fred_mouse

Middlest moved out today. It wasn't stinking hot (it made it to 35°C at 14:50), but it also wasn't a pleasant temperature for much of the day -- at one point I stopped and discovered that the top 10cm of my (cotton drill) shorts were sweat soaked, and I have a couple of spots on my lower back that are a bit chafed. The day started, after the usual tasks (breakfast, coffee (which was set up ready to go the night before), shower, meds) with an attempt to be at the truck hire location before 9am, which was the nominal pick up time. Hah. I failed to allow for which pair of family members I had with me, so 'no later than 8:45' was more like 8:55. And then we had multiple issues, not least that we had to use a physical card to pay, it had to be in the name of the main driver (argh, Middlest was supposed to pay) and it's been so long since I used my card rather than the app that I don't know what my PIN is. I suspect that of the two tries, one of them was my old work PIN. And there was a queue. We were processed and awaiting keys at 9:30.

So, collect truck and be home in time for me to leave to get to 10am appointment was a fail. However, we signed up to have a second driver, so I went straight to the chiro while the other two went home. I had lots of bits adjusted, which seems to have helped with the 'every time I stand up it sodding hurts Right There (hip)'. Chiro agrees with me that it is probably soft tissue damage not joint, but that it looks more like unhappy tendon than pulled muscle. Please come back in two weeks, because yes, hip being more than usually out of sorts is putting everything else out (I do love that really, I'm getting a really really targetted massage that addresses all the sodding tight bits).

I got home to discover that the couch, the bed, the entertainment unit were in the truck. The desk was heading out there. I'm not sure when the bookshelf (possibly plural?) went in but that must have been after the desk, based on the order of unpacking. And then we loaded a lot of boxes.

From there we went to ariaflame's, where it was discovered that in fact no-one had followed the request to make sure that the dolly's wheels weren't flat. Getting a fridge down a flight of stairs with a 90° turn on not-a-fridge trolley (one set of large wheels) when the wheels are flat, but not the same amount flat, so every drop down a step goes sideways was, hmm, interesting. At this point we had four of the original six (artisanat, the two kids currently in the city, and Middlest's friends R and A, who were described as the brains and the brawn, respectively -- Middlest commented that they didn't think they had either the brains or the brawn needed for the move, so they outsourced). Once the fridge was on the ground level, it was mostly good -- we were very lucky that the available truck was one with a lifting platform, so we didn't have to deal with ramps. And then I got to reverse the truck (note: this is a ~3t truck, which can legally be driven with a standard car licence) about 150m. Once Artisanat standardised their hand signals, all was good. There were a couple of times where they tried a random hand signal, which I interpreted as 'stop until instructions are clear'.

One more stop, at W's place, to pick up furniture (two pieces, neither large) and as many boxes as would fit. More went in than the minimum hoped for; we chose not to put them all in (which was a possibility) because we didn't have anything to hold them and we'd used all the available bracing (the fridge was great - the gap from that to the door was exactly Bunnings medium box size, so we had two high-ish stacks there - only as high as the tallest could reach from the group). We were six again here, because Middlest and R had gone ahead to do what organisation was possible.

And then arrival at the new place, via a dead end when 'next left' was interpreted differently by the driver than intended by the navigator (later apology was that actually, there was one more left than had been seen on the map). Unpacking wasn't fun, because of all the stupid things, the front gate is at one side of the front garden (these are town houses), so the path starts with a 90° turn, then the path runs along the front fence -- up three stairs-- does another 90° turn, another step, and then a front door which seems to be optimised for never getting a piece of furniture in without taking off a piece of paint. Note that town house detail - all the bedrooms are upstairs, the (bloody heavy) mattress and base, plus the really awkward desk had to go up (we couldn't get the desk in the door; we had to partially disassemble it, to take the hutch section off, and if we'd had an allen key with us we've have taken off one of its legs. bloody annoying IKEA furniture, which has four separate types of attachment methods, and only three of them could be removed with a philips head screwdriver). This was heading into the hottest point of the day. We had water, but Middlest had missed the memo on providing food; I'd grabbed something out of the pantry, but it turned out to be verboten, given that it had peanuts in it, and there are to be no peanuts around new housemate S (fair; I'm all for not putting allergens in people's home environments. What is less fair is that S is all for having chillis, and W is allergic; the chilli bush is in the garden though).

Somewhen in here Eldest got a lift home, so that they could do some house stuff before their evening gaming. I think we got more hours out of them than I'd expected, so all good there.

Second run of the truck went to new housemate R's place to pick up a mattress (apparently they'd done four carloads with a friend in the morning, and the only things left were the mattress and the cat, the former of which did not fit in any of the available cars). This turned out to be a useful thing to have, because the outdoor set that was to be collected from W's mother is woven cane with a glass top (rectangular). Top went on the mattress, with a plush blanket on top, and then tie down straps in both horizontal directions. Because of the location and the absolute snarl of traffic we'd come through on the way in, I refused to go back the way we'd come. Which would have been fine except it turns out that the alternate route out of the suburb isn't built for the traffic, and we got to the backed up traffic about 1km out from the traffic lights just before the freeway crossing. Thankfully, the truck had aircon. And we didn't have to turn right onto a major road, nor try and change lanes in about 200m worth of road in rush hour. I may possibly have cut someone off by dint of looking in the mirror, deciding I had enough space, and then just changing lanes (yes I indicated and waited) instead of letting them get past me (there was so much traffic, it really didn't matter, I was going to cut someone off, and we had a fuck off big vehicle with 'rental' on it to say 'this driver has no clue and cannot be trusted').

That got unloaded, more things went up stairs, the fridge is plugged in and chugging along, the outdoor table is outside with the undamaged glass top on it, and Artisanat and I came home. I'm sore and a bit out of sorts, and I can tell that I've been clenching my jaw, but I don't actually have a headache (which was a concern, when I realised about halfway through the day that I didn't have sunglasses with me). Middlest came home with us in the truck, packed their small pile of precious / can't go in the truck items into one of the cars (the white car, I think, which they are borrowing so they can use it tomorrow to get the rest of the stuff from W's), the EV was put in the garage (now that the stash of stuff was all out), the truck backed in to the driveway (because we didn't want it on the street, we have a 24 h booking, and we weren't going to make it by office close time to return it 20min drive away).

There is a lot of empty space. We need to rearrange things, and Middlest's room needs actually cleaning out, but I have hopes that we might be able to rationalise some of the mess. We still have a drum kit, but it has been moved so that it takes up less space. There is a teetering mound of stuff that is to leave the house in the music room, and another in the front hall. I have hopes that in the next few weeks I'll be able to break that down into far fewer items, although exactly how I'm going to do that is yet to be seen. And then the next task is to empty the storage locker, which, argh.

Tomorrow is going to be a different exhausting, with a memorial in the morning; a National Day of Action event in favour of protecting trans youth and their access to appropriate medical treatment (in response to some bullshit that the QLD goverment has pulled); and then a gathering at the beach to catch up with some school friends, given that the NZ located one is in town.

Middlest passed their driving test. First go. Stuffed a few things up (and my, has the system got fancy since I did it -- two double sided pages of report!), but not so many that there was an issue.

One down, two to go.

Eldest is reluctant, but doing weekly lessons. Youngest is lamenting that they can't get their learners for another year and two weeks, and some of their friends will get theirs in August.