T Minus One day

Well, in one day's time we'll be moving to our new flat in Ealing. Is there some trepidation? Absolutely.
Things are starting to go wrong with the move. Well, not quite the move itself, but the packing.

We estimated the packing would take about 10 days tops. It hasn't; it's still going on. Basically, 90% of the packing took about 5 days and the last 10% is dragging on, partially due to a mixture of reticence on our parts to do any more work and the fact that there seems to be an unending accumulation of "stuff". Where did it all come from, we ask ourselves? But the answer is, we've been living in a very large spacious flat for two and a half years and this is the end result. Boxes and boxes of "stuff" - we're truly running out of patience on explaining to each other what things are and why we have them. They just end up being "the stuff we bought last year for this purpose, remember?"

Susan's back has gone as well. She's had back problems for as long as I have known her and every now and again she ends up with a bad back. This time it seems to have happened as a result of the high temperatures in her work place - stress about moving out have taken their toll on her.

So this means that Plan A - to dismantle the furniture tonight (the removal company arrives in the morning) has taken a major turn for the worse. I can dismantle most of the stuff but I'm going to need help. I've sent out a call to various Old Ealonians for help. If the worst comes to the worse there is a work mate I can call upon but I'd rather not.

The new flat looks good but beneath the glossy sleek exterior, I've already spotted some problems. Nay, problems is too harsh a word. Niggles, mainly.

1. The main window in the front room doesn't open all the way. It looks like it should but just before the pane clears the frame, it gets stuck. It looks as if it's been put on wrongly.

2. The bathroom is a complete tip. Nothing a major clean won't put right and even though we would clean the bathroom anyway, it's not something we wouldn't to do straight away.

3. Parking. Where the hell do guests go to park? There doesn't seem to be anywhere for them. This is something we'll have to speak to the neighbours about, along with where to put the bins and what day they get picked up on.

The new flat hasn't got a phone line yet; it's going live on Wednesday 29th June, which means all we'll have for two days will be our mobiles, assuming of course that BT actually gets things right first time.

Wanadoo Broadband is another matter completely. I've been told that I will need to phone when the new line is active and then it's going to take up to another 20 days to move the broadband from the one number to the other.

Now my question is WHY?

It takes BT 5 days - FIVE - to set up a new line. Surely it's not going to take Wanadoo 20 days to move a line? What are they going to do, come to Boston Manor, dig up the line, transplant it to Ealing and then bury it again? That, I can imagine, would take 20 days. But moving a line - most likely, on a computer - should take about 20 minutes (well, with a backlog, I'd be ok with 5 days). This does not make me very happy so come October, when it's time for us to renew our broadband, I will be going elsewhere for my broadband account, maybe even sooner.

Alas, this means we will be without broadband access for awhile. As the phoneline goes live, we should be able to dial up with a modem for awhile, at least. But we will most likely limit ourselves to checking emails so alas, I will be unable to post from home.