Monday 23rd March - T minus 5. The removal team arrived bright and early to continue with the packing and worked like Trojans for hours on end until, in a final frenzy of wrapping paper and sticky tape, (one of them remarking that in his 24 years in the business he didn't think he had ever packed so much kitchen china ... ahem) the Barlow lives were stacked in 135 brown boxes ready to be loaded into the container the next day.
Thankfully, our good friends Jane & Sally had kindly offered to put us up for the rest of the week (a decision which they were probably regretting already) and so after loading up the car with 5 suitcases, 3 rucksacks, several holdalls and half the contents of the kitchen cupboards, we descended on them like the house guests from hell, covering every available surface with 'stuff' within minutes of arrival and leaving a trail of havoc in our wake! We seemed to need so much for just a few days ... Ethan's school uniform (as he still had a full week at school), conference phones, headsets and laptops (as Mr B had Town Halls to dial into in the U.S), not to mention all our suitcases and bags containing everything else we would need for the 6 weeks or so before our container arrived in Phoenix. A neat freak's nightmare!
Tuesday 24th March - Moving Day. After standing around like a spare part for hours on end the previous day ... a very cold spare part as apparently it is necessary to have both front and back doors wide open in order to pack boxes of kitchen china ... I was assured by Mr B that there was no need for us both to be at the house as they would just be loading the container, which would take hours, and that he was 'perfectly capable' of supervising that on his own. Hmmmm, a tempting offer, especially as it was a cold and drizzly morning and the prospect of spending another day bored to death and freezing my butt off, was not the most attractive prospect. I decided to take him up on the offer, sending him off with strict instructions to "check every cupboard and drawer twice over" to make sure nothing got left behind. He gave me one of those 'durr ... I'm not stupid!' looks and set off, muttering something I couldn't quite catch under his breath but I'm sure I caught the words 'control freak' and 'Hitler' in there somewhere. Rude.
Later that afternoon he was back, reporting proudly that everything had been packed and loaded into the HUGE container, secured with wooden battens and sent off on it's way. The next time we see it will be in Scottsdale (hopefully) ... in mid May!
"Did you double check all the drawers and cupboards?"
**tuts loudly, raises eyes heavenward and adopts patronising tone** ... "Yehhhsss ... In fact four of us went round and checked every single room and cupboard" he added, clearly very pleased with himself.
Phew! Well, that's a relief. All we need to do now is pop over tomorrow to do any last minute tidying up & say our farewells to the neighbours and then we can drop the keys in to the Letting Agent. Fast forward 24 hours. Arrive at house. Open cupboard in bedroom ..........
Find full of clothes. **closes eyes and starts to count ... 1 ... 2 ... ** Nope not working ... FFS!!!! Let's just say if you happened to be in South Chailey, or probably even Lewes, on that morning, I am sure you will have heard the 'feedback' that Mr B got on his definition of 'perfectly capable'!
After a couple more emotional days - saying goodbye to friends and family, teachers and school friends & attending the last end of term school service (well, ok, I could have lived without that if in honest) - and all the weeks of planning, D-day was suddenly upon us! Wait! - I'm not ready to go.....!!!!
The taxi arrived promptly at 10am and after a journey round the M25 that Lewis Hamleton would have been proud of (note to self ... cross that firm off the list), we arrived at London Heathrow to a sea of people at check-in (damn, forgot it was also first day of Easter School holidays), a full flight, and to find that Mr B had been moved from his seat next to Ethan and I, to another one nowhere near! Apparently, as his was on a separate booking and they had not been linked, he was deemed to be travelling alone and therefore, as his original seat was right outside the cockpit, this had now been blocked for 'crew rest'? and he was moved downstairs. That's a new one on me. We did wonder whether it may have had something to do with the recent plane crash in the French Alps and subsequent changes to regulations, but who knows! Thankfully though, due to Mr B being super nice (see, still working on my Americanisms) to the cabin crew, after take off they advised that they had had a word with the pilot and the seat would not be needed on this flight after all and so he was allowed to move back. Odd.
"Oh don't worry" the kindly BA host advised. "You're not the first ..." Ha! Vindicated. Apparently we were the second ... in the 5 years that the lounge has been open. Oh.
What? It was an easy mistake to make and the signs were rubbish! **coughs and walks away whistling**
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