Box clever
Blimey - almost two weeks since my last post - I have been meaning to post a paragraph or two, but have been rather overtaken by life. Sorry about that.
Last Friday we got an unexpected phone call to tell us that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (I think I've got that right) had cleared our goods for entry into Australia, and that our shipping company over here had managed to sweet-talk their Mid-North Coast trucking company into delivering our goods on a Sunday for no extra charge!!! Imagine our surprise and delight... although it did mean a lot of hasty rearranging of stuff inside the house to provide room for 406 boxes and other items.
At 8:30am on Sunday morning the first of two huge lorries arrived, with a crew of five men to unload. As our driveway is so steep, our friendly neighbour James offered to let the trucks onto his land which meant that they could be backed up to our fence, and everything brought through that way. It might sound a bit mad but actually it worked a treat (apart from James getting a load of grief from his neighbour who has threatened to sue him if he ever does that again!), and five hours later we had a very crowded house...
Since then, of course, we've been unpacking like mad. Poor Michael hurt his back and I've been absolutely covered with insect bites, but it's been a very productive week. Some of our stuff is on board another ship, on its way to Australia but not due to dock until January 9th, which has led to some interesting discoveries. For example, we've found the knife blocks but not all of the knives; we've got side plates but no dinner plates or bowls; we haven't been able to locate various important cables, etc. And the box labelling has proved interesting, too! A box of 'tiles' actually contained 15 bottles of wine; a box marked 'kitchenware' was full of artists' materials; and a box marked 'toys and linen' contained - amongst other unrelated items - our inflatable paddling pool. So it's been a week of discovery in many ways.
We went from this (in the living room area)....
...to this!
My priority has been getting decent living spaces up together in record time, so that we're not faced with piles of boxes in the living and bedrooms over Christmas (that and locating the Christmas decorations). I've also been trying to find all my artists' materials and put them together in the garage so that I will be more easily able to move them to my new studio space in January. My press has arrived - UNcrated!! I paid for a bloody crate and it arrived swathed in bubble wrap and padded cardboard (like a large version of the stuff used to make Jiffy bags)... This will be one of several issues to be raised with the shippers. Given how much we brought over with us it isn't surprising that some things have broken (the odd glass and several picture frames), but I won't be able to establish properly whether my press is OK until I can set it up, and it weighs so much that I can't set it up until I get it into the studio space, so that part of the conversation will have to wait until the New Year.
And here's some of the rubbish we cleared up at the end of the day...
Last Friday we got an unexpected phone call to tell us that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (I think I've got that right) had cleared our goods for entry into Australia, and that our shipping company over here had managed to sweet-talk their Mid-North Coast trucking company into delivering our goods on a Sunday for no extra charge!!! Imagine our surprise and delight... although it did mean a lot of hasty rearranging of stuff inside the house to provide room for 406 boxes and other items.
At 8:30am on Sunday morning the first of two huge lorries arrived, with a crew of five men to unload. As our driveway is so steep, our friendly neighbour James offered to let the trucks onto his land which meant that they could be backed up to our fence, and everything brought through that way. It might sound a bit mad but actually it worked a treat (apart from James getting a load of grief from his neighbour who has threatened to sue him if he ever does that again!), and five hours later we had a very crowded house...
Since then, of course, we've been unpacking like mad. Poor Michael hurt his back and I've been absolutely covered with insect bites, but it's been a very productive week. Some of our stuff is on board another ship, on its way to Australia but not due to dock until January 9th, which has led to some interesting discoveries. For example, we've found the knife blocks but not all of the knives; we've got side plates but no dinner plates or bowls; we haven't been able to locate various important cables, etc. And the box labelling has proved interesting, too! A box of 'tiles' actually contained 15 bottles of wine; a box marked 'kitchenware' was full of artists' materials; and a box marked 'toys and linen' contained - amongst other unrelated items - our inflatable paddling pool. So it's been a week of discovery in many ways.
We went from this (in the living room area)....
...to this!
My priority has been getting decent living spaces up together in record time, so that we're not faced with piles of boxes in the living and bedrooms over Christmas (that and locating the Christmas decorations). I've also been trying to find all my artists' materials and put them together in the garage so that I will be more easily able to move them to my new studio space in January. My press has arrived - UNcrated!! I paid for a bloody crate and it arrived swathed in bubble wrap and padded cardboard (like a large version of the stuff used to make Jiffy bags)... This will be one of several issues to be raised with the shippers. Given how much we brought over with us it isn't surprising that some things have broken (the odd glass and several picture frames), but I won't be able to establish properly whether my press is OK until I can set it up, and it weighs so much that I can't set it up until I get it into the studio space, so that part of the conversation will have to wait until the New Year.
And here's some of the rubbish we cleared up at the end of the day...
posted by Sara Bowen at 10:22 pm
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