Monday October 13, 2008
I’ve now vacated my little office on the top floor, my desktop is backed up and packed away, and I’m confined to a corner of the kitchen table and my laptop, connected wirelessly to the broadband box. I’ll keep tapping away until Wednesday, then the broadband disappears and there will be a three or four day interruption until BT gets us connected again. If I’m still off the air on Monday next I’ll go to the nearest place where there’s free wifi, and pop out a status report.
Today, had you been passing our little brick house in the west, you’d have seen an eight-foot sofa protruding from the bay window on the middle floor and then the same sofa dangling down with an aged poet propping it up while a giggling Graham raced downstairs to take it over. There was a time when the removal blokes did this kind of job but Health and Safety has taken over, aided and abetted by the insurance companies, and now they’re unable even to help. Hey ho. We got it done, and our sofa is now sitting safely on its end in the dining room.
Dolly was horrified. ”WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY SOFA?” she thundered.
Fulsome apologies and long, long cuddles were offered in compensation. I think she’s mollified, and has forgiven us. I doubt she’s forgotten, though, and the sofa will be claimed and occupied the moment it reappears in the new house. You’d never think that a single cat could fully occupy an eight-foot sofa. Dolly can.
And then I got hit with a large roll of sticky tape and a massive pile of cardboard boxes that had contained electronics and small consumer durables of all kinds. ”Put all the plastic fillers and packing in a big plastic sack and flatten the boxes,” I was told. I did so, and filled two massive black plastic bags, taping the flattened boxes into two major packages, schlepping the whole lot out to the car ready to be driven down to the dump in the morning.
And now, I’m plum tuckered out. What would you expect at this stage of the game?
