Yup, you read that right, after all the whingeing were finally in our new house and, while it was epic getting here, all of that is in the past now. We’re in.
The day itself was, perhaps predictably, tough. I was confident leading up to it that it wouldn’t be, and in the end it wasn’t for the reasons you might think. The packers with the van arrived at 8am, (well 9am after battling south London traffic!) they were nice enough chaps, who put in a shift, but really whoever came to do the quote seriously underestimated how long it would take. ‘Out by midday/1pm’ I was told.
The van didn’t leave the old house until 6pm.
6pm.
The buyers must have been fumeing.
To be fair, I wasn’t best pleased either, having taken the children (& Nanny) to collect the keys and go to the new House, arriving (after feeding children at a local supermarket cafe) at about 2.30pm, expecting the van within the hour.
The van arrived at 7pm. Meanwhile the house was empty save for what I had in the car. Now, I have moved a lot in my life, so I have a pretty good gauge of what was needed in the limited space of the car with two child seats in. I had the dog create, travel cot, overnight bags for me and the kids, including loo roll and towels for all the bathrooms. Please keep in mind we weren’t traveling far, so I wasn’t expecting to need any of it, but I had it just in case...
...try entertaining a toddler and an infent for over 3 hours with two teddies and ‘Wow Said The Owl!’
We didn't even have camp chairs. Nanny was upset because she can’t really get up off the floor easily so was camped on the stairs for ages...my smugness for remembering toilet roll soon wore off.
Thankfully, I had remembered snacks for small people, and at 7pm, as the unloading started, I sat in the wooden floor between two open doors and breastfed the baby to a disturbed, reastless sleep in the travel cot (thank goodness for that!) The Dog was kept in her create while we hoped with each incoming box that this was the one with the dog food in! We only lost the toddler once, which was pretty good going, and found her upstairs with the removal guys, ‘helping.’
It was 10om before they left and we could feed The Dog and let her explore the house while we persuaded an overtired toddler to please eat something and actually go to bed (‘I not tired!’) she is still catching up now, 3 days later!
We were exhausted, utterly fed up with how the day had gone and totally disillusioned with the whole thing.
Sleep. We need sleep.