It is almost midnight, and I am almost too sleepy to write.
We have, contrary to my gloomy expectations, had rather a splendid day, and I am sitting in the camper van, yawning outside Lucy’s lovely new flat.
Lucy is here as well. She is going to stay with us tonight because her flat is still cluttered with bags and piles of newly-moved clutter, but it is done. She has moved house from Northampton to Kettering.
Considering that a couple of years ago I had barely even heard of either of these places, I think it is a satisfactory achievement.
We were much assisted by an able team. If you are going to have to lug fridges and washing machines up a couple of flights of stairs to a top floor flat, it is a really good idea to invite the fittest woman in the British Army to join you.
She carried lots. She carried one bag that I could not even lift, and then picked up another one in the other hand. I couldn’t lift that one either, most certainly not both at the same time, and then up a couple of flights of stairs. Not only did she carry quite astoundingly remarkable amounts, she did it after having spent the morning doing a punishing workout in the gym.
We were also very kindly assisted by my parents and my aunty Pat, who had very generously turned up to help.
This part of the team did not carry quite as many washing machines, given that their combined age is somewhere in the region of two hundred and fifty years, which is a very great deal of life experience. Despite this, they persistently and magnificently trotted up and down the stairs, not quite as speedily as Number One Daughter, but still bearing bags of books and ironing boards and cooking utensils, and I was entirely overwhelmed by their determination.
I think I have got a very splendid family.
We had arrived at Lucy’s old house at around eight this morning, when we stuffed its entire contents into the camper van and attached dodgy-looking trailer, almost before we had woken up.
There were a lot of contents.
Lucy filled her car until it was bulging at the seams, and buzzed off at half past eleven to collect the keys for her new house. We followed her, about an hour later, with everything else, and rather more billowing smoke and wheezy engine noise.
When we reached the new house the rest of the family had arrived, and the car was almost empty.
We emptied the camper van and trailer next, which does not sound much in one little sentence. As I am sure you can imagine, actually it involved ages and ages of panting and swearing and tripping over the dogs. There are a lot of stairs to be conquered before you reach a top-floor flat, especially when you are carrying a fridge.
If it had not been for the family we would still be doing it now. Actually I think might have given up and just had a bonfire in the garden, but between us we shoved and grunted and trapped our fingers until everything was dumped in the new flat. After that we all heaved huge sighs of relief and went off to eat out.
We had celebratory cocktails and pizza, and it was ace. Not the cocktails and pizza especially, although they were just fine and the cocktail occupied the whole of a massive glass, which was exactly what I needed. It was just nice to be together and to hear everybody’s stories. Indeed, had it been up to me I would still have been there now, waving my glass about contentedly and wondering about pudding.
Obviously we are not still there now. We had to go and get on with life.
The family went their separate ways and we went back to Lucy’s old house to scrub it clean. The estate agents have been such rotters that I suspect they are going to try and hold on to her deposit, and we were not going to give them any excuse.
We scrubbed and polished, and Mark fixed everything that needed fixing.
It was dark when we had finished, and we mopped the floor behind us on our way out.
By common consent we did not do anything else this evening.
We dumped the keys with the estate agent and collapsed in the camper van with wine and left-over pizza.
We can do the rest tomorrow.
