05 June 2007

Oh so very wrong

I don't know what Tom Hanks or Steve Martin were on about; life is not a box of chocolates, nor can it be compared to a merry-go-round or a rollercoaster. Life is, in my opinion, one of those wheels in a hamster's cage - you run and run and run as fast as you can and don't get anywhere. The Red Queen said it best in either Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" That is exactly how I feel about life at present, AND I have assistance in the form of my dearest Mama who is down staying with us until next Monday then she returns back to the Frozen North (aka Edinburgh). And that scares me. How on earth am I going to
  • look after one rather contrary, argumentative and stubborn 3 year old
  • look after the Count Sir Grumpalot
  • look for a new house (becoming more and more pressing as our deadline of the end of the month looms)
  • look after the housework and the laundry
  • stay reasonably sane and pretend to be a togetherish type of person.

Any ideas? It feels like no matter how much housework and laundry I do there always seems to be more, especially with the housework. And then there is the actual packing and moving. I'm in denial over them (of course I need to find somewhere to live first). I think I may have to beg MrV to pay a moving company to come and do that bit.

So after Monday, if you're looking for me, I'll be sitting in the corner, rocking backwards and forwards holding on tightly to a very large bottle of booze.

9 comments:

Pam said...

Oh dear, and I was just feeling sorry for myself. Poor you - though lucky you too, of course, with your lovely children. But I do hope you find somewhere nice to stay soon.

I didn't realise that your mum still lived in Edinburgh. I wonder if I know her...?

Frozen North, indeed! (Mind you, it is a bit chilly today.)

meggie said...

Oh I do feel for you. We moved house when our son was 6 months old, & that was a huge stress...especially since GOM was involved in an accident in our car the night before the move. He was OK but the car wasn't.

Wishing your luck with finding somewhere nice to live.

Anonymous said...

OK here's what you do. You have five items on that list. COMPLETELY FORGET about items 4 and 5. Neither of those items are truly necessary or even desirable given the present crisis. In fact, I think they are totally overrated at any time. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Every time I've moved I've regretted not getting a proper removal firm to do it for me (don't bother with 'man and van' - I've a long horror story with one of those). They're expensive but your sanity is worth MUCH more.

I'm with Kirsty on points 4 and 5 - they'll get done whenever and there's always Primark if you run out of clean pants!

velcro said...

Isabelle, actually you may have met her as she works at the Eye Pavillion but not as an eye doc.

Meggie, I'm glad to hear that GOM was ok, but what bad timing!

Kirsty, am already paring down what has to be done by postponing the Count's transition from disposable nappies to cloth ones. Shall definately give up no 5 on the list.

MrsT - M&S darling M&S! One doesn't shop at Primark! (seriously though it is worth getting some of those multipacks from M&S instead of disposable maternity pants).
We've done a couple of moves with proper removal firms (to the Netherlands and back) and it was fantastic. It took them less than a day to pack up all our rubbish and load it onto a huge lorry. The only downside was all the packaging we had to get rid of when we unpacked at the other end.

Removal horror story please. Need some sort of distraction.

Lily said...

Thought I would be all clever and suggest ditching number 5 until the boys are full grown -- but Kirsty was here before me. Hang in there. Oddly enough, you'll look back fondly at some point. We moved house when B was 10 months -- stayed in a temp apartment without our stuff for 30 days -- shuttled back and forth between in-laws place and ours while showing the house -- and I still have some good memories of that time and seem to have forgotten most of the worst.

Ali said...

MIGHT have to get a removal company??! With 2 small children, anything else is not really an option!

I remember my first day of flying solo with 2 smallies. I was hugely nervous about it, but reality wasn't nearly so bad.

And there's always more housework and laundry to be done - bugger them I say!

Keeping my fingers crossed on the house hunting front for you.

Anonymous said...

Velcro - we made the mistake of moving on Saturday 11 September, and agreed to meet them at our store shed at Access in Wandsworth who shut at 12 noon. To make matters worse stepdaughter was staying with us that weekend.

Man and van were a couple of Asian guys in a Luton van, and their 2 jobs before us were in north London. You can imagine how many times they got stopped by the Police on that particular date. We ended up stood on Garratt Lane in Wandsworth for 5 hours surrounded by most of our worldly goods with a grumpy 8 year old. It's Pickfords next time.

angelfeet said...

Pickfords did it for me when my stuff went into storage recently and that was a huge relief. If we ever move that will be number one on my list of must-haves. Sorry there's still no luck with a new flat yet.