1:19 p.m. - 2003-02-18
bad weekend
I think I've now recovered enough from the weekend to be able to write about it... it was baaaaaaad.
I mean, moving's never good, is it? Never easy, painless or happy. It always involves lifting all your possessions and putting them somewhere else (in this case with hundreds of stairs involved at the moving out end). So with this underlying fact that moving house is horrible established, I'll describe my moving experience.
Got up at 7.30am (on a Saturday for krissakes), showered, dressed and started carrying the heavier boxes to the downstairs hallway so it would be all ready when the rental van arrived at 9am.
At 8.30am C got a phone call to say his aunt had died that morning. Not altogether unexpected, but no easier to bear nonetheless. C handled it well though, and decided getting on with things was the way forward. (He was due to catch the 10.15 train to Bristol to see his nan, by the way). At 9am, the expected van is not there. We carry on taking boxes downstairs, sure it will arrive imminently.
At 9.20 I rang the van rental company (Admiral for anyone interested) only to be told they would ring the driver and call me back. C went out to get me a much needed McDonalds breakfast at this point, while I waited. At 9.40 the van still wasn't there and no one had called me back, so I called them again. Vince, who had taken my booking in the first place, told me that my van had broken down near Oval and the best they could do was send a transit van which the driver had to go to Wembley to collect. "But there'll be no extra charge to you!" he gleefully revealed, before explaining the earliest this van would be with me was between 12 and 1.
C said he wouldn't go to Bristol but would help me instead, and we had coffee, watched football and read the paper while waiting for van number 2.
12 o'clock came and went.
So did 1 o'clock.
I tried calling the van company repeatedly, but there was no answer. I went down to the internet cafe and looked up their site - opening hours on a Saturday? 9 till 1. Disgusted, I wrote a stroppy email saying I was now looking for another van company. It was 2.30 by the time I found another company with a van available... in Battersea.
So... you know what happened next? We had to carry all those fecking boxes back up the million stairs before we could go to Battersea to get the van (I didn't want to go on my own as last time I drove a transit van I nearly hit another car at Marble Arch - they have terrible blind spots). 4pm we got the van - hurrah! Now we could get on and move all my stuff over to Emma's and all would be fine... bit hungry though.
So off we set... only to hit traffic jams in Victoria due to the anti-war protest. Half the roads were closed and we spent 10 minutes motionless with the engine off. Then we got diverted in one massive circle... back to Victoria. I was hungry, pissed off, tired and I needed a wee. So I did what anyone would have done and burst into tears.
Then I had to do what no one else probably would have done... I had to wee in the back of the van! I didn't want to just pee all over the place though, so C handed me a plastic bag with a knot tied in the corner and said "Here, use this!". Then I had to empty a carrier bag of hot wee down a drain!
Oh for shame! Yes, I wee'd in a carrier bag, in the back of a transit van, in Pimlico. I suppose next I'll be eating half finished burgers from the gutter and running down the street topless. I mean, if I can wee in the back of a transit van, who knows what else I'm capable of? :oS
It was now 5pm. Then I got flashed by a red traffic light camera. We didn't get back to Paddington till 6pm. That's a ridiculous 2 hour journey from Battersea to Paddington which is about 2 or 3 miles I guess. I rang my mum to tell her what was going on. She inadvertently made me laugh when she, defending her poor transit van weeing daughter, said "Damn protestors! We SHOULD go to war!!". Lol!
I was ready to give up at this point, but C immediately started taking stuff back downstairs to load up the van, and we just did it. Admittedly I was on the verge of passing out with hunger, snotty and red eyed from crying like a wuss, but we did it, and arrived at Emma's at 8.30pm and unloaded.
We had a super-friendly welcome from the kitty, a delicious Chinese take-away and a quick sort out of stuff to make it cosy-ish before going to bed and passing out.
Sunday was better. We did a food shop, took the van back and chilled out at C's. Watched 24 in the evening and Back to the Future on DVD.
So I guess it could have been worse. I'm still waiting to find out what happens to people who get flashed by red traffic lights in a rented van. We're going to C's mum's place on Saturday in readiness for the funeral on Monday. Of course, we're now going to miss the Baftas... but I found out today I'm able to give them away, so I offered them to Emma, who gladly accepted. I'm glad they won't go to waste anyway.
Incidentally, I called the van rental people several times today and yesterday. I've had no apology, no explanation and no offer of any compensation. As you can imagine, I wish I'd wee'd in their van instead of the other one.
