Forget jogging. Forget the gym. If you want to push yourself to the physical limit, try moving house.
Twenty years ago I had nothing except a dishwasher and a scraggy old sofa. Divorce had left me homeless, with nothing more than the above, slightly weird, belongings, a large record collection, and a business that was haemorrhaging money.
How times have changed.
I appear to have accumulated significant amounts of flotsam and jetsam over the intervening years, much of which we physically carted from one end of Montauban to the other over a three day period last week.
It started with an entire day being put over to dismantling then mantling (?) again my precious snooker table. This antique masterpiece was born the same year as my now departed mother, and in the same northern town of Accrington. Fate moves in mysterious ways.
The day started early, with the arrival of a somewhat truculent and noticeably expensive ‘billiard table transport specialist’. By chance there were three of us there to help him, as the whole process took immense effort. The slate bed was made of five pieces of dense matter like that found in the centre of black holes…
Each piece was carefully removed, one by one, as they were somewhat dangerous. Not carefully enough. Jean-Blaise discovered sensation once more in his previously numb fingers when falling headlong over a falling slab, trapping said fingers in painful embrace.
Removing the first piece left us exhausted and pondering the possibility of leaving the table as it was, making pocketing the balls considerably easier…
And so we continued, finally dragging the five masses, each the weight of a dead elephant, up the slope to and into the waiting van. We were all beyond exhaustion.
After stopping off at the Ardus bar for some reinvigoration, we carefully manipulated the five dead elephants back into place in their new home.
The end of the day finally came, leaving us all to tired to appreciate the results of our labour, let alone play snooker…
We greeted the morning of day two reluctantly, with aching muscles and complaining joints and a quick outing to pick up a lorry from the local supermarket (they sell everything).
With the assistance of many able bodied helpers, we spent the next two days lifting, carrying and swearing. Lots of swearing. Lots of furniture, boxes, dark matter. I had not before realised how many chairs we had accumulated. Our bums have so much choice!
After several hours of continuous labour, we had finished our first load, and rewarded ourselves with another trip to the Ardus bar..
Four loads later…
Who would have thought that twenty years could accumulate more matter (mostly in the form of chairs) in one house than exists in the entire galaxy?
After a weekend of hard work, most flotsam was moved and jetsam discarded.
We had our new forever home…
And so we’ve moved in. After a week we have done so much, but there is still much to finish. Leaking baths, leaking toilets, leaking washing machines, leaking energy.
Heating would be nice…
