Move In Day



Our belongings arrived on Friday morning. In a shipping container on a large flat bed truck. Which was, of course too big to back up into the drive of our Georgian Villa flat. Thankfully the local moving company had anticipated this and brought their own shorter moving truck. So they married the back of the two cargo areas, and loaded all our stuff from the shipping container into the moving truck. 


What a journey for our stuff. Packed up in Michigan, loaded onto a truck, unloaded into a warehouse, loaded into a shipping container, trekked cross-country to port of call, loaded onto a boat, sailed across the Atlantic, unloaded at port of call in London, driven to our town in Gloucestershire, loaded onto local moving truck, then hauled up to our 2 bedroom flat. Oh, and by the way, we have too much stuff. We downsized so much before we left—bare shelves, cupboards, and floorspace abounded in our house in Michigan. Here, in this 2 bedroom flat, not so much. We will be doing another round of downsizing as we unpack.

Waiting for the movers to start unloading.

The movers took some packing materials with them, but there wasn't a lot of room to unpack a majority of the boxes. So it is up to us to unpack the rest and discard the boxes. There is a large, free to the public, recycling center at one of the major supermarkets about a mile away. Much to my relief, the recycling center also has a giant bin for cardboard. The borough council recycling for our building is communal, as is the regular trash. And the bin for cardboard/magazines is about the size of a small file drawer. Not very useful when two of our moving boxes would exceed its capacity.

Living Room filling up.

For extra fun, on Friday afternoon as the movers were bringing in our belongings, my back started to seize up. And it got worse as the day went on.  A month of sleeping on a blow up air mattress, with a bendy feeling in the middle, finally caught up with me.  After the movers left (around 2pm), I was eventually reduced to crawling around on my hands and knees as I couldn't stand and walking was unbearable. I had several hours left on my own to entertain C before Z got home from work. Thankfully, there was one box that was easy enough to get to on the floor and push into the living room: a new train set for C that was a Christmas gift last year (he got two sets and this one stayed in the box until now). Perfect for this laid-up mama. So I spent the afternoon on the couch while C enjoyed playing with a new toy.

Full Kitchen

Saturday wasn't much better for my back and I spent most of the day on the couch. Sunday improved a little and I was able to walk around slowly. Z spent the weekend putting beds together and moving furniture around (which meant moving a lot of boxes too) as we tried to figure out the best way to maximize the space. I think we have a workable layout set up now. And on Monday I was able to slowly unpack a few boxes while C watched a lot of Curious George on the laptop.

The funky smell in our flat has mostly dissipated with a bit of lingering here and there. Very glad of that.

Our Master Bedroom...somewhere in there.

We still have our pay as you go hourly internet access right now. The “engineer” as the techs are called out here has been booked to instal proper Broadband, but the earliest appointment was 3 weeks out when I called to subscribe. So our online time is rather limited at the moment. In the mean time, the engineer to install the line from the communal satellite dish to our flat is coming tomorrow (yes, same services provider, but different sub-contractors for TV and Broadband installs). Which means we need to get a tv tonight so the engineer can hook up the box in the morning. One more thing on the to do list. We think when we move again, we'll just ask for cash in lieu of the Company paying to move all our belongings. Much easier to lease a furnished flat if we move within Europe again.

C was very happy to find his hat and mittens.
Ready for "snowing" as he says.

There were a couple showings on our house last week in Michigan—the first in 3 months! And an open house on Sunday. We are waiting to hear back from our realtor about how those all went. Prayers are so appreciated that God would sent the right buyers our way and we would sell the house soon.

Blessings.