Moving On

This week we have moved house. Well, actually, houses! James moved from his rented cottage in Barrow-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire, and to his pleasure has ventured back over the Humber Bridge into Yorkshire. Liddi and I have moved from our house in Driffield to share with James in Beverley. My house in Driffield still needs some more work (kitchen, decorating, flooring) which we reckon will be easier and quicker when it is empty of furniture and people living there! Once that is done, we plan to rent out my house to cover it’s costs (as now is not the time to sell a house!).

We have temporarily moved into mum’s house. Since she moved into her care home last year, the house has been rented out to help raise money for care home fees. However, the tenants proved completely unreliable, untrustworthy and unsuitable. I managed to get them to leave by mid-March, but there was a lot of work needed to make the house habitable after the mess, filth and damage left behind! After a whirlwind 2 weeks of new locks, replacing broken window and damaged frame, decoration, new carpets, new aerial, repairing boiler, cleaning, etc, besides packing and sorting both our own houses in Driffield and Barrow, we finally moved into the house in Beverley on Monday 30th March. We decided to save money by hiring a van and doing the move(s) ourselves. I would advise anyone (including ourselves for next time) NOT TO DO THIS! It’s completely knackering and bloody hard work. When you think you can’t lift anything more, you realise you are only half way through and have no choice.

We left Driffield at 7.30am on Monday to pick up the van in Beverley. Then to Barrow to clear the house completely and load everything into the van. This took until about 3pm, partly due to his lethal, stupidly narrow staircase! James had been lent some furniture and household items from his parents, and combining 2 households meant we had some duplicate/unnecessary items, so some stuff was going into storage at his parent’s farm near Malton in North Yorkshire. We drove the 20 miles to Beverley, arriving at nearly 4pm and unloaded everything that we needed, which took us to 7pm. In the meantime, Liddi came back from school (happy to now be able to walk and not waiting for unreliable buses) and then she came with us to Driffield to load up with the few items we also wanted put into storage. We were at Driffield from around 7.30 till 8.30, and then left for Malton, arriving about 9.30 to unload with the help of James’s dad. We stayed for some most welcome tea and cakes, then left around 10.30, to get back to Driffield by nearly 11.30pm. Despite having very little energy left by now, and feeling very tired, we were now loading large items of furniture (beds, tables, fridge/freezers, washing machines) as well as loads of packed boxes of kitchen things, clothes, and all the stuff we were taking to Beverley. By now it was very quiet in the neighbourhood and we were conscious of the noisy trolley and crashing and banging made by us getting things into the van. We would all have happily given up by now if it wasn’t for the fact that we only had the van for one day, and it had to be done. We tried to pretend we were out at a party and that staying up late was the sign of having fun!! (no, it didn’t work for us!). We eventually left Driffield with a fully laden van at about 1.30am. We got back to Beverley at around 2pm and really, really, couldn’t even attempt to unload the van. Besides, we thought it a bit late to be clattering and banging outside everyone’s houses. It was a mild night and several windows were open. What we needed was sleep. We scrabbled around to find 2 mattresses and a couple of bags of bedclothes, and then put them on the floors in the bedrooms and crashed into a deep slumber around 2.30am.

However, the van had to be taken back for 7.30am on Tuesday, and was still full of our furniture! So, James and I started unloading again at 6am (Liddi had set her alarm also – bless her for offering – but couldn’t manage to get up and help – not that I’m surprised). We did get everything out of the van, and took it back by 7.30 exactly. Yippee!

Next we were back over to Barrow to thoroughly clean James’s house. He had a very fussy landlady (like I’m going to be in future!), who would happy deduct money from his deposit at the slightest thing. She told him that she had deducted money from some other tenants as they hadn’t cleaned the windows properly. So, despite feeling completely exhausted, bruised, battered and with aching muscles we didn’t even know we had….we set about cleaning, washing windows, etc. She arrived at 1.30 to inspect, and said all was good but the garden should have been dug over. Despite being very gentle natured, I thought James was going to hit her! If he didn’t, I wanted to!! She left, we borrowed a fork from next door (as everything had been packed and removed) and James dug over the garden. We then needed to go back to Driffield to pick up all my clothes which we had not managed to load into the van the day before, and a couple more items. Luckily we did not have to clear the house in Driffield completely as there was going to be no-one moving in straight away, and no inspections! By the time we were back at Beverley, it was around 8pm and we only had the energy to ring up for a Chinese takeaway and collapse on the sofa. After a yummy meal, we all treated ourselves to an early night.

The next morning was 1st April. I woke up convinced that someone had stolen my body and replaced it with that of a 90-year old woman. I hoped it was an April fool joke!! When we move again, we are definitely getting professional help (and I don’t just mean the trauma counselling required after this stressful event).