Day 26 - panicking, drinking, packing and driving

I'm doing the panic packing and drinking...Mehdi is doing the packing and driving.

Despite having quite a bit of experience moving (have I ever mentioned this is move number 6 in 6 years?) I still find moving a PITA. Actually in many ways, having this much experience means we KNOW just how much of a pain this is all going to be. To make matters worse, we're flying solo on this.

When we moved from London to Dublin, I managed to get a great deal from a moving company to come, pack up all our stuff, and take it to Ireland for us. It was magic - easily the best moving experience I've had. Two polite chaps came at 9am and packed our house until everything was gone. They broke nothing, and required only fruit juice and pizza. Worth. Every. Penny.

This time, for some odd reason, we've decided to do it all ourselves. With two kids. And full-time jobs. Not sure how that happened.

Mehdi's hired a van and is off in Tyrone with the 6 year old loading our furniture and the last of our stuff that we left in my dad's garage (apparently he's excited to get his garage back after almost a year and a half...).

I'm in Dublin with the toddler, blogging instead of packing. Last night I managed to neck some gin for courage (one less bottle to pack), then I emptied and cleaned 2 drawers and 2 cupboards, and filled 2.5 boxes with kitchen stuff before giving up.

We're moving into a house with only one working tap. It has no fridge, washing machine, or dishwasher. Many walls have no plaster, never mind wallpaper or paint. One window is made of plastic nailed to the frame. You can see into the kitchen from the bathroom. Storm Brian is howling across the country later today when we should be hefting boxes and furniture into our house. And we have friends arriving from England tonight...and we're organising a party for Saturday week where (so far) 40 people have RSVP'd.

I think I've just talked myself into another gin...

Photo by Jez Timms / Unsplash