Update
Forgive me Livejournal, for I have sinned. It has been nearly a year since my last post……………………..
Well, we have moved.
Pros:
We no longer live in Essex
We no longer live in a tiny flat and have to rent storage space
We live just outside Cambridge
We have a 3-bedroom semi all to ourselves!
We can now go to A&S nights on Tuesday evenings
I have more space to craft
There are stairs for the cat to play on (he loves stairs!)
We have a garden
Cons:
Commuting is further and a tad more expensive
We no longer have a mortgage (is this a con? The rent is cheaper!)
So on the whole, much more positive stuff. Last Friday John loaded the large Luton van that we hired, with all the boxes of books and our Medieval stuff and gumph from storage. He drove up to Cambridge, dropping Muesli off at the cattery on the way, and met me off the train. We went to the house to find Kay on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. The poor thing was exhausted trying to get the house ready in time, and hadn’t had a chance to finish off completely. So at about 9pm at night, we found ourselves round the new neighbour’s house while they witnessed the signing of the contract. They are a semi-retired couple who live the other side of the house that we have a party wall with. They seemed pleasant enough, except that their house was filled with the throat-clenching smell of someone boiling the heck out of a mixture of corned beef and Pedigree Chum! So everything was duly signed and we got the keys and were left to put up the futon (insert much swearing and gnashing of teeth when the bolts didn’t seem to match up) in order to sleep.
We passed a very bad night!
The futon that we had bought for £25 off ebay was stable enough, but the mattress it came with definitely left something to be desired. You could feel the slats just enough to make it break into your sleep patterns. John managed to sleep a bit, but I was rotten in the morning and nursing a headache. We still had to unpack the van.
Saturday dawned bright and sunny. Nick was dropped off by Delia on her way to work at about 8:30am. So we had tea and a natter and then at about 9:00am we started to unload the van. At least we could back it up into the driveway so that it was right outside the garage door. It was a very ‘bits & pieces’ load, mostly SCA stuff like weapons, armour, crafting bits and pieces, toolkits etc. so it took a while, that is until more people started showing up. Ollie and Ross arrived together in Ollie’s van about half an hour later and a further 20 mins after that Phil was there with his 3 girls all very eager to help. Sarah showed up later on with her two boys. So between everyone, we managed to get the Van emptied by about 11am. We put some child-friendly DVDs on the TV and set the smalls in front of it, babysat by the older girls. The menfolk disappeared with the two vans back down to Purfleet for the furniture load.
Sarah and I started to shift boxes around to make space for all the stuff to come, most especially in the garage, as our chest freezer would need to fit in. She is immensely strong and between us we managed to manhandle the heavy pavilion up into the over-garage loft, as well as a lot of other things like the car roof-box and camp bed and sleeping bags and lots of other things. I was amazed at how big the loft was - it could easily be a converted into a single bedroom! We unpacked most of the kitchen boxes and she volunteered to make lunch while I continued working to clear space.
At around 4ish, the men and the vans returned. The poor lads were tremendously hungry and devoured the hot dogs and jaffa cakes we had ready. With renewed energy, they made short work bringing things in and daisy-chaining boxes and furniture. Everything was indoors and dealt with in about an hour! Sarah had very kindly put the living room furniture together with the help of the girls, so that we would all have somewhere to sit when it was over. The TV was surrounded by a low wall of box fortifications to protect against very small boys who like to press buttons on gadgets! Pretty soon we were all munching down on Chinese takeaway and watching Iron Man 2. By 10pm everyone had left and it took us about 10 minutes to put our bed up and dress it, so that we could sink in and sleep the sleep of the exhausted!
Sunday was miserable and wet! For the last time, we got into the van and drove down to Purfleet - just the two of us. We got to the flat and discovered that rather more than just a few things had been left behind. We filled about 10 large bags of stuff, plus a bedside table which had been forgotten, a chair, curtains, a bucket and some pictures, but had no space for the ironing board - that is now added to the shopping list. We filled the car to the gills in the driving rain! We then went in convoy to the van hire place to drop it off and drove back home to Cambridge. We didn’t do much more than that really - far too tired.
Thank goodness we are both off on a 4-day weekend coming and we pick up the cat on Friday at which point we will finally have everything we should have in the house!
But we really could not have done it with half this much ease without the help of friends. At one point I was just standing in the doorway directing people where to drop off whatever they were carrying. Without this support, we would have been prostrate with only half our stuff moved! So I am eternally grateful to everyone who showed up!
I am also very glad its over though. The dread of the move was overshadowing the excitement at moving. Now we have the tough job trying to get everything looking decent, one room at a time. I need to pick back up on my scrolls too as I have several commissions awaiting finishing!