Happiness is having your things around you

Waiting to be trimmed!

"This feels more like home now,"Mitch said yesterday, as he was walking into the apartment, home from a day at school.  I was happy that he said that. As you know, we have been moving around a bit in the last 18 months. It's good he can call the apartment home. Home is where you heart is, where you lay your hat, where you hopefully feel safe, warm, loved and contented. Of course, home for some can be hell too, especially when I have my "angry week" aka PMT week, home can sure be hell for my loved ones!

Our things arrived from Trinidad on Tuesday. We knew the boxes had arrived via air cargo last week, was awaiting customs clearance and then final delivery. Dave got the customs clearance on Friday but was too late to get the forms to Air Transporter to arrange delivery,  and they were not open on Saturday. Finally, on Monday, all paperwork were in order, cheque paid, elevator at the apartment booked for deliver in Tuesday.... yipppeeee. all systems go. I had a minute of slight trepidation when I thought of how much stuff was arriving and being in a 1000sq ft apartment, was just a tad concerned as to where I was going to house all our things.  We also had the misfortune of losing one box in transit from our house in Vic Gardens to MP's house in Palm Drive and then on to Henderson's the shipping firm... one box less to place, should be a blessing, but in that box were some clothes, costume jewellery, books and my handbags.

Tuesday arrives, after a few more hiccups in the morning, the boxes are at the loading bay of the apartment at about 1pm. I get a call from Dave, delivery guy is at the bay and he can't get in. No worries, I will get hold of security. I call the delivery guy on his cell and he said, it's ok, security had let him in. I wait and wait, and wait some more. I had propped open the front door, waiting for him to arrive. 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins, still no delivery guy. I walk towards the elevators, all quiet, no guy, no sound of anyone using elevator......hmmmmm...... what was happening???

I get a call from the delivery guy, "Ummmm, I can't get the skip into the lift,"
Me,"Skip? What skip?"
Guy,"The skip they packed your stuff in,"
Me," Oh. hang on, I'll come down and see,"

this is a similar pic of the box that arrived

So, off I go, unprop door, lock apartment, and go and see what the problem was. I get down to the loading bay, via the garbage and recycle room, and check out the problem.  I have never ever shipped any cargo by air before so did not realise that they put all your boxes in a 'skip', which is a very sturdy cardboard container, nailed to a pallet at it's base, it's about 4x4 feet in size, and yes, it was too wide to get thru the elevator doors. After several seconds of working out what to do, cogwheels madly turning in my head, would have been more useful to have brain cells than cogwheels?, I hear you thinking. Yeah, I know.
I said, " How about if we cut open the boxes and just take the contents up,"
Guy, "Yeah, you could do that, or I could take stuff to your garage if you have one?"
Me,"This is a condo, I have no individual garage! How about we stick to cutting the boxes?"
Guy," Well, it's too big for the elevator, actually, the skips were too big for my tailgate too! Up to you what you want to do"
Me, "Great, let's open the boxes. Is this the only skip? Will you help me take the boxes up?"
Guy,"No, there's another half of one in my truck, and no, my job is to deliver, not to open and cart boxes up"
Me,"OK, you get the 2nd down too whilst I go get a knife and scissors to surgically remove my boxes from the skip," (I did not use the word surgically verbally, but thought it!)
Your job is to deliver? And if there is some complication, the delivery stops where you want to stop! Jobsworth!
I ran back upstairs, called the cavalry in, namely Dave, quickly explained what was happening, asked for his help, said I was taking the knife down.. "Knife? You gonna kill the guy? Cos he won't help you take the boxes up?"
You see how my husband thinks I'm capable of murder just because someone won't do as I ask? To add insult to injury, it's not even angry week!
I told Dave that I only had the elevator till 3 and wasn't sure if I could do it all on my own, before then, and that the knife was for cutting the boxes open, not for killing!

I go back down, second box being carefully positioned on tailgate, I had visions of the guy and the box falling off, and have another problem I had to deal with.  No thanks! Health and safety at work?? My ass, but I still didn't want him to have an accident unloading my things! The 2nd box was upside down, it had printed on it, THIS WAY UP with the customary arrow, but the arrow was pointing down and the words were upside down...... GRRRRRR the family china might have been in that box! LOL

Guy helps me take off the metal straps around the boxes, I said, will you remove the packaging? No such luck lady, did you not just hear me tell you my job was to just pick up, drive and unload? This is what I imagined was running through his mind when he politely refused to take the rubbish!

I get to work, more like an orthopaedic surgeon than a plastic one, I hacked into the box, actually I was more of a carpenter, slicing down the edges to reveal my boxes. I had borrowed the trolley from  security so, I could wheel up 4 boxes at a time. I had 18 boxes. 2 were bike boxes which, when Dave arrived, we took down to our locker for now.

The innards

Dave and I worked well together and all the boxes were brought up by about 2.30, not bad. Dave decided to work from home after that. And that is what he just did, he was like a boy on Christmas morning, opening the boxes, to be reacquainted with things we hadn't seen for a few months, things we forgot existed! That was my feeling, I wanted to leave them all boxed, I didn't know where I could put all that stuff.. Dave sorted through about 10 boxes, some to remain in storage, some to be used. I shyed away from it all, apart from when it was my things, I sorted and placed them appropriately for the moment!

The Hi-Fi was unpacked, finally, some music through some loud speakers! That's reminded me we have that now, just put some Prince on. Hi-fi's in the bedroom at the moment, no space in the living area because we have the Christmas tree up, it's not trimmed as yet, need to find a place where we have an electric socket! Want to know what the first thing Dave unpacked was? Yes, the Hi Fi, and 2nd? Yes, the Christmas tree, Dave just loves his Christmas tree, see the boy reference above? Love him, love him lots and lots and lots.

Shouts of joy and excitement greeted us as Mitch and Jas returned from school that day... our things have arrived!!! Jasmine opened her suitcase stuffed with her soft toys and for the rest of the evening was cuddling them each in turn, talking to them as if they were her long lost children. She offered Mitch his toys, but he poo pooed them. Jasmine was so affronted and told the toys not to worry , that she would love them even if Mitchell wouldn't..... sweeeet or what. Haven't seen my girl so happy for a while.

Cool girl with her cool toys

One of the reasons Dave wanted to go through all the boxes was to see if we were indeed missing a box.  We had 18 in total, so that meant 1 was missing. We sorted them through, and the box with my handbags had arrived! It transpired that we had got the list wrong, nothing was missing after all! More to celebrate...and we did, Dave and I after an exhausting afternoon of carting boxes and unpacking , sorting, repacking, taking boxes apart, we went out to our favourite cheap Chinese veggie restaurant for dinner, kids did not want to come, so, I went and got them a takeaway of char siew and roast duck rice!

We met 2 lovely people at the restaurant, but that is fodder for another post.....

We have one of these dolls Dave brought back from Prague, I have always wanted one of these as a child, and it's one of the things I'm glad we unpacked!

The tree fully trimmed