Our shipment arrived in Baltimore on Monday night. On Wednesday morning, I hightailed it up the I-95 to the customs building there, small person in tow, to get somebody to stamp a vital piece of paper (and yay, not charge us any extra money for importing our own belongings) and back in time to squeak into the nursery school car park with seconds to spare to pick up Monkey at 11.30. (I did have a backup plan in place in case we'd hit traffic, but luckily we didn't. We also managed to avoid driving in the torrential rain of both earlier and later that day, for which I was very thankful.) Poor Mabel was so pissed off by the long car-ride (45 minutes each way, with only a boring trip on my back to a big building with lots of serious people to break it up) that she refused point blank to get into the car the next day until I swore it was only to go as far as the supermarket, and there'd be a bagel in it for her. (Then again, there always is.)
Today, B rented a truck from those sneaky people who pretend it's really cheap until you discover they're going to charge you for every mile you drive, went up to Baltimore again, and loaded all the boxes into it, and then out again at the other end. I came back from a busy morning out with two babies (zwei! zwei babien!) to find them all neatly piled in the front room.
So far I've unearthed B's entire back catalogue of cassette tapes, his shot-glass collection, a plastic mixing bowl, a battered sieve, a very cheap bedside lamp with an Irish plug, some nicknacks I never liked, a Casio calculator (solar powered - the cutting edge of 1987 technology), and a picture of me at the Grand Canyon.
In fairness, there've also been some lovely pasta bowls I'd totally forgotten about, a huge serving bowl that goes with our Denby dinner service (not yet unpacked), a lot of glasses, and 8 teaspoons that almost match our cutlery. (As God is my witness, I'll never go without teaspoons again. Cue sunset.) And a lot of paintings (my Dad does watercolours in his spare time). Our walls will also never be bare again.
And B is nerdily pleased to once again have his entire Zoid army on the same landmass.
We have a very good gizmo for turning cassette tapes into digital recordings. R bought it, on the advice of my really-a-sound-guy uncle, to deal with his pile of cassettes. I think we could arrange a long-term loan if B is interested in turning his cassettes into something slightly more useful.
ReplyDelete