Idle Thoughts

This was the second furniture run. During the summer of 2007 I had been squirreling away furniture in the UK. Some from Freecycle and some that I bought from eBay. In mid-Septemnber 2007 I took the van on it's last month long trip to Spain.

The first challenge was to get all the stuff in the van. I don't believe in packing things up days in advance - I either need something that's right at the bottom of the pile, or I forget whether something crucial has been stashed away and end up unpacking everything, to check. Therefore, the day before I was due to catch the ferry I started to load up the van. Generally, I like to pack the heaviest items at the bottom so they don't have so far to fall. It also keeps the centre of gravity of the vehicle lower, which aids stability when cornering. In keeping with this, I put most of the big stuff in first: washing machine, fridge, large sofa and then began filling the gaps and packing the more fragile pieces, such as the TV, so they wouldn't knock against hard surfaces. Things were going well until I got to a couple of single wardrobes I had bought from an eBayer who was moving back to Austria. On the outside they didn't seem particularly large, it's just that they were awkward shapes. After a few tries - which involved unloading some stuff to get the wardrobes in, I was prepared to admit defeat and leave them behind.
Then it dawned on me. These were IKEA wardrobes .... and IKEA means flat-pack. A half-hour's activity with an electric screwdriver and a lump hammer (don't ask) had them disassembled into nice manageable and much smaller sections that easily fitted into the available space. So with all my stuff in the back of the van, I made the now familiar journey to Plymouth, by ferry to Santander and drive to the house. Arriving at about 10 p.m. the day after my 5 a.m. start.
During the crossing I went on-deck just before sunset to see if I could catch a green flash as the sun was setting. Although conditions were'nt right for that, I was treated to a spectacular sunset, with shadows of some smaller clouds being projected onto other clouds nearer me.

I left unpacking until the day after my arrival. The first order of business was a supermarket run to get some food in (one of the disadvantages of arriving at the house late in the day). With enough supplies to keep me going for a few days, the task of unloading began.

Most furniture is designed with constraints on it's size. These are necessary so that you can get them through doors, possibly up stairs and into the rooms they are destined for. However what works, size-wise, in the UK is not necessarily good for Spain. As I've mentioned before, my cave-house was designed for people who are considerably shorter than northern europeans. I've noticed that a lot of the locals just about come up to my armpit, when we're standing side-by-side. However, that's not the problem - the problem is doorways. Not only are they lower than british standard entrances, but since the house has walls 5 feet thick, the "doorways" are more like short tunnels. This means that the normal technique you can use in the UK, to move furniture "around" a door opening doesn't work in Spain - either your stuff goes through straight, or it doesn't go in at all. I discovered this while trying to get a 3-foot wide sofa through a 2 foot 6 inch doorway. Having tried the traditional removals approach of brute-force, followed by it's close relative; extreme violence, I took a note from the british workman's advice book and made a cup of tea. In the end, after some considerable thought (and cups of tea) I just about managed to get the sofa in, at a 45° angle, with plastic sheeting to protect the leather from snagging on the walls as it slid past.

With all the furniture now reassembled and placed where I had visualised it, the hardest part of the trip was now behind me and the task of turning the house from basically habitable to comfortable had begun.