Saturday, 17 December 2005

The end of a long day

This post is going to be short and probably not very coherent. It's ten past eleven at night and we've just done the move to Wanganui. We hired a van and were our own removal men, which was hard work, but with the help of a sack truck which we bought from the local DIY store, we managed to do it without hospitalising ourselves, which has got to be a bonus. The van was absolutely jam packed - I've taken a photo which I'll post up here tomorrow (or whenever I get a spare minute in the next couple of days).

It took us six hours to load the van up last night, and eight hours to drive down today. We got a bit of a fright about three quarters of the way here when the van started skidding - we would have gone off the road and careered through a barrier and down a hillside if Iain hadn't managed to get the vehicle back under control. We think it was a combination of the steep downward slope, the poor road surface, the wet weather and the heavily laden truck that caused the skid - we virtually crawled the rest of the way. It really put the wind up us.

Having taken six hours to load, it only took two and a half to unload the van, which was a relief. When Iain looked inside our letter box (an external one like they all are here) he found a lot of post (thanks to everyone who sent us a Christmas card by the way! ) and an ants' nest. Sorting that out is a job I'll have to tackle tomorrow. Iain's off first thing tomorrow morning to drive back to Auckland. He'll be camping out in the empty flat, which won't be much fun, but at least he'll have the telly and his computer. He's got three more days' teaching until the end of term, and then he'll be driving home on Wednesday evening.

I'll have to go now - the words are jumping around on the screen. I'm off to try to ease the knots from my aching muscles with some gentle yoga before collapsing into bed. Good night all.

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