I have stuff now!
So, the movers came by today, on a Sunday, to deliver our household goods. But the problem is we have too much crap. We can't fit all of our stuff into the house. It's too tiny. The couch, the recliner, the box springs, the 17' boats, the chest-of-drawers... Those all had to go into storage, plus a handful of other things. But, at least I have a real mattress, even if I can't put it on a bed frame. And I have real pots and pans. (Not that I cook – that's Ray's thing… But if I WANTED to cook something, I could.) I have a bunch more items of clothing, though there is no where to put it, since this place has no closet and I have no dresser or anything. And I have boxes everywhere. I can't move for the sheer number of boxes. But my stuff is here, and that is the important thing. I can sort it all out later.
Also, I have my pretty red Volvo 740 estate. (I'd said in the last post that it was a 745, but the last number designates the number of doors. So, a Volvo with a 5 at the end, like a 245 or 965, it means it is a wagon or estate.) Okay, it's not that pretty. I mean, it is a 15 year old box with wheels with 168K miles on it. But my last Volvo lasted well over 300,000 miles. (I can't really saw how far past – the odometer died at ~292,000 miles and I drove it for another 2 years after that.) And it has plenty of room for pooches and bikes and boats. We can worry about getting a real vehicle later, if we want to. Right now, being new to driving here, I think we are better off with something that we don't care about aesthetically.
I have to say, getting the car back to the house was a nightmare. The roads are really bad, in the sense that they aren't well marked or well signed. All of the sudden, where there were two lanes, there is now one. No merge signs ahead, no marks on the asphalt. Just *poof* there is only one lane. And figuring out where you are now and how to get where you are going is really tough. It was nothing more than pure luck that I got home. Since Ray took the GPS receiver home with him by accident, and the directions from MapPoint were just plain wrong, I was absolutely lost. I ended making a fairly random decision to go towards Croydon, because I have a vague sense of where it is on a map, and there were a fair number of signs pointing the way to Croydon. I'd hoped I could find Banstead from there. As I drove in the general direction of Croydon, I eventually saw a single sign that said something like Sutton, Gatwick, Brighton this way… Since Sutton is really a straight shot from Banstead, I would have been perfectly happy to find Sutton. So, I went that direction, but after that, there were no more signs for Sutton for a very long time. (I don't know how far distance wise, but it was at least 20 more minutes.) Then, from out of no where, I get to a random roundabout that tells me Sutton is to the right and Banstead is to the left and, just like that, I was on Banstead High Street. I was so happy that I found my way home.
Well, that's my news for now!
So, the movers came by today, on a Sunday, to deliver our household goods. But the problem is we have too much crap. We can't fit all of our stuff into the house. It's too tiny. The couch, the recliner, the box springs, the 17' boats, the chest-of-drawers... Those all had to go into storage, plus a handful of other things. But, at least I have a real mattress, even if I can't put it on a bed frame. And I have real pots and pans. (Not that I cook – that's Ray's thing… But if I WANTED to cook something, I could.) I have a bunch more items of clothing, though there is no where to put it, since this place has no closet and I have no dresser or anything. And I have boxes everywhere. I can't move for the sheer number of boxes. But my stuff is here, and that is the important thing. I can sort it all out later.
Also, I have my pretty red Volvo 740 estate. (I'd said in the last post that it was a 745, but the last number designates the number of doors. So, a Volvo with a 5 at the end, like a 245 or 965, it means it is a wagon or estate.) Okay, it's not that pretty. I mean, it is a 15 year old box with wheels with 168K miles on it. But my last Volvo lasted well over 300,000 miles. (I can't really saw how far past – the odometer died at ~292,000 miles and I drove it for another 2 years after that.) And it has plenty of room for pooches and bikes and boats. We can worry about getting a real vehicle later, if we want to. Right now, being new to driving here, I think we are better off with something that we don't care about aesthetically.
I have to say, getting the car back to the house was a nightmare. The roads are really bad, in the sense that they aren't well marked or well signed. All of the sudden, where there were two lanes, there is now one. No merge signs ahead, no marks on the asphalt. Just *poof* there is only one lane. And figuring out where you are now and how to get where you are going is really tough. It was nothing more than pure luck that I got home. Since Ray took the GPS receiver home with him by accident, and the directions from MapPoint were just plain wrong, I was absolutely lost. I ended making a fairly random decision to go towards Croydon, because I have a vague sense of where it is on a map, and there were a fair number of signs pointing the way to Croydon. I'd hoped I could find Banstead from there. As I drove in the general direction of Croydon, I eventually saw a single sign that said something like Sutton, Gatwick, Brighton this way… Since Sutton is really a straight shot from Banstead, I would have been perfectly happy to find Sutton. So, I went that direction, but after that, there were no more signs for Sutton for a very long time. (I don't know how far distance wise, but it was at least 20 more minutes.) Then, from out of no where, I get to a random roundabout that tells me Sutton is to the right and Banstead is to the left and, just like that, I was on Banstead High Street. I was so happy that I found my way home.
Well, that's my news for now!
posted by Jen Parker at 21:30
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home