Organise our post to be redirected;
6. Sell my books - oh just even writing about it is hard! First I will have to spend a day sitting in my library sorting through the books I will need to take, the books I simply can't part with (the Bible given to me by my Uni heart-throb) various books with inscriptions by their authors encouraging me in my own writing endeavours, books that have had such an impact on me that they have formed part of my being, books I simply love. Hopefully at the end of the process I will have some books left to sell or I'll be in real trouble (aparently there is a limit to what I may take on board the yacht!);
7. Sort through my shoes. Oh dear - this one is also going to be hard but I have a lovely friend who will mind a few boxes for me in case I make it back to land in Canberra and I plan to save my favorite land-loving shoes - I will take a couple of pairs for the ocassional trips on land - dinners out, coffees and the like, but mostly I will live in the shoes that work on the boat. I can't tell you how many times this season I have drooled over shoes or boots in a shop only to hear a faint voice in my head suggest they would be no use on a boat! But I have had to buy good boat shoes so its not all loss in the shoe department!
8. Get packing boxes;
9. Start putting things in;
etc etc

Being in the marshalling area has been good though in many ways. Its been like being given a moment to take a breath.To pause, reflect on what we are doing and why, and do what I love so much - start to make lists. I have lists of many things - what I will take, what I will give to this friend, that friend, this daughter, that son, what I will advertise and hope to sell. I have begun gathering what will form my little world aboard the yacht and what woman isn't happy to be doing that!