When one moves house one finds oneself doing extraordinary things. Like reducing your living space to about one metre squared surrounded by hired boxes which contain all of your worldly possessions. Similar to camping (I'm told) as the move date grows nearer you are reduced to the barest of essentials such as one spoon, a knife and fork, a cup and cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The wine collection is sacrificed in order to pack one less box and you find a new culinary adventure in bananas and weetbix accompanied by a crisp 2006 Chablis. When the day finally arrives you are relieved as the furniture items are up-ended and stuffed into the truck. And without fail there will be a shameful pair of undies in the space where the bed was, lying there in the dust smiling up at you as the removal men drag the mattress away. You stare blankly into the back of the truck with homeless people's blankets protecting your sad home comforts for their journey to the new premises. And then you throw yourself into your vehicle and drive like a lunatic to beat the truck to the new address. Then after everything is unloaded, once again you are surrounded by boxes and are living in one metre squared of space. You look for that spoon, fork and knife and hope to god you remembered to move the undies.
Beautifully said, and pants-wettingly funny, Lorna.
ReplyDeleteIf you replace your undies with several large mens' hankies and one empty condom wrapper, it'll be the move we did in January....
I've moved lots of times, it got to the point where I could be unpacked and completely settled in one day. We'd pack by rooms, boxes marked kitchen, bedroom E, bedroom K, and so on. When the truck arrived each child would be standing in their designated bedroom to direct placement of boxes. As soon as the truck left, everyone was responsible for unpacking and stashing their stuff, with the oldest usually helping the youngest while I did the kitchen.
ReplyDelete