Step one
On the train, between Cardiff and London, a call from the skip man: "I can't swap over the skips, because someone's parked their car in front of your drive".
I grovelled a bit, and he agreed to knock on doors for a few minutes to try to find out to whom the car belonged. A few minutes later, another call: "No dice, no-one is answering the doors - ring back when the car has gone".
5 minutes later (according to the gasman), someone sauntered out from the house to move the car, with the words, "but she told me I couldn't park here on Wednesdays only!!!" (I have had NO such conversation with anyone about parking...) Thankfully, the kind skip man answered his phone and agreed to turn round and try again to deliver. So we had an empty skip - for a wee while, anyway.
By the time I arrived, the skip was on its way to being refilled with more treated wood, and the house was being gently(?!) dismantled. I avoided the huge temptation to join in the destructive process, as I had promised to take proper measurements and photographs, and stick signs wherever we wanted the electrician to put in sockets. At about 4pm, I realised I hadn't yet eaten lunch, so stopped to do that - and then felt much better(!)
A wood man was due to quote for sorting the flooring at around 5pm, so I started dismantling things whilst waiting for him - and realised just how tired I was feeling - far less energy for pulling bits of wood apart, so didn't achieve very much. By 5:45pm, the woodman hadn't turned up, so I rang - he finally turned up at 6:30pm, but was very good when he did turn up, and gave sensible advice and a reasonable quote (I think - wait for the others to turn up first!)
Once he'd left, it was definitely time to find some more food, so went to pizza express in town for a lovely evening with Anna, and then sleep in a proper bed :) Anna's house is across the road from my old house - it was quite weird seeing it and it not being mine any more. But it was a good feeling too, that even though we're moving back to Cambridge, we're moving forwards as well, rather than just sliding back into the old life. It's a good thing, given it's going to be a completely new role for all of us in a new church.
Tuesday started far too early - woodman two was due to turn up at 8:30am, so I needed to leave by 7:45am to get across town. Matt had bought a second hand bike on his last visit (as Station Cycles are no longer available for bike hire :( ) and left it at Anna's, so at least there was no hanging around for buses.
Arrived at the house at 8:15am, and waited....
At 9:30am, another friend turned up and we filled a skip between us from the stuff in the back garden - three more trolleys were unearthed, along with: a slow cooker (internal pot and lid in one piece and saved, but decided that electrics weren't worth waiting for drying out to test), 4 deep fat fryers (the previous skip load had already contained one or two of these), 2 irons, two vacuum cleaners, three paint trays (covered in green paint, but otherwise in good order), perfectly serviceable washing up bowl, draining rack, and a dozen plant pots. Additionally, there were several mattresses, roller blinds and carpets, but thankfully no dead bodies. The best part of it all was that every time we moved something, there were two robins waiting to dive down and eat any bugs that we unearthed - presumably they've got hungry babies waiting for lots of food. They were incredibly tame, and seemed unruffled by our presence. I'm really hoping they learn a little circumspection before we introduce the cat to the neighbourhood, as I'd hate to see them ending up as an impromptu snack.
Once the skip was filled, there was a pause to draw breath, and listen to the gentle sound of other people pulling my house apart - it was actually quite relaxing - it meant that even though I was feeling shattered, progress was being made. The pause didn't last long though - the vicar (aka my new boss), the undertaker (aka the unskilled labour for pulling things apart, as he's new to the undertaking business and was waiting for bodies to be sent his way(!)), and the electrician (just an electrician, as far as I know), all turned up at the same time! The vicar was pointed towards the kettle, the undertaker towards the hammers, and the electrician shown where we want all the strange things we want to be fitted in our house. Thankfully we had biscuits too, which meant that the vicar and the undertaker (who I think knew each other, but not certain) could at least have a topic of conversation other than work, whilst I discussed things with the electrician (and tried to sound knowledgeable, and where not knowledgeable, at least not really difficult about what I wanted!)
The vicar had camping gear returned, and agreed to me booking a holiday over the summer (hoorah!), and then he disappeared to talk about baptisms to someone, just in time for woodman three to turn up for a quotation - talk about chalk and cheese. The first woodman reckoned three to five days for repairs, the second suggested they could all be done in one day! I haven't got the quotations for either yet, so we shall see what the price difference will be....
After the last of the quoting workmen had left, there was just time to head to the locksmiths. Previously, we'd had three keys cut, and given them to various people who needed access. None of the keys worked, so I went back for another try. The second batch did not work either :( It'll have to wait till the next visit now - thankfully, the back door keys work(!)
Thanks to the kindness of the gasman's wife, a tired bunny got given a lift to the station for the home trip, which was blissfully uneventful. Even the journey across London, although incredibly crowded (so sorry to the commuters who had to cope with a smelly person wielding a rucksack on the tube at rush hour....) was not overlong - the circle line was running between Paddington and Kings Cross, so no fighting with buses needed.
On the way home, I did eventually get a call from woodman two (remember him?) - he was most apologetic about not turning up, as he'd put it in the diary wrongly. Could he reschedule please? I had to point out that we wouldn't be back in the property for another three weeks, so no chance. Ah well.
Home safe and sound - glad to be home, I'll miss Cardiff, especially all its trains (we have two train lines very near to us, so if we miss one train, we can just jump on one on the other line).
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