91.Moving Again!

Having moved house so many times one would have thought that it would have got easier but I did not find that. In fact, I think this was the hardest move I have ever done. Which is strange as I have moved before when I was heavily pregnant, of course that was a very long time ago. I have moved with two small children, two dogs and a parrot. I have moved from one town to another and even one country to another.  I have moved in the sunshine and the rain. But this move which was less than 6 kilometers away, with professional removalist and two grown sons to assist us was the hardest I have ever done. Obviously, age had something to do with it.

 

Getting rid of things that we could not take with us to the new house was a bit of a headache. Most of the items I advertised for free on the internet and I really got messed around. People would phone about them and say that they wanted them but then never turn up to collect. I wonder why people do this. I can understand that if I was being pushy and trying to get them to agree to pay high prices for items they did not want, but these were all items going for free on the internet. If they did not want them, why did they answer my advert in the first place.

 

Jonathan had an even bigger problem with the things in his workshop. My husband is a bit of a hoarder. He would call it a collector of course, but he hates to throw anything away that might come in handy some time in the future. He unloaded quite a lot of his tools and things on Jace and Dom but they have their own Junk, (sorry I am told it is all very valuable stuff) and there was only just so much they could take. Fortunately, the house next door to us was sold at about the same time and the new owners there were doing renovations with a view to renting out the house. The new owner’s father had a farm and was happy to take most of the timber and steel that Jonathan was trying to get rid. Also, Darren, our new landlord, told us that as the house was going to be demolished, we could just leave everything that we could not get rid of there and the demolishing company would be responsible for getting rid of it. But everything had to be sorted and packed.

 

Just a little aside. Our house as I have said before was in Barry Street but we had a back lane which was called Tim’s Lane. When the new owners of the house next door were working on their renovations, we got talking to them and the young man told us his name was Tim. A few days later his father came to help with some of the work and we got chatting to him too. I laughingly said “did your son Tim buy this house because the back lane was named after him. The gentleman laughed and said “we had been amused that the road at the front of the house was Barry Street as my name is Barry but when we found out that the back lane was called Tim we really felt that it was a sign for us to buy it”. How’s that for coincidence?

 

I don’t suppose that the actual move went too badly it was just the preparations and the settling in that were so worrisome. Both Jace and Dom agreed to come and assist on moving day. I knew that I could manage to move the computer and the internet equipment but I also knew it would take me a week or two but I was sure that Jace would do it in no time at all. The computers were no problem but when it came to the internet and our land line phone he struggled. It was all something to do with the service provider, I’m not sure what but I know that he did not have it working when he went home that evening. He came back the next day to sort it out.  Eventually he just gave up and advised me to change my service provider. He did a bit of an online search and told me which one he recommended. They were excellent and had the problem sorted and the phone working within half and hour. We needed a new modem for the internet but they arranged that and we were soon back on line with our internet too.

 

Then it came to the electricity account. I had moved my account from Barry Street to Rhoden Drive and so was very surprised and upset to get two accounts. One for Barry Street and one for Rhoden Drive. It turned out that I had only opened and account at Rhoden Drive and not actually closed the Barry Street account. So they wanted to charge me the daily service rate for the whole period. I was very cross with them and told them so. Surely when one moves house it is unusual to want to keep the power on in the old house but they did not see it that way. Then they said that they would go and read the meter there but came back to me and said that they could not gain access to the meter. I told them that there was no way that they could not get access. There was no fence or gate, there was no big vicious dog and that they really were just not trying. We happened to be passing by the house a couple of days after and went and had a look. No wonder they could not access the meter, not only had the meter gone so had the house. It was completely raised. But in the end the electricity company took my word for it that we had actually moved out on the day I said we had and adjusted the Barry Street account accordingly but I really had to get very angry with them to get them to see sense.

 

I began to think that we had moved into an electronic black hole. As my computer started playing up and then it was the DVD player and the bedside clock. Also my sewing machine and my mobile phone have been giving me trouble. My sewing machine would no long do zig-zag. I’m not sure if it has lost it’s Zig or it’s Zag but one of them has gone. The repair gentleman says that it would need a new part but as the machine is so old parts are not available any more so Its back to straight sewing for me. I don’t think for the amount I use it that it is worth buying another one but we will see.

 

To add to the electronic black hole my mobile phone is beginning to feel it’s age too. The battery is not holding a charge for very long and it sometimes just dies on me. I know I must do something about it but I don’t feel like coping with it just now.