Well so much for space, because that didn’t last long in the little flat. I have been assured that this most recent caper will be a great humorous pub anecdote; so prepare to be entertained to a high pitch of hysteria.
After a week of having two small chairs, two bar stools and a mattress on the floor with books piled into tables, we then were embarrassed by a sheer frivolity of places to sit. On Thursday last week, we took no less than three leather sofas, two more bar stools, a smart little office chair, a chest freezer, an air conditioning unit we can’t use, a capriciously capacious wood framed mirror, three lamps and four beds. Splendid. We were grateful for the washing machine and the book case, but the bed didn’t actually have any screws to put it together; but a mere trifle for our intrepid and pioneering spirits which was quickly overcome.
This was then generously augmented the following Tuesday with a sofa bed, an enormous fridge, two bedside cabinets, a tv unit, two drawers, a large dining table with six smart chairs and the middle corner section of what was previously an enormous corner sofa; the rest of which couldn’t fit into the lift, leaving us with a huge and rather odd, but very comfortable chair. You’re right, I hear you think, that’s bloody hilarious. I’ll leave it to your own good discretions how to count the sofa bed; if five beds and three and a half sofas or four beds and four and a half sofas is most mirthful. Nonetheless, without even counting seating for a total of nine on the sofas, there are thirteen chairs.
Needless to say, this is somewhat superfluous to a two bedroom flat and a curmudgeonly couple who have no children or dogs and entertain infrequently. So no sooner had we got it in, then we began hasty arrangements to get it all out again, and while the gratifying date for its removal was confirmed to me as I sat down to write this a few days ago, all our bloody shipping arrived right in the middle of it all.
Now I feel somewhat ashamed of my little self-righteous diatribe the other week about Stuff. Because bugger me, have I gotta lot of it. The two shipping chaps completely covered the aforementioned large dining table with our whimsical numeration of tea pots, glassware, interesting pottery, broken wine bottles with candles shoved in the necks, Venetian masks, art work and little ornaments most often in the shape of rabbits. And this was as well as the prodigious coffee table sized pile the other chap had fashioned out of all the books I’d not got on the bookcase. And all the stuff you can hide on a boat that I’d frankly managed to avoid looking at for years, like the scrabble, a comprehensive collection of Azimov, tools, ski boots, weird metal pokey things that Yates assures me are necessary for the bikes, about twenty different rucksacks and holdalls. Well now. Amid this chaos I was joyfully reunited with the Book Guardians who are now back on the shelf (you are welcome to peruse to the left for a more expansive account of their adventures), and, far more usefully, about eight pen knives which the three of us made good use of on all the boxes. But it was pleasant to have bits of our own Stuff that was familiar….and has all those little stories attached that I mentioned before. We feel more at home now, despite the wealth of seating.
Into this carnage Yates returned from work, sucked his teeth at it all with stern deliberation, then grabbed my hand from somewhere under a mountain of clothes and scarves, spun on his heel and dashed out through the rain to buy enough beer to cope with the situation. We fell to those, and the unpacking with great alacrity and have now managed to stuff most of our belongings in some sort of order in cupboards. Then the excess furniture departs tomorrow; a new dishwasher arrives the same day and a new sofa we actually want comes Friday!! But this boon of fortune was all too much for the little flat and the washing machine, wanting to redress the balance, has begun pissing water from a pipe, so hurrah hurrah, I do get lonely without daily visits from workmen.