The last blog has been a few weeks ago, when we were still waiting for our stuff to arrive. It was written on the day that Rene was due to arrive. On the day our lovely Lily was being cruised through France and Spain due to arrive in Espinho on Sunday.
In the end, on that day, both Rene and Lily arrived. The wonderful drivers from Pet Transport Services had really pushed to be here as soon as possible. When we got back from the airport, the van was parked in front of our house already! Even though we didn’t have our stuff yet, we finally were together again! The settling in could start, be it a bit unsettling having not much to work on or with… The only one settled was Lily who LOVES her new scratch post thingy. For Rene and myself it was sharing a small table and working on our laptops. It was… cosy, but knowing that our stuff would soon arrive, we could deal with it. Also, we quite like each other as office mates.
Arrival: The early bird catches the worm
And on the 16th day after them collecting our things in Thornton, UK I saw 2 missed calls at 8.30am. From the removal company. They had said they’d be there around 9.00am, but clearly they were ahead of schedule. They were already in front of our door. Eager and ready to get going!
A moving day isn’t complete without some last-minute panic. Our neighbour told us that we should have informed the police as the lorry blocked the road a bit. However, we saw that the Portuguese are very resilient and solution-driven when it comes to these things. A few minutes after the lorry had opened its doors, the first car made its way through over the pavement. Others soon followed suit. Crisis avoided!
Still, we felt a bit of pressure because of the road blocking thing (and also because we wanted to get going as quickly as possible), so we helped unloading the lorry, doubling the number of hands. Soon, our new home (and its garden…) was stuffed with all our… stuff. And, dear me, there’s a lot of it. That’s the thing moving to a smaller home with roughly the same amount of stuff. It makes making sense of all of it a lot more difficult. Luckily we had drawn up our floor planner to know where we needed things to go.
Thanks to our planning and help, 9.50am everything was unloaded, and 10.15am the removal guys set off again, 2 hours earlier than they had planned! Now, our real work could start.
Once we closed the door it was as if a bomb had exploded, even though we had already given away and sold a lot of things. While the vast majority of the boxes and items ended up in their intended spots, there were A LOT OF BOXES. And, for a house without a garage… there were a lot of boxes labeled ‘garage’… so, there was that.
Unpacking: things have to get worse before they get better
We started with the bedroom. Because that was the smallest room that with the least amount of effort we could turn into a finished product. Putting the bed parts together, mattress on top of it, headboard, sorted! At least, whatever would come next, at the end of the day, for the first time in 16 days, we’d be able to sleep in a real bed, on our own wonderful mattress again.
What came next was Tetris maestro level. No amount of thinking ‘well, we’ll need to puzzle a bit’ could have prepared us for what came. The shuffling around of boxes that we had to do (and are still doing) in the end is serious stuff. Perhaps the only space with more than enough room is the kitchen. Our clothes are spread over multiple rooms. All our camping stuff is everywhere. Our garage stuff is everywhere. Our ‘we’ll use that in the next house but not now’-things are EVERYWHERE.
All the other things are in this little room that, eventually, will mainly be used as a laundry room. The washing machine and tumble dryer are just about visible under a pile of boxes. No, I also don’t know why we brought the tumble dryer.
Most of the things in this room will move to a garden shed that is due to be delivered soon. That’s going to be our temporary storage. Of course there are many storage facilities available where you can rent some space. But, first, we like to have our tools available to us, and second, storage space is quite expensive. Like rent, the money you spend on that is just gone. Luckily, our garden area is quite big, so a roughly 2mx1.3mx1.85m will easily fit. And because we can take it with us when we move, it isn’t wasted either! We can’t wait for that thing to arrive though.
There’s no place like home
Everything is finding its place, no matter how messy and inconvenient (for now). We know this is not ‘forever’ and soon-ish we’ll start our journey to find a place to buy to truly make our own again.
So, we are doing our best to make it as much home as possible without having too many expectations. We want to be comfortable, but accept it will not be perfect. We’ll not put up any paintings and frames. Even our beloved whiteboard will not be making an appearance, no matter how much that hurts my list-making heart.
We have our lovely dining room table and chairs to host. We have our comfy sofa and footstool to chill on and watch all the series. Our book cases are up and the many plants are making our living room quite the forest. Our bed is still the comfiest. For the cat our laps are the comfiest. The garden furniture will finally actually be used, and our offices (multiple!) are more than fit for purpose. And that’s all we need! Also, lovely wine. And nights out exploring Espinho and Porto. But more about that in the next blog!
