Weekend Update!

It has been an extremely busy weekend, sadly none of it involved birding. On Saturday I had to go Keys Auctioneers at Aylsham to drop off lots of antiques (from my parent's house) for forthcoming sales. I had most of the items at my house, but went to Holme first, to pick up some more items and then headed to Aylsham arriving at around 9.30am. I spent a long time there, booking everything in and deciding which sales each item was going in to. Then had to get back to Holme for 1pm for a van company arriving to pick up the piano I sold to 'Annie' last week. The van company were arriving some time between 1pm and 6pm. I was really hoping they were going to arrive in daylight as I knew it would be difficult to get the piano out of the house and the ground is rough at best outside the property, plus there is no street lighting! I had a message from Annie that the van was turning up at 3pm, then later she sent another message saying 4pm. It was freezing sitting in my parent's house all this time, I didn't want to turn the heating up as we all have to pay the bill now, so stuck it out and put my hands in my pockets and tried to have a nap, but it was too cold to settle. The van company eventually turned up, very unprofessionally at 5.50pm!!!

They were not very good drivers and made a pig's ear out of backing up down the road – it was a good job I stood by my Skoda! The whole thing was a complete debacle! Only three men turned up in a food transit van with no tail lift!!! They were all Portuguese and were swearing and shouting throughout the move. They were unprepared for the job and in some ways I felt sorry for them to be honest. The boss of the group said he 'normally has the vehicle with the tail lift', but 'not today'. Annie and her husband had arrived to oversee things and I thought it was dreadful that her husband had to help with the piano, when they had paid for four men to remove and deliver their piano. The van service was AnyVan – the 'boss' said he was a courier for 'AnyVan' – I didn't really understand the set up at all, but I wouldn't recommend them! They struggled just to get it from the dining room to the front door and that was where the problems really started – it was extremely difficult once they got it over the threshold of the door and one of the men was wedged in between the piano and the postbox. The postbox was pushed into the glass of the porch and the entire pane smashed! They also scraped off a large chunk of polished wood from the piano – hopefully it can be super-glued back into place. They then had to carry the piano down a step, then up a step and onto the unmade up, very muddy road. The worst bit was then walking with the piano over uneven ground and then having to lift it high into the back of the transit van – I really don't know how they did it. It broke all safety rules and they must all be in agony with their backs today. I tried to ring Vivien to discuss the broken porch window, but she didn't answer her phone.

I was at work all today until 3pm (my first scheduled Sunday for months, since I have been off work) and after doing the supermarket run, I collapsed in front of the TV all evening. I have been trying to get hold of Vivien since 5.15pm and sent her several texts, no reply by 12pm. There is not much point in her being my ICE (in case of emergency) on my phone as if anything serious ever happened to me, the police would never be able to get hold of her. Her phone is either on silent, or she is out of signal – for someone not working, she is incredibly difficult to get hold of! At least I got to chat with Lucy this evening. On that note, Christmas is going to be extremely difficult this year. Lucy and I ALWAYS spend Christmas at Holme with our parent's. Last year it was with mother only (father had died in February), but I'm grateful we spent that Christmas with her at least. This year I will be cooking for Lucy at my house in King's Lynn. Roll on the new year! Sell the house at Holme, then mine, then I'm off!!! I had a large response to my post about selling the house, so we should get a good price for it when it goes on the market in late December!

I still havn't sold the bird books and two paintings in my post HERE – please take a look and email if interested, thanks!