After any rough break-up, the process of moving on is always tricky. And if the failed relationship is with an entire city, and moving on means literally moving house to a city 3000 km away, it gets ridiculous.

 In some ways I suppose it was my fault. You can’t bad mouth someone close to you on the internet like I did and expect them to turn around and play nice while you walk away. Especially if the city in question wasn’t overly given to playing nice in the first place. But, seriously Darwin, if you wanted to take your shots, you could have been a grown up about it and come after me, instead of waiting until I‘d left and taking a shot at my wife.

This isn’t really making any sense, is it? Okay. Here’s what happened:

Thursday I left Darwin behind, with much ceremony, David Tenant clips and resolution. Kim unfortunately had to wait a couple of days to join me Brisbane while she finished up some work and while I secured us a place to live. We had moved all our stuff and arranged for cleaners and carpet specialists to come in.

Friday morning, the real estate agent’s preferred cleaning client failed to arrive. She had already refused to quote over the phone and insisted that Kim meet her on Friday morning while Kim was supposed to be at work. Then she failed to show. Kim had to call her in. Finally she showed up.

Now, ours was a nice smallish two-bedroom unit. Tiled floors, neutral colours on the walls. We had all our stuff out already, so it just needed a quick once over. Nothing too extreme.

Sue, our friendly neighbourhood cleaner, begged to differ. She was adamant that the job would take all day. She then demanded cash in advance - $450 in total. She refused to issue Kim a receipt, and when Kim asked for one, her response was “Don’t you trust me?” This isn't just dodgy, this is illegal. Having taken our money, Sue then buggered off with the house keys, leaving Kim’s car, which she was supposed to be driving to work, stranded in the car park. Finally Kim was able to call her back and get her car out and finally made it to work. In fact Sue didn’t end up cleaning the house until long after we had left, just to make sure there was absolutely no chance for any sort of accountability. What a champion.

Kim never got her receipt, despite assurances from Ray White team that they would clear the matter up. cowboys, the lot of them. So the moral of the story is:

Don’t under any circumstances employ Sue’s cleaning service. And if you can at all avoid it, try not to use Ray White as a real estate agent. Our agent was nice enough, but good luck getting anything done without calling half a dozen times and sending at least three emails.

That name again? Sue. Don’t hire her.

Make of that what you will.

 Garry with 2 Rs

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