Our container arrived in Seattle last week and the contents were delivered to our house on Friday, a day of pouring rain. I positioned myself in the empty house at 8 a.m. and a nameless big white van arrived shortly before 9. Simultaneously, a man from the construction company arrived to discuss the repairs that still needed to be done – the burst water pipe back in December resulted in quite a bit of damage to the lower level of the house. Things were quite hectic as I answered questions flying at me from all sides – where is the damage? where should we put this big sofa? where should we put this tiny box? etc. It wasn’t long before son James turned up to talk with the construction man and I was able to direct the 4 or 5 delivery men, one of whom was also named James and looked like he played football, tackle or guard, he told me he weighed 245 lbs. Well, I think he was the one who huffed and puffed the most as they sorted out the boxes. It was a steady stream of all those boxes that we had packed in Dublin over the summer – it was my task to tick off each number as the box was carried in to the house. Numbers one to three hundred forty three. It was like a game of bingo and took a very intensive 1 1/2 hours. Those men really worked and I barely had time to sip a cup of coffee. I was ready to beg them to take a break. No chance to peek in a box labelled knitting patterns, or rug wool, or dvd’s etc. One big box that was not packed by us but rather by the packers in Dublin was labelled violin – since I don’t own a violin, I’m more than a bit curious about that one. Maybe it’s my bass recorder.
Here’s my borrowed safari chair where I positioned myself to keep an eye out the window as I waited for the van. You can see it was still dark at 8 a.m. I had my knitting, my book, my coffee – I was prepared for a long wait but the van turned up quite promptly.
Sideways view of downstairs hallway where flooring is still to be laid
Some of the contents of the container
Many of the boxes were put in the garage
The bigger furniture items were taken upstairs.
That’s it for now. Later this morning I plan to go over to the house and see how the repairs downstairs are getting on – and to do a little bit of unpacking upstairs.
Janet's thread 