In my house there are many boxes

Sorry to misquote Jesus in the title, but it’s true – you can check John 14:2 for what he actually said.

The current count is 114 boxes empty and flattened and 7 awaiting unpacking (94.2% complete). The fact that we’ve got so much done only 6 days after arriving here is largely due to Tasha’s parents Colin and Chris coming over for the weekend and helping us out. Yet as fast as we unpack them we seem to buy more! As I’ve mentioned in previous missives the storage space in this house is somewhat less than what we are used to, and especially in the kitchen where the apparent cupboard space to actual usable space ratio is somewhat low. So, after one round of unloading, some things went back into boxes until there was somewhere to store them. This entailed visits to Argos and a Swedish Furniture Emporium, and a whole lot more cardboard.

On the garage front, Martin Howard will testify that a couple of days before we left the Ferndown garage looked a lot emptier than it did six weeks previously. We decided that we would work out what to do with the remainder when we could see the extent of the problem. And the answer is - a new shed. I’ve got quite familiar with the Cambridge Yellow Pages, and my brand new built-to-order 10’x6’ shed with double doors (enough for 4 bikes, camping gear and 10 crates of Christmas decorations) will be arriving next week.

Also, there are nearly three large boxes full of things where a lack of storage space has meant that we’ll be saying goodbye to some more items. Our loss is Freecycle.co.uk’s gain.
The upshot of all this is that one room of the house is almost completely inaccessible as it’s full of flattened or yet-to-be-unpacked boxes. But everything else is looking good.

Things are looking good on the lettings front too – Colin and Chris helped us out on the decorating of 62 Fitzpain Road after it was empty, and it seems a well presented empty house lets a whole lot quicker than a full one. We’ve had 3 offers this week and are now proceeding with one of them.

So once more, and hopefully for the last time, how much stuff did Jesus actually carry round with him? I think a pair of sandals and a robe took considerably less space than the 2500 cubic feet we’ve just carted halfway across the country.