The Great Pack Debacle

So here I am, sat on the freecycle sofa in a front room that is still full of boxes and things to be taken, on Monday evening, and with just as many questions left unanswered about the packing as I had on Sunday morning. Indeed I could probably say that I have many more questions than that simple, innocent time.

 

A putting bubble wrap around the extractor fan

We were up at 8am Saturday morning feeling rested (I had slept better again) and I got started straight away on the task at hand which was to fit everything into Harrison. The first thing I started on was removing the hinges and handles from the doors of the kitchen units; the fitter had done a pretty good job packing the units up but these little details weren’t done and it was clear that they would both risk being damaged and take up more space than needed if all these bits were still on. I got them all removed while A headed to the shop to get some super strong black bags to act as additional packing around the unit packages. When she got back we finished off wrapping up the delicate items in the smaller bubbled bubble wrap and stacked it all carefully, ready for putting on the van.

 

How the back of the van looked in the morning

The night before I had done a few bits and pieces in boxes in the space above the driver and then wedged the top of the desk behind the cooker to provide a bulwark against them all falling out. The plan called for the two seater sofa to go on its end next to the cooker and act as a continuation of this wall and A was a superwoman as usual and between us we managed to manhandle it from the front room and put it in place. With this done I slotted a few bits and pieces in the gap behind the sofa (like the all steel spade and a few of the packs of railway track) and then we were ready for the next step.

 

Strong woman with wood

On the left, in front of the upright two seater, the place was to have the scaffolding planks stacked up as wide as a sofa and then to put the three seater on top of them. These had, as you know, been stacked up in the backroom on the Thursday evening by my work colleagues and now A proved once again her super woman status by carrying them through to me to put into Harrison. There were only a very few that were still so wet they were too heavy to carry for her and she did such a cracking job. Shortly after I took this picture she was getting irritated that I wasn’t ready to take the board from her. Ooooops.

 

Planks loaded its time for a brew and then the straps

It probably only took us about half an hour or so to get them all through though I forced a couple of rests. The strictest rule of the day was never to work too hard; to do what you could and then rest before you felt completely shattered. It worked in the main and we kept our energy up well. With the stack built, four wide and six high, I hooked on the straps which would be used to secure the sofa and fridge freezer which would be stacked on top next. We then managed to lift the sofa into place and finally A exerted herself to raise the fried freezer and position it on top of the sofa. We had to do this a couple of times as at first it was pushing the arm rests in a bad way so we took it off and put the backs of the sofa between so it would actually be resting on them and not the arms. This worked well.

 

Bacon and egg for me, peanut butter for her

By this time (9.20 am) I was starting to get a bit hungry so I went in to make a fry up. A wasn’t in the mood for a full bacon and egg butty so I made her some toast which she covered in a huge amount of peanut butter. We sat down with a brew and rested and ate with pleasure. We had reached a point where it would be nice to have Loz arrive soon but were not expecting him for another half an hour or so.

 

I look happy; I'm actually in pain

After the rest I felt good enough to make a start carrying the scaffolding poles round from the back garden to stack up on the drive next to Harrison, preparatory to loading them. A pulled Thomas out and across the driveway so I had space and then I set to. I did a load, then rested with a brew, then went out and did a load more and pretty quickly actually they were all out the front, in organised piles, and ready for putting Loz to get there to help stack them on the right hand side of the van. Towards the end of this process, after having had gorgeous clear weather all morning, it started to snow and shortly after that this turned to rain which set in for the rest of the day; not ideal packing weather and quite annoying as it would mean the scaffolding poles were soaked in Harrison. Never mind, there was nothing we could do about that.

 

Loz watching as I strap up the stacked items

I had been watching my phone but not that closely, to see if Loz has text, but when he arrived he said he had got lost and it was only then I noticed his messages. Stupid me, if I had seen them he would have arrived earlier and could have helped me move the scaffold. We set him straight to work passing a few boxes into the van to fill some gaps and then we dragged the two huge awnings for S and S and balanced them atop the fridge freezer before finally getting the straps and securing the whole lot against toppling over.

 

A large amount of steel piled up

After this there was a short break (quite early in the piece for Loz but I was ready for one after my exertions with the scaffold) and then we went back outside and we put the whole scaffold into the back of the van without taking a break. The weather was getting horrendous by this point and poor Loz (he is from Spain, and he lives for the sun) was stuck out in it getting soaked through passing up pole after pole. We worked very well together, however, and the stack was perfect once we had completed the whole job. It was exactly as I envisaged, including three of the black-sacked kitchen units filling the gaps under the poles. The process of putting the units into the black sacks had been ongoing while we were loading the scaffold as A was working away like a Trojan to get it done for us.

 

Very proud of having packed everything in Harrison

Once we had loaded all the scaffold it was time for everything else and we kept at it with the same routine of a burst of activity, then sit down for a breather. In one of these breaks we had cake (as promised to Loz to reimburse him for his time) and this was a really tasty way to rest. Things stacked in nicely and exactly as I had planned, with the bubble wrapped kitchen doors sliding between the edge of the scaffold poles and the side of the van exactly as I envisaged. The knackered old mattress top laid nicely over the top of those same poles and acted to support the bits of kitchen unit and other stuff that was stuffed down the middle of the van. We lifted the two single seaters on top of the mattress then I carefully put some of the more delicate items on them packed down with the cushions and finally the bookshelf was secured with a strap, the office chair was stashed in and we were done. Look at how pleased and proud we look. What an awesome achievement!

 

The tyre pressing against the bodywork

Very low on its suspension

Everything fit in and there was even space for Rambo at the front. Harrison was at a very slight tilt from not being quite balanced but we had largely solved that by shifting some of the scaffold to the other side of the vehicle. It was only when I reversed him back towards the house so he wasn’t sticking out across the pavement that the big issue became glaringly obvious. I heard a really nasty squealing sound and pretty much immediately guessed what the problem was; the wheels were rubbing on the bodywork. This is not good; at any speed at all we would be facing two blow outs – they were touching both sides.

What a disaster.

 

Metal poles removed and van repacked; still too heavy

The day turned from a “we’ve finished by 1.30 pm and fit everything in isn’t it wonderful” success into a sudden “Oh no what are we going to do!” problem. The whole point of buying Harrison was to take this scaffolding back with us and now it looked like we wouldn’t be able to. Or rather, it looked like that was ALL we would be able to take. I pulled him back forwards very carefully so we could lower the tail lift easily again and looked at it, then we went inside for a cup of tea; such an English solution but it really does help. After sitting staring at the wall for a bit I decided that we would just have to take the scaffold back out and the rebalance the wood across the floor and see where we got to. It took an hour to do this, with Loz passing the poles out and me carrying them to the back garden. Again. Afterwards we did the rebalance and found that with the sofa and fridge freezer the suspension was still very low and there would be no chance of getting the kitchen in.

 

I've eaten all the chocolates and now I've collapsed

And so it was quite a dispirited group who sat down for a rest inside and waited for the awesome lasagne to be ready. This lasagne was the second part of the promise to Loz in return for his assistance and he was a star all day; with the mistake with the load weight we would have been totally screwed without him; it was only getting so much done so quickly (and to be fair myself and A starting so early) that meant we had time to rearrange things before it got dark. I had been wolfing down chocolates all afternoon as my plan to finish early and relax all afternoon fell apart but the lasagne went down so very well even if I was too tired to eat a huge amount.

So we were left trying to work out what to do. We had taken the metal poles out and also the actual units for the kitchen with only the kitchen doors packed and still there was very little space around the tyres in case of bumps or potholes; a serious issue for the roads we would be driving on. There appeared to be loads of space above each wheel for the suspension it was just the actual body work curved round and across in above the outer tyre meaning the rub occurred. I had the idea of getting a hacksaw blade and cutting the fibreglass away inside above each wheel so there would not be a problem should the suspension compress but this felt like a bit of a risky proposition. Who knew but maybe this design of the bodywork was there to prevent you overloading the vehicle and, if it was overloaded, that could cause problems on the journey if we were asked to go on a weighbridge.

After Loz headed off I went into the bath and soaked in super hot water with loads of Radox muscle relaxant, a pint of beer, and a good book and stayed there for about an hour, topping it up every now and then when the temperature dropped. I really needed to do this. I was by this time feeling really foolish about the whole exercise. I had decided that we would have scaffold to take back and then gone and bought Harrison to take the scaffold back and then collected other things which we now wanted just as much as the scaffold like the sofas and the cooker and the kitchen and now it looked like the original plan, to take scaffold back with us, was a bust.

When I got out of the bath A was asleep on the sofa and so I joined her and we started talking about our options. We discussed getting a trailer (I had decided on Friday night that if everything didn’t fit physically we would just get a trailer to be brought over when I drive on my own) but finding one that was big enough to take the scaffold poles and kichen units however we were still left with the fact the suspension was low and we’d need to cut out above the wheels to prevent blowouts at speed. Then the talk turned to the discarded plan to get a cherry picker and I realised that the attempt to avoid having another trailer had put me into a tunnel vision where I refused to consider all other options. I had a lovely chat with my parents on the phone towards the end of the evening and they told me the same thing, and while we chatted about the potential of them driving with me with the trailer it wouldn’t really work out as their time is limited and driving across Europe twice would mean that they’d only get about a week in between.

Today I searched for cherry pickers for sale in Bulgaria (as of today there were eleven on a well known website in the entire country) and then turned to Greece and I found one about 350km from the Old School and at a reasonable price. I cast around in my mind for someone who speaks Greek and thought of my mate Stu who immediately rang the guy and found he spoke English so I rang him back. It was a strange conversation where he refused to do a cash on delivery deal, but would be very happy to deliver if I came to have a look at it first. I have left it that I will ring him when we arrive and maybe drive over to view it then, with him delivering it as well.

 

The load waiting for Loz to help remove the planks

So after all that it looks like I need to sell this scaffold I was so excited about and of course this means that the boards need to come out of Harrison; yet more packing is to be done. This evening as soon as I got back from the office we sorted out the kitchen units into the front room then unloaded the light stuff from the back of Harrison. Loz, bless him, is going to come past again tomorrow evening to give us a lift off of the planks and assist moving the sofa  and fridge/freezer again. Hopefully with all the scaffold out we can manage to get everything else in, weight wise, but if not I’ll just be left with some kitchen units to go into Thomas for my drive which is not a hardship; we’ll be focusing on the bulky items not the heavy ones tomorrow.

I’ll leave it there now and either update what happens tomorrow (today as you’re reading this) at the weekend or maybe if it is another saga you’ll get another “out of band” update this week. Aren’t you lucky lucky people.