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It's going to be a bumpy few days.
The race to get the house ready in time for the removal men to move in (most of) our furniture was truly on. The removal day is tomorrow and when I arrived at the new house today it seemed like it would be impossible for it to be ready in time. We had a team of deep cleaners coming round at 2, but the men were still painting and fixing and the kitchen was covered in plastic and the lounge was full of the boxes that I'd already brought round.
I was going to try and move as many of those as possible into the attic or out of the way, but it was hard to move for decorators and builders and an older man with a moustache looked very angry that I was even there. There was a language barrier too. When I put a box of books on the seemingly dry but freshly painted bookshelf he came in and spat the word "wet" at me.
I got a few boxes upstairs, but it was hard work. For a man whose work is usually easy. Or at least not labourious.
At one point I shifted a box which knocked the heavy wooden part of the kitchen table against the wall, scuffing up the paintwork and smashing a bit of skirting. The moustachioed man didn't get any happier when he was called in to fix that.
The cleaners arrived, but again they did not speak much English (I voted hard Brexit to stop this kind of thing). One of them trailed mud up the brand new carpet on the stairs. That seemed to be the opposite of the required job.
They were booked for four hours - and there were quite a few of them, but two hours in the kitchen was still being worked on and I'd got the living room into a state where they could clean half of it.
After the initial faux pas (I can speak foreign languages, why can't these people speak English? They might be better at foreign languages than me to be fair) the cleaners worked hard. Two of them left after two hours and told me they were going to Cambridge, but they'd be back at 8.30. "In the morning?" I asked. But no they were going to Cambridge and then coming back. But that would be six hours after they started. And I had to go home to look after Phoebe whilst Catie took Ernie to a club.
Somehow the kitchen was suddenly in a state to clean, but I had to drive home (old) from my home (new) and then once everyone else was home (old) I could return home (new) to let the cleaners in or out depending on what state the house was in.
It was non-stop and I was exhausted, but to be fair, everyone in the house was working at full pelt, apart from the sardonic moustachioed man who was mainly concentrating on getting in my way as he dabbed a dot of paint on to a skirting board (admittedly one I'd smahsed).
I got back to the house about 8 and the cleaners who hadn't gone to Cambridge were still working. Was I going to have to pay them more? They had cost a lot, but then I hadn't anticipated how many of them there would be. The Cambridge ladies returned to check the work and aside from the stains on the carpet that maybe weren't entirely gone, it had been an excellent job.
I locked up drove home (old) to sleep there for the last time. The hill to the village was a river and the rain poured down. The stone gods are angry with me. Sorry that vast swathes of the UK have to also suffer for my inability to move every last stone off a field.
I went out for one final chapter of stone clearing (unless I return - though I am going to be five miles away, a long distance for a stone clearer- most of whom won't travel beyond their home and field in their life time and would fear falling off the end of the world
I may be back
Joining me on 7th October at the Leicester Sq Theatre, the wonderful Doon Mackichan - The other guest has been announced in the badger and plusser secret area.
