Before leaving Australia it seemed that I spent a reasonable amount of time helping people shift house. And indeed, I probably spend more time shifting house *myself* than many people would. But at the back of my mind it occurred to me “Well, at least when you leave Australia there won't be any of that lugging furniture around type carry on!”.
And so this morning Nick and I helped Julia shift house.
Shifting house in Marseille has got to be one of the most frustrating and intense experiences I have ever witnessed – to start with, as I have altready intoned in this site, the streets are all narrow and the traffic is crazy. So the next part of the process involves finding a carpark big enough to park your van. We managed to do this by manhandling a car out of the way a little down the road from Julia's – as it was, the van JUST fit but we couldn't get the doors open. Gee whiz, and Dad thought that our arrangement on Goodwood Road with that trailer was precarious!?
Part II of the fun started after we'd emptied the contents of the truck into the 'foyer' of the building. As you would predict, Julia lives on the 6th floor… this makes 12 flights of stairs. Great exercise though!
I'm not sure which was more of a test of the sense of humour – shifting the fridge or the washing machine ?
But in the end it was mission accompliced and everyone's happy. Time for a siesta, methinks!