Finally... it's done

We've done it - we've sold, and bought, and moved.  We are now proud owners of a lovely four-year-old house - a mere baby of a thing really.  I searched for "four year old" on DuckDuckGo to find some amusing reference to quote and discovered that apparently, people also ask:

What skills should a 4 year old have?

4- to 5-Year-Old Development: Movement Milestones and Hand and Finger Skills

• Stand on one foot for more than 9 seconds.
• Do a somersault and hop.
• Walk up and down stairs without help.
• Walk forward and backwards easily.
• Peddle a tricycle.
• Copy a triangle, circle, square, and other shapes.
• Draw a person with a body.

I was going to comment that my new house isn't able to stand on one foot at all, but instead I must ask: how many four-year-olds can actually do a somersault? I've never been able to do a proper somersault in my life!  And although I can walk forwards and backwards easily (sometimes even at the same time) and usually negotiate stairs without having to ask for assistance, I don't relish the idea of having to peddle a tricycle. Is this for some four-year-olds' version of The Apprentice?  When did street sales techniques become a core skill for infants?  And finally, if I were going to test a four-year-old's artistic skills, I would think it only fair to ask them to draw a person with a pencil, or some other proper drawing implement. Not a body. Far too heavy. Not fair at all.

Anyway, I digress.  The whole house moving process jolly nearly turned into a catastrophe when I fell mysteriously and hopelessly ill one day after dinner, and spent the next three days in bed, feeling unpleasantly queasy all the time and so depleted that I was completely unable to do anything at all, except for going to see a doctor, who said "it's a virus", did blood tests, prescribed a protein pump inhibitor in case I had stomach acid, and wished me well: but I still wasn't. Fortunately, when I woke up on moving day I found that I didn't feel ill at all. And indeed, I wasn't, so everything worked out OK in the nick of time.  The lovely Jackie did all the hard work getting stuff ready for the packers to turn up on Wednesday, but they had underestimated the job and were left with a lot to do on moving day - which left a lot for us to do when they had finished.  And then they dumped the whole caboodle at the new house, finishing just after dark by putting everything from the loft, the garage and outside the old house into my capacious new garage, which is now completely stuffed full.

Stuffed full

But I am undaunted.  I'm sure that given a bit of racking, and with the dispersal of lawnmowers and such like to the garden shed (yes!) and beyond we will have everything looking shipshape before too much of the remaining allotted 18½ years has drizzled by.

It is all a bit of a mission though, this house moving. The people we bought from are a couple of hospital doctors, with a family of small children.  How do they do all this, on top of all that?  Beats me.

Inside the house, so far we have unpacked the kitchen.  Rose Removals use a lot of packing paper, which is good because it isn't plastic bubble wrap.  They suggested that we might scrumple it up in the boxes and return it to them with the rest of their stuff (including those rather nice yellow boxes in the garage picture), but since one of the features of packing paper is that it takes up a lot of room when scrumpled, I have been unscrumpling it.  This is my pile of unscrumpled paper so far:

Unscrumpled paper

The lovely Jackie holds the entirely reasonable position that this is probably a complete waste of time, but I disagree.  After all, I am one of those dinner guests who quietly unscrumple their After Eight wrappers. I do it for the sheer joy of achieving an almost mirror-like smoothness of the silvery side whilst avoiding unsightly tearing.  I'm quite good at it, too.  I have, quite accidentally, inspired other dinner guests to try their skill at the art - possibly to the despair of dinner hosts who were hoping for something a bit more erudite, in return for their largesse.  Anyway, I find it quite rewarding in a Zen-style, taking refuge in the small, kind of way.  Before house move - fetch water, smooth After Eight wrappers, drink beer: after house move - fetch water, smooth packing paper, drink beer!"  That sort of thing.