Yes, I can’t quite believe it, but the rectory is finally cleared of everything and cleaned. Mind you, Ed and I are like two zombies needing a year off to recover. Oh, forgot! Getting a lifetime off with retirement.
We got rid of some stuff through Freecycle, the council came again and took another five pieces of furniture, the skip is full to overflowing, and Rachel next door took no end of bits and pieces for the next church bric a brac stall.
Today we finished the cleaning, so at least for the moment, the rectory looks and smells clean. But since it won’t have another resident for a minimum of four months and probably longer, may be less clean by the time the new Rector moves in.
Last Sunday we had a lovely farewell service at the final church, followed by a delicious al fresco lunch in the churchyard. Unfortunately the wasps have descended in earnest and I got stung on the arm (yes, all the usual swelling and redness – I’ve been living on Piriton since.) The church gave us a lovely red acer tree for our new garden, a fun pepper mill and a bottle of pink champagne. I think it’s pink so that I won’t notice the pink elephants swimming around in it after half a bottle or so.
Next Sunday evening is THE final farewell, with all the churches together and I think quite a lot of other people as well, or so I’ve gleaned. It’s all a closely guarded secret, but there are ways and means…
Meanwhile I have a wedding on Saturday but other than that am crashing out for a day or two.
Not long now.
Ed and I and youngest daughter Bex have spent the last two days clearing and shifting and lifting and carrying and all other things heavy that you can imagine.
Last night, as we staggered to our new home nearly dead on our feet, Ed said,
“We’re nearly done. Just finish off tomorrow and then we can clean next week.”
That was yesterday. He’d reckoned without the loft.
Today, Bex and I tackled the loft. It was horrendous. Not only filthy, with everything covered in layers of unmentionable black yuk (birds? bats? wasps?spiders? Who knows? What I do know is that it was thick, black and disgusting) but piled from floor to ceiling with boxes and old suitcases. It was like clearing out another three rooms.
Bex went up the ladder and handed down each huge box to me, precariously balanced on the lower steps of the ladder. I carried the boxes downstairs and piled them up outside the garage door, for Ed to either sling in the skip or burn down in the orchard at the bottom of the garden.
It took all day and we still haven’t finished, so my carefully worked out timetable is rapidly disappearing into distant memory.
Still, the good thing is that several folks came to collect furniture via Freecycle and went away very happy. So it did us a good turn clearing out and did them a good turn with something they wanted, and even helped the environment with less landfill.
So I’m feeling suitably superior at the moment. It helps.
Ed and I decided to take the day off today, partly because our youngest daughter was coming up from Swindon and wanted to call in on us before going on to Al’s.
Al rang up last night to thank me for the shortbread and said I could go any time if took little gifts like that… So today I made some flapjack and sent it down with Bex when she left here.
I was telling her about the odd pieces of furniture we have left – rejected by the Salvation Army – and she said,
“You want to use Freecycle.”
“What?”
“It’s on the internet and there are local branches all over the country. You just send an email detailing the stuff you want to get rid of, and people who want it come and pick it up.”
“You must be joking,” I said (not very originally). “Who would want this old rubbish?”
“You’d be surprised,” she said, with what passed for a mysterious look.
So she helped me to send details to the site.
To my astonishment, within two hours I had requests for three of the items, two of which will be picked up tomorrow.
So Bex was right. Doesn’t it make you sick when your husband AND your kids are always right?
Sounds terrifying? You may well be right!
This morning had my usual weekly chat with Nigel the Curate, round at his house now since we have only one broken dining room chair and one rejected computer chair left in the Rectory. The Salvation Army can’t take swivel chairs with only three feet. They have to have four or five feet. Bet you didn’t know that. Neither did I.
So off we bowled to Nigel’s lovely cottage, overlooking the beck with its kingfishers (and its barn owl working the meadow around dusk) and sat in the conservatory to drink coffee. Nigel has a new coffee machine and I’m a little green (with envy, you understand) since it produces coffee to die for.
Not much to discuss now, really, but we had a chat and then I came here to Al’s house (he’s our son) since he has chairs. He’s at work, but gave me permission to use his place when necessary (and his broadband is faster than mine). I made him some shortbread to keep the invitations coming.
This afternoon I’m obliged to attend the toddlers’ tea party, held in the churchwarden’s garden. It’s put on by the Mother’s Union, who invite all the families who have had children baptised in the last few years. So that’s about twenty children under the age of five,then, mostly with their Mums (Dads have more sense. Or maybe they’re working) and older siblings.
The sky is looking decidely threatening but they’ve put up a marquee in the garden which should effectively spare the house. Except, of course, for the loo. And you know what it’s like. If one wants the loo, they all do.
So think of me (and Nigel the Curate) this afternoon, playing ‘Ring a ring of roses’ and ‘poor Ginny lies aweeping’ and ‘Lucy Lockett lost her pocket’ and on and on, then consuming vast quantities of jelly and orange squash.
I know you’d love to be here with me, but sorry, you’ll just have to be content with reading all about it.
Not yet quite gone, but not far off.
Ed and I raced down to the Rectory at the crack of dawn (well, by nine o’clock anyway) in order to be there when the Salvation Army men turned up in their large van. Actually they turned out to be one man and a somewhat skinny youth. I had grave doubts about said skinny teenager carrying anything downstairs, let alone heavy chests of drawers and computer work stations, but he was a lot stronger than he looked.
They didn’t want three large wardrobes, or the bed with two mattresses because there was no fire resistant sticker on the mattresses. But they took a load of other stuff, including all the remaining bedding and all the remaining clothes.
Phew! It’s a big relief.
We had a nice sort of dresser in the lounge, with wine glasses in the top and bottles in the bottom. We cleared out the glasses and bottles (all half consumed spirits of varying kinds) so that they could take the dresser.
I said, “Oh! Salvation Army. You won’t want these bottles or the two wine carafes or the glasses, then.”
The guy said very quickly, “I’m not Salvation Army. I just work for them.”
So he took all the bottles. Ed found a super-dooper penknife crammed with attachments, which he slipped to the skinny teenager. He seemed pleased.
Now we’ve ordered a skip for Thursday, so hopefully will be finally cleared by the weekend. Then we have all the following week to go back and clean.
That’s the plan, anyway.
If we don’t weaken.