Moving

At last the move is complete. After what seems like weeks of shifting stuff around we have finally got everything that should be in the flat in and everything that shouldn't, out.

My move when fairly smoothly, I did a lightning style raid on my old flat and bundled up everything I owned. It only took about 45 minutes and then unloading at the other end took about the same amount of time - thanks to having lots of people around willing to carry things.

The really big move was helping my friend who has brought this flat to move in. This was a multiple stage process as we had to get items from storage, and her old place as well as swap various things out of the flat into storage (like an extremely heavy sofa bed). On Saturday I spent about 10 hours solidly moving heavy furniture so now I have forearms like Popeye.

My bedroom is very much a bed room, the bed is vast. I think it's (the bed) about the same size as my old room in West Hampstead which only had a single bed in it. I have large doors that lead onto the balcony so in the summer months I can lounge about in bed enjoying the sun and warm breezes that one is bound to encounter this far south.

The building is amazing. It's a Sir Giles Gilbert Scott design, his old architectural school I think. If you hadn't heard of the chap you would have seen his work he designed the iconic British telephone box and this building is faintly reminiscent of that. Not that it is red with only one room and smells of tramp pee but that the windows are made of lots of small panes and it has a stocky well-made appearance.

I've only explored the complex a bit, because most of the time was spent carrying something large there wasn't much of a desire to take long detours. The Library is wonderful, I think it is a converted school hall but either way it is a large quiet space with working tables and a few slightly showy books. On the first night we spent here I was so excited about having library access I couldn't sleep. What a nerd eh?

Also through the course of the weekend two new words have been invented I will share them now.

Pigwood (noun). Special wood use to make expensive items of furniture that weighs more than pigiron or lead. Can be used to describe any item that weighs far more than it is should.

Usage - 'This coat must have buttons made out of pigwood'.

Tesselload (verb) The struggle of trying to fit strange shapes objects into a van that should fit together but seem to be resisting all efforts.

Usage - 'I can't get this bloody sofa to tesselload'.