English creature comforts

I am too old to be a removals man and I am too old to sleep on a blown up mattress that decided gradually to unable itself whilst I tried to sleep last night. I seldom have nightmares, least of all when I am awake but last night was an exception.

But I am getting ahead of myself on the misery stakes.  Those that know me well understand (but may not necessarily agree) with the fact that I consider that my skills lie more in the literary, cerebral and intellectual fields rather than areas that require physical labor and practicality. For instance, I have never been able to take something simple out of a box, follow the instructions and make whatever infernal gadget was in it work. I am dangerous with tools, (a failing that I have deliberately nurtured over the years with some success) so usually I have been able to avoid hard physical labor with the notable exception of graveling recently, which was deemed by that nice lady decorator to be so simple even I could be trusted with the task.

Yesterday then, I was ordered to hire a van to collect a seriously large load of detritus beautiful old furniture and curious knock knacks which had been carefully hoarded by her over the past decades which had been stored ready to decorate our new house in Arundel. It was my own fault, I casually asked when the removals men were going to deliver the beds and sofas etc. That is when the trouble started.

Comfy garden furniture, English style

The only good thing about being a press-ganged removals man for two days, yes the nightmare is only half way through, was that I was able to hire a big white van. This has a curious influence on how one behaves. Suddenly my accent reverted to “surf London” where I was “brung up” so to speak, and when driving it, the middle fingers of both hands seem to take to a life of their own erecting themselves vertically without warning at any slight, real or imagined. Swear words that would never pass my lips tumbled out in a torrent, I cut people up on the roads, parked badly and never used the direction indicators. In short, I became white van man.

However, that was the end of the fun. We have a tiny house now so what was the point of hoarding three grandfather clocks? Especially as, with low ceilings almost throughout, they will presumably have to lay on their side or be cut down to size. How many dining room chairs does one need when the maximum number of people standing up in your tiny dining room is 6? I counted 12. Why an axe, a shovel, a hoe, an edging tool, a hedge trimmer, a garden fork and a trimmer? We have a small back yard, which will be decked or concreted over and will be used only as access to the pub next door.

But notable by the absence was a number of items one may have considered to be slightly higher priorities. Sofas for instance, or beds or pillows? So as I write I am lying in back-breaking agony on a deflated mattress with a deflated ego and no pillow, contemplating another demon day of nightmare toil ahead. And I have not even mentioned the rain yet, nor the fact that I am missing Valbonne and all my Currencies Direct customers already.

If there are no beds in place by this evening I have told that nice lady decorator that I shall be checking back into the Norfolk arms in the village for the foreseeable