Well the blogosphere has been dark for just under 2 weeks, and I have missed it. I was overtaken by a tidal wave of sorting and packing, and for the last 2 days catching up on yoga and sleeping, both of which suffered in the run up to moving day. I am happy to report that it went pretty well, all things considered.
The Nomad crew were amazing and a steadying influence on a potentially chaotic situation. Rob and Jock worked away solidly from Monday lunchtime until the deadline of Wednesday morning, and were gone by 1100. They slept in the cab, (comfortable bunks, we were assured) and watched England win the footy in the pub. Rob organised, packed a ton of books, (probably literally) and carried a lot of boxes. Jock, head bowed Ito accommodate the low ceiling in the basement, performed a miracle of packing a miscellany of tools, accounts, and a million things we forgot we had. (How could we have divested so much and still have so much left?). Amazingly, once the van had swallowed it all up, it really didn’t look like much!
Easily the worst part was the last couple of hours when we had to transport left-over unsorted, wanted or not wanted stuff to the storage unit across the river. And then the last grab of the bits and pieces still left – half finished bottles of household cleaners, jars of pens, bags of foreign coins…. And, as it turned out, my passport, chucked into a market bag. Of course, the incoming buyer also turned up later, preceded by a couple of well-muscled Bristol types in a Luton Transit loaded with furniture. She was very nice, her partner somewhat overwhelmed by the whole thing, or maybe just very cool. The muscle chaps carried the remainder of Al’s gear down from the first floor studio as they took the buyer’s boxes up. I really didn’t want to see how ‘real furniture’ fitted into our lovely, but compact house. We were always furniture light – 2 small sofas, 1 bed, 1 futon, 2 tables, 1 futon, TV cabinet, filing cabinet, something to put the printer on and an assortment of folding stools and chairs. Oh, and a yoga ‘back-bender’. And my beautiful blue stained ash bed, disassembled in the attic for more than a decade. That sounds like quite a long list…. But the majority of the move was Al’s collection of musical instruments and other studio gear, and our books and videos. I have the paperwork to prove it. All now safely ensconced in a shipping crate in Peterborough, waiting until we can find it a home.
On e-scooters
The mystery – how are they charged? Do elves come out at night and wave a magic wand? Are they picked up by council workers in trucks and taken to a central station where they are charged and dumped back randomly in the street in the morning?
I have mixed feeling about them – on the one hand, my old fogey / grumpy old woman self thinks that they are too dangerous to the riders and to the rest of us. The other side is my memory of my childhood scooter, red and yellow with a black footboard. The sensation of flying downhill, and the freedom it brought to my 10 year old self was incredible – I can almost taste it.
I thought you wrote..’Al now safely ensconced in a shipping crate in Peterborough!!’
Great that it all went smoothly in the end. That is a huge van!
Missed you guys when I was in Spike last Friday!! Feels strange to think you wont be next door!