Workers Help Files

I tutted for the millionth time as I quite moodily dropped my phone onto the floor. I had spent the last hour and half trying to price skip hire up for my house move. Only to be face with a barrage of questions 'how many cubic yards miss' how the heck should I know? I want a skip for crying out loud not a perfectly measured greenhouse 'and what will you be putting in it please miss' what? Is that really relevant? I mean I'm moving house with a two year old and have two years of my rubbish and his rubbish to relieve myself of, your guess is as good as mine! I had visions of five different coloured skips rowed neatly outside my front door, one for each kind of material, all to be washed, lids removed, squashed if appropriate.

'Blimey' I thought, the skip sorting out processhad beenmore hassle then anything else in the move so far. Maybe I should just load the van I had already bookedfor my friendto drivewith all my many months of rubbish and send that to the tip instead!

So far the move had all been perfectly planned down to each and every minute of the actual day that the most hideous experience in the world was due to take place. I hated moving, always had, the last time I did it I didn't drive so didn't even have car of my own to use, nor did I have the money to hire a van, so it had been complete chaos with me hijacking my best friend the second she had completed the mornings school run, loading her car with my numerous boxes of unorganised packing, only letting her stop briefly for a cup of tea or a cigarette. We got it done and by the time she left sweating wildly to go and get her kids from school everything was in my new house, despite the fact I had no energy to unpack it and I ached in places I never knew I had muscles in!

The day of thenewest move came round too soon. I took my son to nursery school and had a quick chat with the other mums about the horror day ahead. The same friend that had helped me last time I moved picked me up and we were followed back to mine by her husband, who had kindly volunteered to drive the van instead of my friend, we had assessed that if we had the use of my car and hers on top of the van we could get done alot quicker. Being the middle of July and blazing hot sunshine we were all up for the getting done quicker part.

The next six hours passed in a blur of disasters, two boxes got dropped within the first few hours, they could have been anything from soft toys to DVDs but instead one happened to contain six wine glasses that I had been bought as a birthday gift, along withother glasses that I had gathered that didn't match at alland the other box every bit of crockery from my kitchen.... I now had four wine glasses left,the other twoalong with a good handful of the mismatched ones were now in the skip - that incidentally had arrived two hours late, and I now had four dinner plates and two bowls in the skip to complete the 'broken collection'.

On first arrival to the newhouse the keys didn't work, so there we were with twenty odd boxes and roughly the same amount of bin bags as well as all the big furniture from the van all laid out in the garden and no way of getting in the house. After several phone calls and alot of swearing later I established the letting company had given me the wrong set of keys.

When we finally did get into the house and start loading things in it started swimmingly and I prayed that the disasters were over. But no, not likely. After alot more swearing a few bruises, scratches and knocked limbs we called my friends brother to come and take the window out being the only possible way of getting the sofa and one of my larger pieces of furniture into the house.

The actual moving of things didn't go toobadly from then in and soon the flat was empty and the house a complete mess... But I felt the hard work was done, a bit of building furniture here and there, followed by the fun unpacking part. That was until I walked into the kitchen to find myself paddling in an inch of water. I soon established that the previous occupants hadn't taken the correct precautions when unhooking the washing machine and had therefore turned my kitchen into a large paddling pool that I'm sure my son would have loved. Another angry call to the letting company later this little disaster was in the process of being sorted.

I had to laugh to myself as I started to make the house into a home, moving furniture, placing small items to give it a moved in feel. I felt the move could have gone worse. But, like anything, now it's over it doesn't seem as bad as it did at the time. Later that evening I walked my son home from nursery, both of us chatting excitedly about our new home and new bedrooms.

'When will we move again mummy' my son asked innocently

'NEVER' I replied firmly....