 My very own mountain of boxes, ready for packing |
On Saturday I signed the lease at the new house, then I went box hunting. In this day and age of recycling, it should come as no surprise that most shops these days are exceedingly efficient at crushing boxes and piling them up for collection almost the second after they’ve finished using them. So when I went visiting the local shops, they weren’t able to help me very much.
But thank God for Dan Murphy’s, purveyor of fine liquor and keeper of one of the most impressive spare box collections this side of the Yarra. They were happy for me to take a bunch, as long as I took them from the left hand side of the pile. Fair enough, I thought, I was in no mood to be fussy about which side of the pile I took from. So now I have a bunch of boxes to start packing my stuff into.
And the movers are booked for next Tuesday, giving me all of next weekend to get stuff packed, and even some of it moved in advance. As when I bought my Malvern Star bike, lacking any particular preference, I went for the nostalgic choice: Gronow’s Removalists, whose Inkerman Street depot I remember from when I was growing up, down the street from where I went to kindergarten. After all, if they’ve been in business that long, they must be doing something right, right?
Meanwhile the renovator guys have been around most weekdays doing work in anticipation of all us pesky tenants being gone soon. Among other things the two vacant ground floor flats have had their balcony railings removed – and dumped in the front garden. Today, however, I caught them about to start cutting mine down.
First floor balcony… railing removed when I have small kids living here half the week? I don’t bloody think so, and I told them so. I’m paying rent until next week, and they can damn well wait until I’ve moved out before they start doing stuff like that. I rang the agent later on to give the new owners a serve too. The lady agreed and said she’d pass it on. I should hope so too. Gits.
