Moving House With a Teacher, Gardener and Hoarder

Just to clarify things, the teacher, gardener and hoarder can be simplified by just using one term. That term is "wife".

I am just in the final stages of the house moving saga. This means that all our stuff has been transported the vast distance of eight kilometres, more or less, intact. The major casualty of the move is me! Do I feel sorry for myself? Damn right, I do! Is my back suffering intense pain? Damn right, it is.! Are my nerves shot to hell and am I seriously grumpy? Yep, damn right on both counts! Do most of the problems seem over stated because I've given up the booze? Quite possibly!

Having had my little rant, it's time for my big one. The previous occupants of the house were not Australian and lived a very different lifestyle to what I'm used to. For example, they only ever used one burner on the gas stove. Consequently, the other three were corroded beyond repair and both the oven and the grill had died years before. The result. A new stove.

This has seriously ruined the lives of the thousands of cockroaches that had happily called the old stove home for a number of years. I ruined their lives even further by setting off a few cockroach bombs. I'm happy to say that they have all moved on, one way or the other. The house also had an all pervading stench of old curry. My wife managed to get rid of that by cleaning every surface in the kitchen of years of oily, curry infused residue.

In addition, we discovered, in a most unfortunate way, that the toilet bowl had parted company with the screws holding it to the floor, making going to the toilet a very moving experience, in more ways than one. The result. A new toilet.

Now, getting back to the teacher, gardener, hoarder thing. In my experience, teachers are weird creatures. They are constantly collecting "teaching aids", not to be confused with AIDS. These are bits of what I can only describe as rubbish that are accumulated over the years to be used in lessons they teach. This must be a fairly recent habit, as the only aid my ex teachers used was a cane. However, in my opinion, when these teaching aids entirely fill up a spare room, the teacher, by definition, becomes a hoarder.

When the aforementioned teacher is also an avid gardener, with over two hundred potted plants, all of which must be moved to the new house, that is further proof of hoarding. Naturally, the removalist refused to carry the plants, resulting in more than twenty trips with my wagon, filled to the brim with bloody plants!

We are now in the final stage. This where my lovely wife wants to change the location of every piece of furniture at least five times in an effort to achieve "the look". I'm happy to be going back to work after my "holiday" and the booze is starting to look like a good idea again.

Rant over!

For now!