14 February – The Incredibly True Story of the Sofa through the Window.

I am transient no more.  Yesterday four of the loveliest and most courageous gentlemen I’ve been fortunate to meet brought me all my worldly possessions.  They arrived at 8:45 AM.  I offered them drinks – coffee, milk and sugar all around.  Excellent I said, until I realized all my mugs were in their truck and I had no milk or sugar in the house (I’m a coffee as black as the bottom of the Mariana Trench kinda gal).  Off I went to Marks & Spencer’s.  I returned about 20 minutes later, and all of my boxes were in my flat – in the proper rooms no less.  All that remained was the furniture.  This is where things took an interesting turn. My door is on an angle (if I ever meet my downstairs neighbours, I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun re-enacting the ending opening credit shot of Laverne & Shirley.)  Angles are bad.  Even after removing the feet from my love seat, it was painfully obvious that it was not be coming through that door.  I said um, ok, took a few deep breaths, retreated by a few steps and tried to drain the welling puddles in my eyes*.  The breaths were successful, and I was able to channel stiff-upper lipped heroines in David Lean films.  I walked into the living room, where the youngest mover (with the most gorgeous eyes** I’ve ever seen) discovered that my big beautiful picture windows, that I thought only tilted***, opened wide.  I jokingly said, “well, problem solved; the sofas will fly right through there,” ha, ha, ha. But he was not laughing.  He was saying things like “Brilliant, of course, absolutely – they’ll just sail through, let me get a rope”.   With me stuttering in shock, he and the foreman climbed on to the, for lack of a better work, balcony, which is the roof of the bay windows of the ground floor flat.  “Right then,” and off they went.  I went downstairs to alternatively watch in awe and cower in terror, pleading to all gods who were available for a quick consult to save my band of heroes from grievous bodily harm and the aforementioned windows from any form of shatter. They emerged from a scrum, rope was attached, cardboard arranged into a ramp – and then discarded, as it was more idea of ramp than actual helpful tool.  With one man on the ground, one on the short brick wall around the property and one on the “balcony” up, up went the loveseat through the window to safety. I thanked the gods who had lent their support and asked if they would be so kind as to part with one more sofa-related miracle, and just like that, in the merest part of a moment, my prayer was answered. We were done by 10:00 AM. *It is not shocking that my eyes would well.  I cry at the drop of a hat – and really it is usually for things as base and unimportant as a hat that has lost its battle with gravity.  Commercials, inspirational news stories – and movies about sport involving misfit bands of golden hearts – forget about it. **Except of course for yours Billy – most beautiful eyes ex-US, how about that? ***I can’t tell you how perplexed I was about the whole only tilting thing.  I just could not understand why one would put in windows that one could not open.  I was also wondering how on earth I was going to clean them without being equipped with a bungee-cord and a hefty dose of steely courage.