This is getting real.  As of Thursday, I have a plane ticket, a place to quarantine in Scotland, renters here in Milton, movers, a contractor to build a storage locker in the basement, and seasonal property maintenance in place.  Still left to do? Sell the car, ship the dog, pack the household, and paint & clean the house.  Oh, and find a place to live in Orkney.  That last one is worrying.

I took the advice of a friend and downloaded Trello project management software.  What a difference it makes to staying on top of everything.  And there is A LOT to stay on top of.  I’ve have sorted the move into a variety of buckets like: The Dog, Finances, Milton House, Orkney Hoose, Packing, etc…  And then each bucket is full of tasks.  Dozens of tasks (quite possibly hundreds of tasks).  And it seems to be working – once I capture a task in the appropriate bucket, (say for example, checking the fire & carbon monoxide alarms, which is now a To-Do in the Milton House bucket), I can stop worrying about it.  The mental load is lifted. 

It is possible to go too far down the organizational road; last month I actually started a GANTT chart.  I started working back from D-Day, with blocks, and arrows, and deadlines, before I realized that might be a tad OTT.  So Trello it is.  And I do feel very efficient each morning as I sit down and update the list.  So there.

From a COVID perspective, for travellers arriving in Scotland the UK has rated Canada as an amber list country. (The US is a green list country, even tho Canada is outperforming both the US and the UK in new cases and per capita vaccinations, but now is not the time to start agonizing over areas outside my control.) Amber means 10-day self-isolation upon arrival, either alone or with family.  It looks like I will be able to quarantine at my uncle’s hoose (practicing my accent), but for a while I thought I was going to be 10 days in a self-catering unit in the countryside somewhere in Lanarkshire.

Before I realized I’d be staying with my uncle, I got thinking about the fact that I would need food – well, I always need food, obvs – I mean I’d be starting a 10-day pantry in a strange house completely from scratch.  So one day I sat down to check if one of the grocery stores would deliver to a cottage in the small village of Carnwath (Tesco does).  Then I began imagining the grocery list – I mean I would truly be starting from nothing.  So I started filling an online Tesco grocery cart full of the food I would need for 10 days in isolation.   Next thing I knew, I had wasted two hours online, cruising the food lists and creating an entirely imaginary shopping basket of groceries.  It was quite exciting: eggs by the half-dozen (so sensible); Rolo-flavoured custard; some kind of bread called a ‘bloomer’;  and every kind of frozen dinner imaginable, including something called Mr Brain’s Pork Faggots for 99p (really).

I’m not sure that was the highest and best use of a Sunday morning, but it was very entertaining.

I lay awake the other night thinking about the fact that it’s 60 days now until D-Day (M-Day for moving?  S-Day for Scotland?), and I have a freezer and pantry full of food that needs to be consumed.  The last I heard the foodbanks still weren’t accepting food items , only financial donations, and I hate the idea of food going to waste. So it’s time to ramp things up: no more yoghurt or toast for breakfast from now on.  But really, most of the food in the pantry isn’t what you would normally call breakfast food.
Yesterday I had miso dashi soup for breakfast (nothing wrong with that, an entire country often has miso soup in the morning, but it’s not my usual fare).  The day before it was porridge (again, nothing wrong with porridge for breakfast, but it is July and it was already over 25 degrees by the time I sat down to a steaming bowl of oatmeal).  And today was tuna salad stuffed in a tomato (now that is just plain weird).  At least you can’t say I’m not eating healthy. 

Edit: Wrote to the local foodbank who advised me that yes, they are indeed accepting packaged and canned foods again, so I can lift my foot off the all-must-be-consumed gas pedal.  Whew – I was starting to wonder how I was going to incorporate canned peaches, smoked mackerel, and couscous into a tasty breakfast. 

After shopping around I landed on Animal Travel for flying Scout to Scotland in October. I applied for a quote, and received a seven (yes, 7) page email, full of different coloured fonts, bolds, italics, highlights, etc… outlining costs, requirements, and potential issues for the journey. The opening paragraph quite clearly asked that clients read the email in full, as they are swamped in this post-lockdown world, and simply don’t have time to be answering questions that they have addressed in the initial email. Fair enough. So I printed out all seven (yes, 7) pages and started reading. The first section clearly and firmly addressed the size of crate that would be needed, so I started researching crates online. I must have measured Scout a half a dozen times (she does NOT like the tape measure) and searched Wayfair, Amazon, Rens, and so on. I finally found one for order from a store in London and called them to place an order and arrange for pick up. There, done.

Then I moved on to the next section of Animal Travel’s email, which stated that they (Animal Travel) provide the crate. Seriously. I called the store back (3 minutes after finalizing the purchase) to cancel. She must have thought I was an idiot. Two hours of my life I will never get back. If I had just done as the email said, and read the whole thing BEFORE doing anything – shades of the cruise down the Elbe River, and not reading the client brochure. Will I never learn?

I just found Tyler Moore’s videos on how to make a website.  This is excellent – I am going to follow step-by-step. 

Edit: OMG – this has been the best thing I’ve done so far. Tyler’s 2-hour video (worth every single, solitary minute) was brilliant. I followed step-by-step, and setting up this website was so easy. Love Hostgator, love WordPress, love it all!

I have always been someone who finds it very hard to throw away or donate things that are still in good working order or were purchased relatively recently, but which I don’t love (I know, I know, spark joy, whatever).  But these days, everything I touch or look at has me thinking, toss? donate? sell? pack away? I mean, I don’t want to end up packing tons of stuff, but at the same time, if something still works, why would I pitch it?  So this has created a new mindset: two days ago I dropped a vase and it broke.  And today a perfectly good but much too cumbersome umbrella broke a rib.  And both times my very first thought was, “Yippee, now I can throw this out.”

One thing that has surprised me is that flats & houses are mostly to let unfurnished.  I don’t know where I got the expectation that they would be furnished, and one or two are, but for the most part I will be buying everything.  That is both exciting and terrifying.  The closest Ikea is Glasgow or Edinburgh (I’m not counting the Pick-Up location at Aberdeen) and I dread to think what the delivery fees are to the islands.  I would love to go all Ikea – I’ve been watching Nick Lewis, Lone Fox, and Alexandra Gater on YouTube and I can really see an all-Ikea apartment.  I think there is an Argos Pick-Up unit in Kirkwall, so most likely that is what I will be relying on.  While I’m staying with my uncle in Lanarkshire, I can go to Ikea (it’s almost all nice, easy multi-lane from his place to the store), and buy as much as will fit in the car for the drive north – a car which will also have a medium-sized dog, 3 or 4 suitcases, and a new-to-this-side-of-the-road driver who will need all her sightlines as clear as possible.

Another house for rent in downtown Kirkwall – looks pretty good for my needs. Pets allowed, a yard garden (must learn the local lingo – a yard is small cemented area where you keep your bins), 2 bdrm.  Of course, as it’s for rent now, it will be gone long before I get there.  And, as the real estate agent said when he wrote back, “due to the high level of interest . . .”, it confirms everyone else’s comments about properties being as rare as hen’s teeth.  Oh dear. 

I keep telling myself, you can always start in a self-catering and keep looking.  But they’re more expensive – ah well, it will all work out.

CB was telling me about the software she is using to manage her move, and it reminded me of a book I had read last year on productivity.  I think I’m going to re-play the audio book and download the Trello planning software – up until now I have been relying on an Excel sheet that is really just a very, very, very long to-do list.

Got my first quote for transporting Scout: $4,000.  And that doesn’t include everything at the Scotland end.  And what if I have to go into self-isolation?  There’s something about the pet having to arrive within 5 days of the owner, but self-isolation (still a thing as of July 1) in Scotland is 10 days.  If she arrives in greater than 5 days, she can’t arrive in Glasgow; she has to go to Heathrow (I still haven’t quite figure that one out).  Then what?  I’ll be locked up (locked down sounds better).  And I am NOT driving to Heathrow (altho, it would be all multi-lane. No, no, no; that way madness lies). Could my cousin pick her up? Oh dear.

Edit July 5th:  Just got off the phone with Cathy B – she says that cost is pretty good compared to transporting their dog to Oxford from Minnesota.  But that company seems to be doing all-in, door-to-door service, instead of airport pick-up. Hmm.

Just had a fantastic lead on renters – finger crossed. I’m not normally superstitious but I’m afraid to put anything down in writing in case I jinx it. So, so, so want this to happen.