One week later

It’s been a tiring day – as moving days tend to be. I was at the Manse this morning at 9 am, leaving Nick to do his sermon prep and the boys to play. I was supposed to be met by a police man, but no one was there, and by 9.20 it seemed that no one was coming. I went down the road to the corner shop, and phoned Nick who in turn phoned the police station, and they sent an officer over. I don’t know what went wrong with our actual plan. Anyway. Once in the house, I started in the kitchen, packing up pots, pans, groceries, crockery, cutlery, utensils, the kettle…basically everything you would need to make a kitchen fully functionable. I didn’t have any packing boxes so just had to use plastic packets and shopping bags…not the most efficient way of moving house, but it worked out fine. I moved all the bagged kitchen stuff into the passage by the front door, and thought that I would never get it all into the car – and that was only the kitchen! I asked the police officer to put the microwave into the boot for me, after which he had had enough of waiting around outside the front door watching cars go by, so he told me he was going up to the hospital. I was happy to be left on my own, because I could take longer and not worry about him waiting around, but I was a little surprised. I stripped the beds and then carefully crept into the bathroom over the rubble, still hoping the floor wouldn’t collapse, to retrieve our old toothbrushes and the two very dusty toilet rolls we had left, plus the wicker baskets which will give the house here some homely touches. I’ve also brought picture frames, all the photos and magnets from the fridge and two plants – so it looks quite nice now. When I left the Manse I had to go through town where it took forever to answer so many questions from so many people – where are we living now, how long will it take to fix the house, where were we at the time, what was it like, how are the boys, and what do I think of the petition to close Pilling Primary School and relocate to another empty school? (Which I think is a silly idea by the way – two sets of parents have started a petition, what an overreaction). Once I made it out of town I came straight here to Piccolo to offload the car. By the time that was done it was after 12 and time for lunch.

You wouldn’t believe what we have growing in the little block of garden outside the house – tomatoes!! There are a number of them that are sizeable and ripe. Caleb found one yesterday and picked it for me as a present, which I had on a sandwich today with mayonnaise. It was so tasty. We haven’t had tomatoes in a really long time, so this was an unexpected blessing. Nick harvested about 10 this afternoon, some of which we cooked for supper. Back to the afternoon though – I had a cup of tea after lunch, and then packed up some of the things at Steve and Maureen’s house. The boys were in on it this time around, very helpful in bagging their toys, and before long we were back at the house. The boys wasted no time in finding their friends; after helping me offload the freezer stuff they were off to play. They love it here – they are so excited to be in a complex where they can run around, and since it is school holidays they have a ready supply of kids to play with.

I had left Nick at home still with his sermon prep and got busy with unpacking the organizing the kitchen – I got quite far by the time Nick phoned at 3 for me to fetch him. I left the boys here, running around outside, which was quite a fine thing to do, and then Nick and I quickly packed most of the rest of our stuff into the car. Still one or two things left at S&M’s house, but the bulk of everything is here now. For the rest of the afternoon we carried on with moving in. It’s already looking very organized – everything has found a place. I guess it was so quick because this isn’t our entire household’s worth of stuff! There were a few things at the Manse which I should have brought but forgot, like fabric softener and the draining rack for washing dishes, but we’re going back tomorrow so I have another chance.