Thursday, January 24, 2013

The joys of moving in the wintertime.

 

But first,  this is from the “Well now, would you look at that!”  file.

On the first leg of our journey,  we were surprise to find a few little gems in with all the “stuff”  that had been shipped over from Canada.   The movers who were sent to pack us up,  consisted of a team of three,  two of which were brothers.  My suspicion is that, one of the brother was perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer?

See, we didn’t move the entire household (oh Gawd!)  so it was important to set aside all the items that were going to be shipped so that the rest would be left behind.   Well, the brother was upstairs, and I had been checking on him, but apparently not often enough?  I suppose he was setting things out in the upper landing which would then be inventoried and taken down to the truck.  The thing is though,  there were a few items already on the landing,  and it never occurred to me that I should somehow hide them from him.  I mean,really.

So we ended up with a few extras.  No biggie.  It meant that we had some Christmas ornaments for the tree last year when we stayed here in Vienna,  so that was cool.  There are three brand new door knobs that I had up there to match all the ones I had replaced up to that point.  (they’ll get shipped back home now,  finally)  and there was also a small box of books.   I’m pretty sure I had set the books out in the hallway because I was going to turf them out,  or at least take them to some place like the “Reuse Centre”.   

Well,  they’re here too.   And they’re finally going.  We had a little issue with some water back in the spring of 2010,  and they didn’t fare so well?  

However,  since I have a problem with parting company with books in general (have to break that little habit) I did take some time to flip through a couple just to,  you know,  remember the good times?   Something like that.

These were all from courses I took way back in University.  Um ya,  I’ve been hanging onto some books for a while?  So sad.

 

There were the usual suspects from FlaubertGoetheThomas Mann.  There were a few others too,  but who cares really?

Oh,  and I did discover a copy of “The Nose”,  by Gogol.

Can you imagine I used to be able to read this stuff?  Hurts my head just to think about it.

 

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Click on the picture,  you’ll see.

Anyhoodle,  when I was flipping through the copy of Madame Bovary,  a post card popped out,  and I just thought it was kinda cool.  It was sent from England, and it’s a picture of Lloyd’s Avenue,  in Ipswich.  The cost of postage was 8p.

 

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Once upon a time I had a couple “pen pals”  (remember that idea?)  with whom I would correspond from time to time.   One was in Gmünd here in Austria,  and the other person was from Hamburg.  (I think…memory’s dim.)

Well,  here’s what she wrote.

Dear Bob!

Hope you have received my first card from England. This is now the second and last ‘cause in a week’s time I’ll be back in Germany (HORROR!)

We aren’t very lucky with the weather this summer. It’s raining all day long.

Write soon,

Love Gabi.

(Note the slightly stilted grammar?)

Um yes,  “Gabi” was a young lady.  Just makes you wonder where this person might have ended up.  The card was post marked Ipswich, 2:30 p.m., August 28, 1977.

I never met this person, and if she had ever sent a picture, that image is long gone from my memory banks. 

I wonder if I ever did “write soon”?   We’ll never know.

 

Now back to the main attraction.  Not much to say really.  It was just warm enough yesterday that I was able to get the snow off the patio table and get it inside.

Of course, that means there’s going to be water.  Not the best thing on hardwood floors, so I shoved the frame in the kitchen before taking it apart.

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This is the other reason for trying to clear off the balcony.  There used to be a table there.

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And then of course there’s a continuation of the usual.

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I’m sure you’re thrilled.

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for poppin’ ‘round.

 

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9 comments:

  1. hmm, the cold and the snow. Hope Canada warms up for your return.

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  2. Since you've taken apart the bed, do you sleep standing up? ;)

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  3. I was just wondering the same thing as Judy. What are the sleeping arrangements? or is that too personal a question?

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    1. Um no. Not too personal at all. We actually sleep in our pods, bwahhaa!
      OK, just kidding. We're from this planet, really.
      That's a spare bed.
      I may or may not take the stubby little legs off our bed on the morning of the move, but that will probably be left to one of the mover boys.

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  4. Good luck with the move. We've had our moving adventures, too over the years. Moved once in the pouring rain, another time the packers wrapped up a full can of garbage and packed it away in a box. Not to mention all the stuff that arrived broken.

    Then there was the time my stuff got lost and wasn't found for a month. And that was just moving around from one US state to the next.

    Hope your international move goes smoothly.

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  5. ...and I thought packing up to store everything to eventually move across the road was tough!

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  6. Yep, either move it or just move on and get something else to replace it.... Shipping stuff so far is OK as long as the TCTCBN pays.....LOL

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  7. It's the pits but just a few more days of pain and you should be well on your way back home. Good luck with the balance of the move.

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  8. My father had two rules that have haunted me for many years-never get rid of books or guns:) I am afraid I have failed to remain true to those rules at times:)

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Well, I've been getting too many spam comments showing up. Just a drag, so we'll go another route and hope that helps. So, we won't be hearing anything more from Mr. Nony Moose.
I guess I'll just have to do without that Gucci purse.