I tried inhaling menthol crystals over a bowl. - but I put in far too many. They didn't succeed in unclogging my nose but my eyes were STREAMING. I went to wipe my eyes and I must've had some menthol-water on my fingers... I couldn't bear to open my eyes, the pain was unbearable.
At the same time my wife sliced her finger, big time, in the kitchen. I was bumbling around blind going 'are you OK, honey?'. It only needed the kids to have fallen down the stairs at this point and the Golden Comedy Moment would've been complete.
This was also the day that I was let down by our lorry driver for our imminent Isle of Wight move ('Uh, I didn't realise that having a camera put in your knee was a big operation...') and by our guarantor for the flat ('If the shop burns down we'll liable for EVERYTHING!') and we really really didn't think it was going to happen after all, that we were going to end up homeless and jobless and stuck in the Midlands forever.
But *touch wood* it is currently looking like the Big Move is Actually Going Ahead , despite everything, and my major concern at the moment is getting rid of lots of furniture.
We have advertised several items in the local paper and today I had a posh-sounding lady ring up about a cabinet. This cabinet was trapped in an end corner of the middle room. I had to squeeze and clamber and leap like a spawning salmon up a waterfall to get to it whilst the lady fired me all sorts of Cabinet-related questions. Then she asked me about the dimensions of the cabinet and I hadn't measured it. So I climbed out to get a tape measure and crawled through back again, all the time sounding like a complete out-of-breath idiot on the phone. Then I pulled down the tape measure to see how high the cabinet was and the sharp metal edge of the tape measure sliced deep into my thumb. So I had to continue trying to sell the item to the lady, all the time spraying blood all over it.
She agreed to come and look at it- or more likely it was out of curiosity to see what this bizarre Panting Idiot-man actually looked like. Anyway, this means I had to quickly wipe the blood off both me and the cabinet, singlehandedly move lots of wardrobes and other heavy items of furniture as well as dozens of boxes of books and stuff before I was able to drag it to the front door, just as the lady arrived. I sold it for £10 but I don't believe she fully appreciated the effort I had gone to.
Tomorrow, somebody's coming to collect a sofa...
*******
Monday 23rd Nov
With the sofa now gone, House Jenga is now a little easier. Some blokes from Sense came round and just took our coffee table and computer desk, turning their noses up at everything else. Charity shop doesn't want my stuff? Well, that's a surefire confidence booster! Huh, since when did they start getting all picky? Hmm... so we STILL had a houseful of furniture. Second Chance couldn't help us but they gave me a number for House Clearance. But that way would cost a fortune we didn't have so we had to resort to Plan H: Smash the lot up with a big hammer.
Lots of sheving and chests of drawers were broken up into teeny tiny pieces and taken to the tip. Not the way I wanted to do things.
But if you throw an old wardrobe down the stairs it will explode most impressively.
Tuesday 24th Nov
Half our stuff now in splinters, miraculously, everything we wanted to take with us fitted into the removal van. Our problem now was making sure we had a guarantor sign the form - we could still get down there and find that we are unable to move in! Not till next morning do we discover that it had already been signed and nobody from the estate agents had told us!
Wednesday 25th Nov
We did it! We moved into a flat above one of the many expensive sailing wear shops in Cowes Town Centre. This is the start of a whole new life for us and hopefully this next year will be be a little kinder and gentler to us all than the last.
I'm Dreaming of a Wight Christmas... x
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