Moving day...

After what seemed like the longest conveyancing period in history (certainly in our house-buying history it was!) we finally made it to Moving Day.

A couple of hiccups along the way, like not exchanging contracts the first time we had all agreed to do so, the bottom of the chain not having their mortgage offer in place, then getting to 4pm on completion day and limping across the finish line. Oh my, we lived on the very edge of our nerves that day.

Grandma was brilliant at keeping H occupied throughout the day and making us all lunch and dinner and generally being on hand. It’s lovely to have family around – we are very lucky!

Our removal men arrived late, which at 8am in the morning meant I was already off on the wrong foot – but in all honesty, those fellas waited, waited and waited some more at the end of a long day, so if they had arrived on time who knows what their tempers would have been like at 4.45 when we finally arrived with the keys. There they were, camped out on our lawn, sitting on our deck chairs surrounded by boxes and sofas. If things hadn’t been so rushed I would have taken a snapshot. They had found that the garage was unlocked – a small bit of luck that their patience needed. They were able to offload lots of items into the garage, which did save a lot of time.

The sun was shining, but all my methodical planning (complete with labelled boxes and a fully typed inventory of everything we owned) went flying out of the window – never to return.

Another thing that went out the window: the intention of taking a thousand ‘before’ photographs of the empty house. Sadly there just wasn’t time. The movers had been waiting hours for us to arrive with keys, I don’t think they would have taken too kindly to me asking if they could wait 10 further minutes while I pootled around with my camera.

Previous moves – of which there have been a fair few over the years – raced through my mind, tranquil and organised for the most part. Memories of directing removal men to deposit labelled boxes into specific areas of the house while making cups of tea and peacefully unpacking were now consigned to history. Instead, this time it was frantic removal men depositing anywhere there was space – kitchen boxes in bedrooms, bathroom boxes in the garage, H’s cot being built in the living room by my husband. Grandma and H were cheerfully playing in the back garden, trying to avoid the two dead pigeons. I was searching for the carefully planned ‘day box’ with kettle and tea bags and spoons and milk. It was essentially a free for all and for someone like me, it is a wonder I didn’t have a nervous breakdown.

Tuffy arrived to wire in the cooker and offered to plumb in the washing machine. He is a legend. You will hear more about him on our journey.

The removal lorry was finally unloaded at 5.45 and we were able to lock up and head over to Grandma’s for dinner and a sit down – before heading back to put H to bed in her new home and start building our bed and cleaning the kitchen.

It’s a shame it was all so chaotic (I think I will come to use that word a lot) but they do say ‘start as you mean to go on’, and it has certainly been chaotic. But crucially, it has also been, and continues to be, a tremendous amount of fun.