Another long gap between posts – believe me, I’ve wanted to post sooner but Fi and I have been ridiculously busy.
We are now living in our house! We moved in on Saturday in what seemed like a military operation (not particularly smooth, probably an American Force…). As you know, Fi sat her MRCPCH part 2 exam last Wednesday (three days before moving day) and was on on-call Thursday until 22:00. Given that I had just finished a week of nights (in a new hospital) and then did two locum ENT nights, I hadn’t managed to pack a great deal either. Needless to say, Friday and Saturday were manic.
I had all day Friday off (as I was post nights) and so I collected a van from Thrifty that Fi and I had reserved for the day (well, until 12:30 Saturday). Not the best experience I have ever had. Once I arrived back at the flat, I parked on the street, got out of the van and measured it’s height and the height of the entrance to our underground car park and the ceiling in the car park (can you see where this is going yet?) to check that I could get the van down there (having the van in the car park would make the move a LOT easier since there is a lift straight to it). Confident that the van would fit I cautiously approached the solid metal gates, unlocked them from the van with the key and slowly drove forwards. Guess what happened? The gates started to close as I was driving slowly and didn’t reopen as I drove through them (like they normally do with a car). It must have been something to do with the large plastic bumper of the van not triggering the metal detector under the surface of the car park but in any case, the gates scratched and dented both wheel arches of the van. Arse. Getting out through the window of the van to trigger the gates wasn’t fun either. This was at the start of the day – you can imagine the mood I was in at this point.
I had reserved a 75 square foot room at The Big Yellow Self Storage Company to store our oak table, eight chairs and sideboard along with various other things that just won’t fit in the house at the moment due to all the (still ongoing) building works. I managed to make a single trip there on Friday afternoon but that was all. Once Fi arrived back from work, we moved some more stuff into storage and packed until nearly 22:00. As a treat, we popped over to the pub for some food and a drink. Good decision.
I nearly died Saturday. Multiple causes, not least exhaustion. The nearest I came though was trying to move our solid oak sideboard and solid oak table down the stairs. I had been dreading this moment for ages because I knew they would be pigs to move (largely because they were delivered by two massive blokes who lift heavy things for a living and even they struggled!). The scariest moment was when the sideboard slipped and rolled down part of the stairs nearly crushing me. Poor Fi hurt her hand and we broke a small piece of the sideboard (nothing that can’t be fixed). Both the table and sideboard have survived reasonably well but by the time we had placed them in storage it was 11:45 (we had been up since 06:30) and the van was due back at the hire company by 12:30 or else we would have to pay for at least another two days hire (not something I wanted to do given that I was already going to have to pay the £250 excess for the damage caused to the van).
I drove and dropped the van off and got back to the flat to find Fi hard at work cleaning and packing. To my horror, I realised that I had left the van’s spare wheel in our bathroom (I had taken it out to make more room)! I then had to dash back to the hire place before it shut to drop it off.
We had a bite to eat and then spent the next four hours trying to get out of the flat (the next tenants were arriving at 18:30). I made a total of six trips in Fi’s Golf (aka ‘Alfie’) to storage and to the house and we just managed to get out of the flat in time (we were actually a little late but never mind).
After the most stressful day ever we treated ourselves to a plush meal at Aqua and a glass of champagne. I think we deserved it.