A moving experience
Now the computer is back online I can report on some of the last few days. On Wednesday, following the completion ceremony, we started moving stuff to the house. It was immediately obvious that getting a washing machine and other heavy items up three floors was a no-go, so on Thursday morning I went to see a local removals company. To my surprise they offered to move my stuff the following day, so I spent the rest of the day moving small items. That itself is a task not to be underestimated; there were originally perhaps ten carloads in the garage, and each one requires up to eight trips up three flights of stairs. At the time of writing I’m at about the three-quarter mark and my leg muscles have doubled in size. I can now clear a double-decker bus with a single bound.

At 8am on Friday morning I turned up at the rented garage in Bordighera, and shortly after so did the removals people. Half an hour later we were on our way with a vanfull of all the large and heavy stuff, with me curious as to how they’d shift the things vertically.

The answer is in this picture; an extending ladder with the rungs replaced by a powered hoist.

This machine made short work of even the heaviest item and by 11am we were left to deal with the pile of stuff now strewn about the house. Plus the usual trips to the garage by car for more of the smaller items. We could have had the removals company shift all of it but there just isn’t room for everything here until more cupboards and shelves are constructed, and some will have to be dumped. We’re living in a small cave in an impenetrable mass of belongings most of whose purpose defies any explanation. Why did I buy a pair of inflatable loudspeakers? What use are a chainsaw and a brushcutter in a village-centre house with no garden?

The next item on the agenda was a TV set, followed by fitting the dish for the Sky box. This involved standing on a narrow ledge three floors up, drilling holes through a wall and manoeuvring a 100cm dish onto its bracket. Yes, I wore a safety rope, though the only place to attach it was the handle of the front door, so I hoped that was as strong as it looked.

And so the work goes on; familiar no doubt to anyone who has moved house recently. There’s no end to it beyond what can be afforded at the time, and a long list of tasks and purchases for when time and money allow.