Big Green Lorry

Our sultry, stultifying, airless heat wave continues (note blue sky in these pictures - it's the 30th September, for Heaven's Sake!) and today is the day scheduled for Mr Dempsey and his removal team to come take our 'stuff' into storage where they will keep it till we get to Ireland and invite them to bring it over. Well, as you can see, what has been heralded for days as the 'Big Green Lorry', as per all Dempsey's business cards and advertising, turns out to not be green and not even particularly enormous (though big enough). Mr Dempsey, lover of vintage vehicles like his Morris 6, in which he came to quote for the job (possibly because they knew of us as the 'people with the 2CV') has decided to do this run in the oldest lorry in his fleet, a 1978 Bedford TK in his old livery, red and white.

Well, no matter. The vehicle formerly known as BGL arrives on time and is staffed by 3 strapping lads. This includes old, grey haired Mr Dempsey himself. Dad had assumed that he was the owner, manager and maybe now promoted out of the actual humping, but no, he's in there chucking washing machines and boxes of Mum's books like a good 'un. We dogs are wrangled into the kitchen so we don't get under foot and the guys quickly eat through the living room's stuffing of boxes, mattresses and dissembled furniture. In an hour they stop for a coffee with the living room empty. There's then another 20 minutes or so kitchen stuff, garden furniture and toolery. The van is barely 3/4 full and the white goods etc stand in a single layer at the back of the load, strapped to the sides. The guys shut up the van, do some paperwork and are gone, over to the storage in the industrial estate over by Tesco's towards Whitstable.

Mum has stayed around to see the job well under way but then headed off to work. As soon as the removal men are gone, the Angel B turns up armed with hoover and brooms and sets to, to tidy and clean up after the guys which Dad very much appreciates, as he is a tad weary at this stage and still has all the clearing of debris and runs to the tip to contend with.

The only soft furnishing in the house is now the old king-sized mattress on which we will 'camp' till Monday, where-upon it, too will be tip-bound. Dad's lying on this as the only place to rest up now in this house (we're OK - we've got our dog beds) when he hears Jim a-calling. He and the Angel B have realised we have no furniture and is offering the loan of a couple of fold-up chairs. Even better, Dad is invited round for a sit in their very comfortable wicker garden-chairs and a cup of coffee and a chat. It's been a hot and exhausting week, especially any time spent in the roof-space and up and down the stairs.

Nearly-homeless Deefs

Packing like Crazy

With the whole house to pack into boxes, pretty much, and Mum away, and with very few days before Mr Dempsey's big green lorry pulls up outside, we are packing stuff into boxes and sealing them with parcel tape for every hour that Dad's little leggies and arms can handle it. We break off every few hours for a respite coffee or some other distraction. Our problem is that we are very booky household, with an inordinate amount of books and paper-related, equally dense material (diaries, files, print outs, pre-digital packets of photos, magazines etc).

This is all heavy stuff even though Mum has pre-empted her own tendency to create massively heavy, monolithic, tea chest sized slabs of solid paper by buying on-line, a good selection of flat boxes just waiting to be assembled. This selection includes smaller boxes clearly labelled "books" to try to steer the packers away from the hernia-weight boxes, and Dad is sticking to those for the books.

This was a bit of an awesome task, so Dad has started in just one room, determined to clear its entire contents into sealed boxes before moving on to the next one, rather than fanny around indecisively prodding this and tinkering with that. In between bursts of book packing, there are opportunities to free up some more junk which can be carried down to the front drive 'free-cycle' point, Son of Junk-Pile 1 ! Today this method managed to clear the big computer desk (dissembled) and a dresser, assorted olde scanners, printers and computer bits, a weighing scales, some huge coffee table books, some gardening magazines, empty box files and lever arch files and other stationery.

It all goes, welcomed aboard by the good folks of Faversham for its 'onward journey'. Where to, we will never know. The desk and dresser, we know, went to two nice ladies who have moved out of a small 2-up-2-down into a bigger house and lack furniture; we know because Dad spotted them loading the desk and offered to help them, then invited them in to see the dresser and invited them to come back for it when he'd emptied it in 15 minutes (which they did). It never actually touched the junk pile. This actually came to us from Diamond originally so now it moves on to another phase of its much-recycled life, to another loving home. She will be pleased.

Now run out of enthusiasm for parcel tape, Dad is chillin' with a beer and supper.
Deefs

Spoiled Rotten

Mum needs to come back quickly from her hols with Diamond in Poros, Greece, to rescue us from being spoiled rotten. Dad, on his own tends to cook as if Mum were still about, so there's generally plenty left over to get mixed in with our supper. Tonight we are having the usual 'Butcher's Tripe' dog meat with added liver, bacon and onion gravy, the gravy being made with chicken stock out of the freezer rather than water (Dad is valiantly trying to empty the freezer by completion date!). He may also be allowing us to sleep upstairs with him but I better not say that as there will probably be killin's when Mum gets back over it.

Today we play host to removal company boss, Mr Dempsey who comes to assess the load and discuss storage requirements between our move-out-of-this-house date and our actual move to Ireland. He arrives in a very smartly restored 1950's Morris. It's like a stretched Moggy Minor with a 6-cylinder engine and Dad thinks the shape was later used by Wolseley. It's in a fetching pale green and Dad, inevitably, gets to look under the bonnet (It's an old bloke, old cars thang).

Mr Dempsey strolls about, taking copious notes and chatting away in an Irish accent to die for (Wexford, maybe) accepts a shopping bag full of allotment onions and then departs, promising to phone us with a price on Monday by which time, we all note, we'd have a job finding someone else if it's a bit pricey. No fools, these removal guys, especially in a bad recession. He tells us that in the boom times, when everyone was moving back to Ireland, he was making 2-3 trips over per week with the big 'wagon and drag' pantechnicon (which would fit 2-3 houses worth of stuff inside). Now he's down to a 'rigid' lorry (not an artic, no trailer) and a trip a week if he's lucky. He'll take our stuff but wait to make the run till he has another lump of furniture to make up the load.

Ruinned Bruin
Deefs