October eventually arrived in full, and with it the big move into the new flat on Perth’s riverside. I had a week to move in under my own steam – largely so at least. Spendthrift that I am at times, I was determined to do the work myself, only asking Mike, Man with a Van, to move things that I couldn’t shift alone – furniture, washing machine, heavier items. Mike and his mate Vanfully moved these and more over a two-hour period, but for everything else it was Shanks’ Pony (on foot) or using the car – a trip that took almost the same time regardless of my mode of transport. So, after a dozen or more return journeys, and a lot of leg work up and down stairs, the furniture and boxes were in … and I was racking my brains to work out where everything was going to go.
Living around boxes was becoming all too familiar, even building makeshift furniture out of packing crates as I had when I spent a couple of months working in Spain and later in France. But I was due to spend the next few months in the US, and didn’t want to return to chaos in January. There was the last of Jackson’s stuff to deal with, too. Harbouring the notion of temporarily looking after other people’s dogs, I’d decided to keep some, and transport the rest to his now not-so-new Pennsylvania home. There’s something reassuring, though, about having something of those you love around the home. My father’s woodcarvings, some of my mum’s miscellaneous accumulated curiosities, things from the boys’ past, and my own. That aside, I hadn’t exactly been selective in packing, though I’d tried to be at least a little systematic, so it would remain a work-in-progress for the foreseeable future.
There were tools and games, clothes and shoes of course (the warmer of which I’d be needing for a winter in PA), books, more books, things for cooking and food prep – so many that they would have to ‘decorate’ the office for now. And figuring out where to put things away, ironically, opens a Pandora’s box of things to do to make it happen. High shelves and tops of units that evidently hadn’t seen a cloth or duster for decades. Furniture to level, given that the building was soon to be 150 years old, and store cupboards to test for loads they may be happy to carry. In the absence of bookshelves, piles of books appeared around the walls or remained in boxes. Suitcases were put to work hiding clothes for the spring, or enclosing other suitcases, like Russian dolls with TSA locks. Luckily, having taken a week to move in, I had a further few days to move things about, either side of a quick trip to see Mum back in England before her birthday and my return stateside.
Then, mid October, I was off to spend the longest time with Jackson, Becky and the menagerie that we’d had so far
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