I�m grateful for: Our new home; friendly neighbours; everything

It�s about midnight, and I could/should be sleeping but I wanted to write something down about the last few days. First thing, we�ve moved. Well, almost. We couldn�t get into the house on Thursday, the 30th until after 6pm, which is when we picked up the keys from the baal habeit (landlord). We came straight over here - �we� is everyone including Neil, but excepting Hans. We were able to get the electricity on eventually, although we first lit candles and checked the house out that way for a bit.

Once the power was on, we could see way better what shape the place is in. Pretty bad. I�ll bet you anything that this place would not be legal to rent in the U.S. For here, it�s definitely a bit of a fixer-upper, but not as bad as plenty of others. The worst thing at the moment (I have no doubt we�ll find worse �worst thing�s) is that all of the doorknobs come off, or are missing, or just don�t work. My room has none, and the door cannot be latched. Ditto the girls room. The boys room door closes but I don�t think it latches. Neil�s room the door doesn�t latch. The door handle for the small bathroom comes off, as does the outside handle of the front door. Yep, lovely. All fixable or replaceable eventually, but a heck of a pain with two dogs who are new to the place and not perfectly trained, and so many people here.

We washed all the floors as best we could (nasty!) and painted a bit, including scraping peeling paint in one bedroom (mine and John�s). The departing tenants had cleaned the toilets, and I guess if you were to name one thing for them to have cleaned, that would probably be it, right? But the bathtub and shower - well. AND the kitchen sink had fresh bits of food, recently chopped and left for us to deal with. Not so lovely, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they were rushed and frazzled as we have been. The old tenant (husband) stopped by and talked to Havva while I was at the old place on Friday, and seems pleasant enough. Who knows?

After we had done all the cleaning and prep work we could reasonably do, and after 10pm, we headed home. Eliyahu fell asleep in the car, but the rest of us all stayed up and packed and organized things for the big move which was supposed to happen Friday. Yeah, supposed to happen.

Friday morning the truck arrived at a decent time, but it was WAY too small. Like, a small box truck, and we have seven bedrooms and the thousands of books, and cds and movies and furniture and, well, stuff. After talking to the driver, and then calling the owner of the moving company, and then talking amongst ourselves and then talking to the owner again, John and I agreed to send the smaller truck back and have them come again Sunday with a much bigger truck.

Then we went into operation loading what we could into the van, to try and get as much down to the new house as we could before sundown. We were quite determined not to spend another shabbos in Neve Aliza (Pronounced N�vay Alleeza). Just not our kind of place.

We actually made only two trips with the van. I say �we� but the first trip down was Havva and Zechy and John. They unloaded as fast as that, and then just John came back up north. We�d been hoping for a third trip, but by that time it was clear we just couldn�t make it, so instead we just packed and pushed everything we could onto and into the van and took a bit more time about it. We managed to get down seven mattresses (technically five mattresses, a twin futon and a queen size futon), the slow cooker, an electric kettle, a cooler, bedding, clothes, some food, oh, and one of the dogs, and I can�t quite remember all the stuff. It was quite a journey. I literally couldn�t move my legs for the stuff packed around them, and I wasn�t the only one. But we got here okay.

Havva and Zechy had not wasted any time, and not only had the washed the floors and bathroom again, and done some cleaning and organizing in the house, they had tackled some of the junk in the cottage as well. I have to say the work they did was incredible. I am completely blown away by it. And tonight, Saturday night, Hans joined them as well. They actually managed to get almost all of the crap that was in there out of the cottage. They cleaned pigeon quano, opened windows (not a trivial thing), and even scraped some paint off the walls. And plaster.

John and Eliyahu and I and Hans and Simcha and Neil arrived around three o�clock. It gave us enough time to have a few showers, and get the beds set up and even hook up the television to the dvd player and vcr before sundown. Supper was kind of bleak, but we managed, and we had microwave popcorn (did I forget to mention the microwave?) and chocolate eggs and plenty of soda and actually a pretty good time. We watched Court Jester with Danny Kaye and the actress whose name I can never remember who played the mother in Mary Poppins. We all enjoyed it again, but I only enjoyed a little bit as I fell asleep in the middle of the movie, and went to bed instead. Everyone else pretty much went to bed as soon as the movie was over. Unfortunately then I woke up, and was unable to fall back asleep until around midnight when the dogs started going berserk, and all the noises of a new house started getting to us. Us. John was woken up by the dog�s barking, and by me when there was a cat wanting through a door. And assorted other things.

The house settled down and John went to sleep around 2am. But Hans and Zechy were awake and couldn�t sleep. So they came in here and hung with me. I imagine I probably wouldn�t have slept anyway, but it was hard for me not to be short with them when it felt like they were what was standing between me and sleep. Proved that they weren�t when they had both gone off to bed around 4am, and I still couldn�t sleep.

I woke up today with swollen glands, a totally stuffed sinus and sore throat. It was a pretty miserable day from a physical perspective, but I wasn�t thinking too much about that. There was what organizing we could do, given what stuff we have and the fact that it was shabbos. There were visits from neighbours, and meals to prepare such as they were, and we started a new jigsaw puzzle and got a little progress on it, not much.

I can�t remember much of it in detail, just too tired and sick. A pathetic cop-out, I know, but it�s true. John left just after sundown with Simcha and a new friend, Danny (I think?) to go back to the old house for a few more things. Now we have a freezer and more clothes and kitchen stuff and a bit more food. He brought down the washing machine, but was unable to hook it up (need a longer hose, or to raise the washing machine up a bit). And I got a bed table which massively improved my quality of life. I�ll see it all tomorrow. John has to go back up north first thing in the morning with everyone who can help. That will be Hans, Zechy, Simcha and Neil. Havva stays here with Eliyahu and myself. She will hopefully finish cleaning the cottage enough so we can store stuff in it. And help with Eliyahu and also be available to translate when the man from Bezeq (phone company) and the man installing our heater show up. Both of them are due between eight and noon. I hope they both arrive in a timely fashion - BEFORE the truck comes from the north with all of our furniture.

The truck, which is supposed to be about twice the size of the one sent on Friday, is supposed to arrive around seven. I guess we�ll just see when we get there. I mean get to that time, as I am not driving up north.

I�m worried sick something else will go wrong, but working on praying and having faith that it all works out, as the new tenants at our old house are moving in Monday and so we have no other options now.

That means tomorrow afternoone is showhorning as much furniture and stuff into the house as we can, then figuring out how to put the rest into the cottage in a way that is best for protecting the stuff from rain and pigeon poop. And, Gd, I hope it doesn�t rain tomorrow. THAT would be bad.

I�m dead tired, John is snoring but softly. Last night (one of the things that kept me awake) his snoring literally shook the room. I mean literally. I don�t know if I can even live with that, but as I said, tonight it�s more quiet. We have the dogs better sorted out - they can�t sleep in the same room, or they don�t sleep. Like children at a sleepover or something.

There is a neighbour�s dog, Lucy (the name of the dog, not the neighbour) who is already a problem hanging around and trying to get into the house even. She�s friendly, and obviously neglected by the owner. There will be more about this in the future, I am sure.

And now I really am going to sleep. I�m that tired I could forget to go to sleep. Seriously.

I�m listening to: John snoring, and the disk drive being loud for some reason on the laptop computer

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06