29 June 2007

The perils of moving house!

Oh boy am I glad the last 2 weeks are over!!! We have been helping our friends move from one side of town to the other and it has been ...ummm...fun? NOT! LOL
We decided to hire a truck so that we could do as much as possible in one load. The hire company told us the price and that we would also need to pay $500 deposit. So off we went to the depot to pick up the truck but when we got there.....at 7.30 in the morning.....they refused to take cash! What on earth is wrong with cash????? Apparently it's only good during the week so on weekends they need a credit card! URGH We ended up ringing D's boss and he let us use the company credit card. Thank God for a great boss.
Finally we had the truck and off we went for the big moving day. We had fun with the first few bits of furniture going up on the lift tray...sooo much easier than lifting... at least it was before the battery died! Thats ok we decided to have a break until the repair truck turned up with a new battery. It took ages to get there but after our break we passed lots of boxes up until it was fixed.
We finally finished loading about 3pm and headed off in our very own little convoy! We NEARLY got there too! lol J and A arrived safely and we were only a few minutes behind with the truck. We were 2 lousy kilometres from their new house when the truck dropped it's clutch ARGHHH! We were left sitting in the middle of a main arterial road blocking the biggest intersection in Port Adelaide OH JOY!
They sent out a repair truck and when they realised that it was the clutch and that the truck wasn't going anywhere on it's own they had to figure out what to do with us. Their first plan was to get us towed to their depot 20 KILOMETRES AWAY and have us unload the truck and reload onto a new truck????? I think that our faces must have said it all lol. So he asked us what we would do if it was up to us. We told him how close we were and that he should tow us there and let us unload. He didn't look to keen but I told him that WE wouldn't be unloading anywhere but their home so if he wanted to swap trucks then he would have to organise that himself and we need all the stuff at their house TONIGHT.


It took them 3 hours to get a tow truck big enough to tow a fully loaded truck but it came with a legend for a driver and he agreed with us and towed us right to their door! Hooray for REAL truckies! He put the truck up on blocks (where it sat for 2 days) and left us to it.
We finally finshed 14 hours after we had started and it was freezing. I already had the flu but 3 more joined me after our late night fun.

We thought that was it but OH NO! There was more fun to be had yet ... Wednesday night belive it or not was worse! We were taking a load of outdoor stuff down for A & J so we had our bus fully loaded and were towing a fully loaded trailer when our rear left hand wheel.....CAME OFF!!!! Yes it decided it had had enough and left us to get on with it lol
After getting the brake drum off the road and getting the wheel out of a carpark we rang some wonderful friends who came to our rescue. One towed the trailer and the other helped patch the car and followed us on our slow journey home We ended up taking one wheel nut off each of the remaining wheels and managed to limp home very slowly. We were pretty lucky really and considering what happened we are lucky that this is the extent of the damage. Well this and the brake drum which won't cost much thanks goodness!

and that is what is known as "the last straw"



I'm going to bed!