Moving across the pond

The idiot broad is abroad once again. This time, for a more permanent stay.

A few days ago I packed up several large bags (more on this later) and flew to London Gatwick via Calgary. Now I am more or less sorted in my new flat in Kensington Olympia and have one day of work under my belt. And I’ve finally had enough time to sit down in the evening and regale the internet with the story of moving myself and (far too much of) my stuff over to London.

Before the flight

Well, I suppose it began with the constant groaning and whinging of my father as he assisted me shoving my bags into our car to take them and me to the airport. He insisted they were all going to be over the weight limit. My mother and I were more optimistic.

Flash forward to the bag drop off at the West Jet gate and having to individually weigh each one of my four checked bag. Yes, you read that correctly, I had four checked bags…

The first one that went up was 45 lbs. Perfect! The limit is 50 lbs. Bag 2 went up and was 10 lbs overweight. Bag 3: 11 lbs over. Bag 4 (saving the best for last) was my ski bag, which contained not only my skis, but also two Persian rugs. Bag 4 weighed in at 89 lbs.

Okay, I guess my father was right on this one. I had to pay overweight charges for three bags – but I still maintain that this is cheaper than buying two new rugs in London!

Once I was unburdened of my four big bags I only had to deal with my backpack and carry-on suitcase, both packed to the verge of explosion. I said bye to my parents and made my way to the gate knowing that this was only the beginning of the hardship that lay ahead.

The flight

I sat down in my aisle seat and nervously waited as the masses inched their way down the cabin cramming bags and jackets and loose items into open compartments.

Devastation struck when an elderly woman came to sit right next to me in the middle seat. This did not bode well for potential middle seat openness.

I felt a mutual tension in the air as the elderly British lady and I watched the remaining passengers board. I think we both hoped we could have one space free between us.

This was not to be.

Quite possibly the last person to board was our lucky winner. She kindly asked if the elderly British lady wanted the window, who graciously accepted. Then she asked me if I wanted the middle or aisle and I, obviously, wanted to stay aisle. Middle is just a rookie mistake.

I wasn’t too horribly upset about the seating situation at this time. It was clearly a full flight and there was nothing to be done. However, I was too quick to let my guard down on this mystery middle seat occupant.

Middle seat woman was a nightmare. She was constantly moving, readjusting, taking her jacket on, then off, then on, then off, and she would flail it over the seat back of the person in front of her. I don’t know how they didn’t say anything about it.

Now, middle seat woman may have just been a nervous flyer and that is fine and there is nothing to be done about that. But to make matters worse middle seat woman appeared to have a cold and was sniffling non-stop, rubbing her hands all up and down her nostril business and then on her sleeves. It was really disturbing. I was working my wet wipes like mad!

At one point I could hear her sniffling through earplugs and noise cancelling headphones so I figured it would be nice if I brought her some tissue from the washroom because maybe she just didn’t want to ask to get up or something. I came back with a massive wad of tissue and handed them to her. She was very grateful.

It seemed that I had perfectly timed the tissue delivery with the climax of a tear-jerking romantic comedy she was watching and she interpreted the tissues for use on her wet eyes, rather than her nose.

She used the wad to wipe her eyes once and then shoved the whole load into her seat back. Sigh.

Middle seat woman also had a special talent for spilling any liquids (and some solids) on herself and others.

All this to say, it was a VERY entertaining flight with any attempts at sleep squandered.

After the flight

Deplaning was full of mixed emotions. Happy to be off of the flight that dragged on and on. Terrified at the next steps that lay ahead re. collecting my baggage, getting my baggage to the estate agent to pick up spare keys (because my dear flatmate Tomithy forgot to leave me my set of keys in London), and then getting my baggage to and inside my flat.

I made my way through customs with ease (hello, I am a Permanent Resident now ahh thank you) and found the carousel that was to regurgitate our flight’s bags. I put a one pound coin in a luggage cart and began to strategize how to fit everything on it.

I had to take multiple breaks between the carousel and the exit to the airport. I was pushing the luggage cart with three big bags and my small checked bag with one hand and I was dragging a 90 lb ski bag in the other.

I was half way out the clearance area you have to walk through in a tight little corridor with all your bags when I had to stop and re-grip again. This is when I was approached from behind by middle seat woman.

She offered to help me and I immediately forgave her for all questionable plane antics. Although, having her help was comical in itself. She was pushing my cart with four bags while I tried to roll her one suitcase and my ski bag. Shortly into this exploit her handbag exploded on the ground in the middle of the narrow exit corridor. People were piling up behind us and as we were trying to get things back into her bag other things were displacing themselves. It was pure comedy. And in that moment it dawned on me, are we not all middle seat women deep down?

Finally, with a thick layer of sweat on my brow in addition to many other places, I managed to get all my damn bags out to the cab stand only to be told that I had to book the cab inside. I told the cabbie I was leaving my stuff there and at that point I really didn’t care whether someone took all of it.

The cab had to stop a short distance from my flat where I got the spare keys from the estate agent. The cab was stopped precariously on the corner of a main street while I tried to do this. My chatty estate agent had to be reminded several times that I had a car waiting with all my luggage and that I was in a bit of a rush.

Back in the cab with the keys and I was nearly home free. The cab driver dropped me off, helped me get the bags to the curb and then I was alone.

Hauling the bags up one set of outdoor stairs and two small sets inside was a workout. Tom picked a really convenient time to be out of town…

My ski bag barely managed to clear the turning radius of the stairwell and I was halfway through pulling it in my door when the lovely British couple who live in the flat upstairs found me essentially sandwiched between what looked like a body bag and the wall. They were kind enough to help me until I ensured them I would be fine.

I wasn’t fine.

I was lying on the little set of steps inside our flat with the ski bag half on top of me.

At home

When I arrived in the flat I was in full bore mode. I hauled hundreds of pounds of luggage out of the airport, into a car and up to my flat, with both personal strength and extreme anguish. 

I immediately got to work on the place, which had clearly not undergone the deep commercial clean we stipulated on our rental contract. And unlike me, Tom seems to be content enough to live in a lair of filth. 

I homed in on the vacuum and made it work like a dog for at least an hour. At first I couldn’t find any location where the tube detached from the main vacuum structure and thought there was no smaller nozzle for nooks and crannies. I was violently trying to shove the massive vacuum head into the corners of the stairs, which resulted in both lack of cleaning the corners and increasing anger and distress on my part. 

Luckily, I later did find the detachment point and this added roughly another hour and a half to my vacuuming procession. 

Next, I decided to rearrange the entire living room to a more appealing setup. I wanted the couches to face the windows so we can look out while sitting. The couch is not small. It is a hefty two part corner sectional apparently made of solid slate. 

While doing this I also wanted to lay down the new carpet – the one from the ski bag – underneath the new couch configuration. I moved the larger, straight part of the sectional off the carpet area all together and then tried to move the carpet with the curved corner piece of sectional still on it, teetering dangerously on end. Needless to say this did not work very well. In the end I had to set the corner piece down in place and lift its front while ramming the carpet under. I am still not happy with the carpet alignment. 

Following the living room redesign I moved onto clearing up the hallway and finishing vacuuming. At this point I wanted to go out and get a few essentials for the night before I could start working on my bedroom: duvet, pillows, soap (I desperately needed a shower), sultana bran cereal (lol), and milk. Raisin bran cereal: dinner of champions. 

Back at home I could begin working on my bedroom. Here too I wanted to rearrange the direction of the bed. This proved to be an even bigger challenge than the couch. It has a somewhat tall headboard on it and it also is made of a similar brand of slate as the couch it seems.

Because of the dimensions of the room the bed could not simply be slid around and shifted the 90 degrees desired. Instead I had to emulate an Olympic champion dead lifter and try to lift the bed up from the end and tip it onto the headboard to turn it via the shorter length side. This also didn’t work because the headboard made contact with the wall before it was on its end as I was being sheared in two between the other end of the bed and the wall.

Clearly, this wasn’t going to work. But, of course, I was determined beyond my general capacity. I decided to remove the mattress, reducing the weight considerably, and then tried the same move but from the other end. Success! 

Behind the bed I found an area of dust the was so substantial and old that it was essentially glued into place. A frenzy of vacuuming again ensued. 

I lay down my smaller carpet and made up my bed. Most of my bags were to remain packed the first night as I desperately needed to shower, watch some mindless television and go to bed by 8:30 pm.

All this to say, I’ve made it to London and I am happy to be here in one piece.

DOTD