Our adventure started in 2014 when we moved to England because my husband’s company transferred him there. In March my husband started working near Oxford and rented a small apartment while we stayed behind to finish our business in South Africa. He started house-hunting and during the April school holidays, my son and I went to England for a visit and to look at rental houses. We soon realised that the furniture in our spacious house in South Africa would not fit into a rental house. British houses (mostly duplexes) are generally much smaller than in SA. We decided to sell everything and pack only twenty boxes with personal items like clothes, photo albums, books, my precious teapot collection, CDs, DVDs and my son’s most beloved toys. And so the big sale began…

In addition to the house, caravan and cars we had to sell, I started selling all our furniture, curtains, electrical appliances, garden tools, bicycles, crockery and linen. I had some pieces of furniture that we would like to keep in the family, which I gave to my mother and sister-in-law. We held a garage sale and advertised on Facebook and eBay. I had a massive book collection, and it was almost impossible to choose a few to keep. One Friday afternoon I invited my friends and colleagues so they could choose what they wanted. Even today, after four years, a friend sometimes tells me how much her children or grandchildren enjoy a particular book. My son’s toys I gave to his friends and my friends’ children and grandchildren. It was an incredibly emotional couple of months for me, because I am very sentimental, but I also realised how much a person accumulates over time and that you really don’t need five salad bowls or three dinner sets.

The last few weeks before we finally left for England, we stayed with my parents. In England we only bought the necessary furniture that we knew would fit into the rooms. It was quite exciting to start afresh. I only bought the most necessary crockery and linen, and in due course added what I needed. Not forgetting – both of us had a job when we moved, and my husband’s company who transferred him helped us, which made it easier. Looking back, I will undoubtedly do it again. There are one or two items that I wish I kept, but I realise that all this is just earthly goods. South African families we got to know there, had to store a lot of their furniture at great expense, or break out door frames to get furniture into the house! I have since given the same advice to several acquaintances who moved to England, and everyone agreed that it was the right decision.

By the way, the twenty boxes finally became thirty-three… We sent it over by courier. A week after we landed at Heathrow, it was at our blue front door. My advice to anyone who moves to England would be to not bring your furniture unless you know you’re going to have a spacious home – a very rare commodity in England. Although the packing up, selling and giving away was one of the most difficult things I had to do, it was incredibly liberating, and I realised that earthly goods do not matter as much as we think.

Two years later we decided to move to Australia. My husband really could not adapt to the British climate and missed the sun and blue sky. But we experienced stability and security that we could not get in South Africa, and going back was not an option for us. This time it was so much easier to move, because we did not leave family and long-time friends behind, and we had so much less to pack. We decided to take everything except for my son’s bedroom furniture, which was getting too small as he grew older; and the washing machine which we sold to the new tenants. In England, most houses don’t have any built-in cupboards, so we had to buy cupboards for all the rooms. Our research has shown that houses in Australia usually have cupboards, so we decided to sell the cupboards as well as bicycles, braai accessories and garden tools, as Australia is incredibly strict with plant material and the smallest piece of grass or soil can send your belongings into quarantine – an expensive and time-consuming process.

Our stuff would take three months to arrive in Australia, and for this period we rented a furnished apartment with crockery in Darwin. We boarded the aeroplane with only our clothes, laptops and my son’s XBox, and we sent some boxes by courier to get us through the first few months. While we were waiting for our furniture, we started looking at houses. Our stuff arrived earlier than planned, and we had to hurriedly rent a house, but fortunately, everything worked out well. Our duplex in Darwin is much more spacious than our place in Oxforshire, but we were not in a hurry to buy more furniture. As our budget allowed it, we acquired some new things, but I deliberately decided never to accumulate as much stuff as I had in South Africa. In any case, the more one has, the more you have to clean, and help here is very expensive, so we do everything ourselves while working full-time.

If I had to advise families who move directly from South Africa to Australia, it would be to get rid of at least half of your stuff. You will be saving money, and you won’t need to store or give anything away here.

Good luck!