Ipswich part 1: Friday night
Sep. 23rd, 2002 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
triskellianOne of my favourite friends has taken it into his head to move to Ipswich. Something about living with the woman he's intending to marry. Don't know where he gets these strange ideas from.
So we went to visit, with the main aim of meeting the baby kittens they've acquired, and the subsidiary aim of driving a van full of his stuff across almost the entire South of England.
Early Friday evening, we were standing in the driveway of the house he's just left, surrounded by dozens of boxes and lots of miscellaneous junk. He has demijohns, thick with dust, and an ancient Subbuteo set. His ex-landlord, my best friend, had joked that if he was going to throw anything away, he should do it after moving, so his fiancee will appreciate the sacrifice. We all started to regret those words.
It was all OK, though. We had The Miraculous Van Packer. He had a Plan. Heavy boxes here, light boxes there, fragile ones in that corner, and that should leave a space exactly the right size and shape for the bike over there, and the futon just slots in *here*.
Two thirds of the way through, it looked like this wasn't going to work. The owner of the boxes started prioritising, and the ex-landlord started moving some back into her shed.
Then all the boxes were gone from the drive, and there was still space in the van. The box owner starting running around, collecting the earlier, de-prioritised, boxes, and giving them to The Miraculous Van Packer. Eventually I confiscated the keys, and forced him to leave, without finding stray biros to fit into the tiniest spaces left.
We drove to Ipswich, my boyfriend and I sharing the driving, stopping for food halfway, and listening to a loaned tape of the third Harry Potter book.
We arrived in Ipswich, exhausted, left the van unpacked, performed kitten introductions and opened a bottle of wine. The Friend-Stealing Fiancee arrived home, and we all gave up and went to sleep.
So we went to visit, with the main aim of meeting the baby kittens they've acquired, and the subsidiary aim of driving a van full of his stuff across almost the entire South of England.
Early Friday evening, we were standing in the driveway of the house he's just left, surrounded by dozens of boxes and lots of miscellaneous junk. He has demijohns, thick with dust, and an ancient Subbuteo set. His ex-landlord, my best friend, had joked that if he was going to throw anything away, he should do it after moving, so his fiancee will appreciate the sacrifice. We all started to regret those words.
It was all OK, though. We had The Miraculous Van Packer. He had a Plan. Heavy boxes here, light boxes there, fragile ones in that corner, and that should leave a space exactly the right size and shape for the bike over there, and the futon just slots in *here*.
Two thirds of the way through, it looked like this wasn't going to work. The owner of the boxes started prioritising, and the ex-landlord started moving some back into her shed.
Then all the boxes were gone from the drive, and there was still space in the van. The box owner starting running around, collecting the earlier, de-prioritised, boxes, and giving them to The Miraculous Van Packer. Eventually I confiscated the keys, and forced him to leave, without finding stray biros to fit into the tiniest spaces left.
We drove to Ipswich, my boyfriend and I sharing the driving, stopping for food halfway, and listening to a loaned tape of the third Harry Potter book.
We arrived in Ipswich, exhausted, left the van unpacked, performed kitten introductions and opened a bottle of wine. The Friend-Stealing Fiancee arrived home, and we all gave up and went to sleep.
