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 Flaubert,  Goethe,  Thomas 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.

 

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.

 

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.

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

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

I’m sure you’re thrilled.

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for poppin’ ‘round.

 

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