On Monday morning at 7.30am (!!) a lorry arrived with all (yes, all - no boxes have gone missing from his shipment) 198 items that were loaded back in Scotland.
Our stuff got through customs and quarantine relatively easily - a pair of shoes had to be steam cleaned (Colin's gardening shoes) and a Christmas decoration has to be gamma irradiated (it has dried holly berries on it). So all Colin's great effort in steam cleaning the bikes, gold clubs, etc, was worth it. (The Christmas presents that were hidden in our stuff also made it - none of the customs people were tempted to open them!!)
It took nearly 4 hours for everything to be unloaded and put in the right room and for all the furniture to be unwrapped. The removers also unpacked a few of the boxes - until we had run out of workspace for them. Adam and Emily found it very exciting, especially as their boxes of toys were amoung the first to be unloaded. The removers let Adam unload those boxes - at one point he had crawled all the way into the box to get the toys - it was very funny to see just a pair of legs sticking out.
We then spent the next day and a half unpacking - and in fact we still have a few boxes that have been opened to check the contents are okay but we haven't managed to put everything away.
The Scottish removers had done another amazing job with wrapping everything. For every box that we emptied, we filled another with wrapping paper - Adam and Emily loved playing in these boxes, like it was snow or fallen leaves!
Among all the unpacking, I managed to take Adam to his swimming lesson and this time he got into the pool with no tears!! Although there were some tears when he realised a plaster he had on his arm had come off and, in the logic that applies if you are three, his arm was suddenly sore.
It is really fabulous having all our stuff around us now - the living room feels a lot more homely and the kids have been playing in the playroom a lot more.
The whole process was/is very tiring and Colin and I both managed to sustain some unpacking related injuries but now that we have a more hospitable looking home, we have great plans for BBQs!!
