Diary of a weekend gardener

Our house has vanished

OK, so we did book a full pack service , but were still completely unprepared for the 6 man team of locusts which swept through the door this lunchtime and packed almost the entire house in an afternoon. Especially since we aren't actually moving until Friday. 'Sorry if it's all a bit sudden' said the rep, sympathetically, as if he meant it. 'We had a few men spare so we thought we'd send them all along'. Fantastic. We were expecting a quiet start today - a couple of guys starting in one room - us just ahead of them, clearing out the last of the stuff we don't want, with time for the occasional trip to the tip. No chance. I stopped one chap neatly packing the pile of rusting cutlery I'd picked out for the tip. Another had carefully wrapped my prized jacaranda seedling pot - and put it at the bottom of a box. I fished them out just in time - they'd never have survived a three day store in their depot. I just managed to keep them out of our room long enough to pack my underwear.

Tonight we have a mini-wake in progress. Youngest Trillia's friends are round. Apparently we've 'destroyed their childhood memories' by moving out of their favourite (i.e. only) Saturday night refuge. So I did what any parent does with a bunch of sulky kids (still works with 17-19 year olds). I gave them some paper, pencils and a tupperware box and they've made a time capsule for the house. Along with subs for some liquid emolient from the off-licence (with apologies to any disapproving parents out there). That cheered them up a bit. For some reason they decided to write letters to the house wearing my pink GOTY t-shirts. Bizarre. They might miss the house, but we will miss their weekend vitality and nonsense much more.

The posh chaise longue is almost the only item of furniture left in the house - because it belongs to next door.

posted by Sue Beesley @ 8:40 pm