After a day of hard manual labour we staggered back home at 7.00pm last night. Our sore backs, aching shoulders and tired legs told of a busy and stressful day. We had been helping Robin’s brother Gary shift house, enough said! Gary’s former home has what can only be described as a “killer drive”, so extremely steep that I for one (and the daughter of the house) would never drive a car up there. The drive didn’t seem to bother the two young fit people, (one young man and a young woman) who parked the moving truck at the bottom of the drive down on the street. They carried all the large items of furniture almost effortlessly down that steep drive and loaded up the truck.
It’s no trouble when you are young and fit
There was a bit of a problem with the fridge – try as they might, it just wasn’t going to fit through the internal door. Helpful advice was given from both sides of the door, but it was the rounded door handle which was the problem.
It’s too wide for the doorway
There was only one thing for it, off with the door. Gary tapped at the hinge pins and out they popped. With the door removed, those couple of extra inches made all the difference.
Off with the door
As the truck was being loaded, the idea was for Robin to load up our 4WD and trailer with cartons of stuff. But the steep drive made it difficult to manoeuvre a trailer backwards behind the car. In the end it took three people to push the trailer up the drive and into the garage. Robin then backed his 4WD up, hitched up the trailer and started loading cartons.
Pushing the trailer into the garage
Meanwhile, I helped out by washing inside some kitchen cupboards and vacuuming the floors as the bedrooms were cleared. As the morning progressed it became obvious that the moving truck would not have the capacity to take everything, including the contents of the garage and the garden furniture. The contract was for one shift only, so that put Robin’s brother in a bit of a spot. Even with the boxes loaded onto our car and trailer, and the three family cars packed to the gunnels, it hardly made a dent in the amount that needed to be moved. Gary had to hire a small self drive truck to take the balance.
At the new house
We all converged at the new property and started unloading various boxes, cartons, bags and packages. Luckily the cartons were marked so we knew which went to the kitchen, the bedrooms, the lounge or the garage. And best of all, the new house had a nice flat section. The two youngsters handled the heavy furniture, including that large fridge which had caused so much trouble earlier in the day. Once everything was unloaded, we returned back to Gary’s former home to trudge up and down that terrible driveway again to put a second load into the self drive truck. The sun had long set, it was dark and we were tired and sore – it was time to head home. Luckily I had my slow cooker simmering away so after a quick meal and a little telly, we collapsed into bed, worn out from the exertions of the day.
Robin had offered his services again today, so the alarm clock was set for the second morning in a row to get us up in the dark and cold. It took two more loads in the self drive truck today to get everything shifted – that’s a whole heap of “stuff”. So what have we learnt from this house moving exercise? Make sure that when moving house you get a big truck capable of taking all your worldly goods in one trip. Have a good clear out before you move. Don’t pack too many heavy books in each carton. Never buy a house with a steep drive. And sad but true, we are not as young as we used to be!
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