It's Been a LOOOOOONG & Busy Week

Where do I begin?

...it's been pretty quiet on this blog coz I've been MAD HECTIC trying to get our lives organized and sorted.

It started with our burst geyser on Friday, we were waterless over the weekend, and then the plumber finally decides to rock up only on Tuesday. They couldn't get the new hot water pipes up the stairs, so they pulled it up by our balcony instead.



Then they managed to get the new geyser up the spiral stairs.


While they were uninstalling the old tank and putting in the new tank, the downstairs neighbour, whose garden our water overflow flows out to, comes storming up to our flat and yells "Why don't you have the courtesy to inform your neighbours that you're working on your geyser and there'll be water flowing out to my garden?!" ...of course I had no idea there'd be MORE water flowing... after all, our flat was dry as a desert, the water mains had been shut off for 4 days, how the heck was I supposed to know that there's still water from the old tank that'll pour out through the overflow when they take it out?! It's the first time it's happened to me!!

So I'm apologizing like mad to the old bat, who wasn't satisfied with my apology, and insisted "Who's your plumber? He's a bad plumber if he doesn't tell you what to expect, and doesn't tell your neighbours!" ...and she storms upstairs to confront our plumber, who by this time is pretty irritated with her.

As I'm apologizing to her again, the plumber turns around and says "Enough! This lady has apologized to you 1000 times already, and you won't take sorry for an answer! Everywhere I go, there's always got to be one of YOU in the block! What do you want from us now?"

Hahaha.

By now the neighbour's bristling, incensed at his audacity and she keeps going on about how two of her R250 plants have been damaged in the process, and then the plumber says "Lady, before we took out the tank, I looked downstairs and saw that you already had 2 big garbage cans positioned where the overflow comes out, so I knew that the water wouldn't be damaging anything". I looked, and it was true! She had huge pails to collect water, which had obviously been there since our geyser burst last Friday. (which, incidentally, she didn't tell us about until 5hrs later, when she told the next-door neighbour who then had to call us. She didn't even have the decency to come upstairs to inform us!!)

The old lady keeps going on about the same thing again, and this time the plumber cuts her off and says "Look, I'm happy to reimburse you for your plants but if you keep going on like you are, I'm going to have to charge you for my time that you're wasting now!!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I didn't know whether to laugh at the situation or continue to play the bimbo, apologizing for the situation. Of course his attitude didn't help either and the neighbour storms out the house, insisting on getting his name and number, as well as MY name and number and threatens to call the Body Corporate. Grr. Anyways, Kelly manages to call her directly and played the good cop, soothing her ruffled feathers.


And today, we had the movers come and pack up the rest of our personal effects. We're not taking any furniture with us, since we've rented the place out as fully furnished. I'm dead scared of having excess baggage on the flight there, since I always seem to get nailed, so I insisted on packing my suitcase, weighing it, and whatever else beyond 25kg that doesn't fit in the bag would then have to get shipped and I won't see it till 3 - 6 months' time. (that's a long time!)

This is the state of the house last night:



And that's Kelly playing his Playstation PSP while I'm fussing around.


There's piles of stuff for "to be shipped", "to be packed with us", and "to be given away.

Allied Pickfords came this morning, and I must say this is the way to move your life! Four of them swooped into the house, surveyed what had to be moved, brought the relevant boxes up, and in just ONE HOUR, managed to pack our lives up into just 14 boxes!



Even our shoes were individually wrapped in paper, in pairs.


And since we've got 3 suitcases for some reason and can only check in a maximum of two, the other one has got to be shipped too. Which came in handy since some of the clothes could be packed in the suitcase.


Apparently with all international removals, they will have to pack up the stuff, to ensure that they know what goes into the boxes. I don't mind it all, it's almost like having your own butler service. :)


Plus, at the end of it, they number each box with a reference of what went into each box so it's easier when you're unpacking when it arrives on the other side.


Of course what's Kelly doing while I'm traipsing up and downstairs, getting the movers organized? He's watching the cricket, with the TV volume cranked up super high. One-Day International: South Africa beat Australia by 4 wickets, whatever that means!