8+

The waiting game

So just over 8 weeks into the house purchase and we have reached that 'nearly there, but not quite' stage, that drags on, and on, and on!

I have moved a number of times before.  I was a single mother, two small children, privately renting and getting those letters that I had to move on a regular basis.  Twenty years ago privately rented houses were being sold regularly by landlords as the 'negative equity' problem arose.

I had it down to a fine art.

You start by packing everything that you don't use, but want to keep.  Things like pictures, books, irregularly used cooking items (like those you only use at Christmas) and anything else you know you can manage without.  You store these boxes out of the way (I used to use my bedroom), the best part of this being you sort through and throw away what you don't want or use (I adhere by the 6 month rule, if you haven't used it in 6 months and there is no emotional attachment, you don't need it).

Then, a couple of days before moving you sweep through the house packing what is left.  Last items to be packed are the first things you need when you arrive at the new house. Label boxes with the room they need to be in, and really, moving is pretty simple.

However, my previous experiences of moving did not have one thing I have now.  The husband!

The children are gone so you would expect this to be easier, but the children were as used to moving as I was, and pretty well trained in how to go about it.  The husband has never actually moved in his life!  When he moved in with me, he just moved odd bits over 6 months (including his children that moved in with me at the start of the school term 2 months ahead of when he officially moved).

So I cleared the spare room, cleared the sewing room, packed everything we didn't need and allocated the sewing room as the 'packed and ready to go' room.

My husband appears to have difficulty with this concept.  I keep finding 'things' have been put in the room.  I am unsure whether these 'things' are to be kept or not.  There is no sign of any of these 'things' being put in boxes ready to go to the new house.

'Things' are also appearing in the spare room! The spare room still has a travel cot and mattress in case the grandchildren need to sleep here, but I had emptied it, now there are 'things' in there.

I had also cleared out the downstairs toilet.  Then the husband 'packed his tools' (do you see how many times I am using quotes here?) and put the packed boxes of tools on empty shelves in the cleared out toilet.

The last time I went into the toilet there was a box on the floor, the lid was off the box, next to the box was a tesco carrier bag with a few screws and items from MY pink toolkit (it was bought so that when I wanted a tool I could go to the toolkit and get it out without having to rummage through all his stuff to find a screwdriver)!  Why things from MY pink toolkit are not in the toolkit but in a tesco carrier bag is beyond me but there is also an electric drill in front of the open box next to the tesco bag.  I expect there is a reason why the husband has not put the electric drill into either a) The bag, or b) the box, but I can't see that it will be a good one!

So now, the toilet that was clear except for an empty set of shelves with one box on it, is now not empty, or tidy, or even completely packed ready to go.

I am going round and round in circles, repacking rooms that were empty a few days before, and feel like I am living in a nightmare instead of that lovely, getting ready to move organisational wonder, that I have previously experienced!

I wonder if I could just pack away the husband for a few weeks?