Getting ready to leave home...

Leaving your home for an extended period of time takes a little doing. A weekend is easy, a week or two is also reasonable. Over a month and you need to put some serious thought into it. Some examples...

Stopping the paper, shutting off some water taps, turn the hot water down or off, shut off some gas pilot lights, having your home checked periodically to flush the toilets and run water in the sink, bath and shower traps, putting timers on certain lights and making sure somebody gets the mail from the mail box.

We have had the house sprayed for ants because we saw the odd ant running about before we left. I have also previously cancelled my car insurance, putting only storage insurance on them, and cancelled a rather expensive magazine subscription for three months, also if away long enough it pays to suspend your cable vision service. Together that saved several hundred dollars.

We also notify the alarm company, the council here at the condo, and the credit and debit card people. I also advise our bank manager.

At the end of this trip we are walking in the front door with our friends who will be staying with us for a short time. The house has to be spic and span therefore. Fellette has made arrangements with Jeanette to do the mail and house check and clean the toilets just before we come home.

Jeanette does a great job with the mail. I authorize her to open everything that is not obviously junk mail. She reads it, and sorts it and puts it in a file box that she made up years ago. Sometimes there is time-sensitive mail that requires a cheque or an answer from us. She will email us with anything in doubt and take care of it. We leave signed cheques with her for both Canadian and US bank accounts. [This we found out the hard way.]

Fortunately we do not have pets at this time so there is no concern in that respect.

We do know of some people who have a tortoise, [not a turtle but a tortoise], about 14" long. Did you know that they hibernate? Well the tortoise hibernates in their attic. When the time to hibernate comes, the tortoise will go and hide in his 'house' in the garden and not come out during the day, as he usually does. My friend then takes the tortoise, puts him [or her], in a wooden box with straw in it and places it in the attic. For about six months!!! No food, no water, just sitting there peacefully. In the spring, my friend takes him out of the attic and puts him in his 'house' in the garden, and when the tortoise feels like it he comes out and spends the next six months in the garden.

I wonder how long the tortoise would last if nobody came and got him/her in the spring?



Wally will be in charge of the build when we are away. He has met with and knows the people that he will be involved with. He will also write any cheques that are required in our absence to do with the build. he will no doubt make some decisions on our behalf. He has good judgement and does the right thing, without hesitation even if it costs his Dad some money!

Craig is our social secretary and Blogmaster. I will email him my blog material along with photos. He reads the blog, corrects anything socially incorrect or otherwise not right and uploads it to the site. In the past I have emailed him blogs and asked his opinion before posting. The reason is that sometimes I can get on a bit of a rant that may not go over too well.

No comments:

Post a Comment