The man from Pickford's

The man from Pickford's, Ron, came to the house yesterday to see what we want to move to New Zealand, and let us know what services they offer. He went through the whole house and we told him what we wanted to get transported over in the Autumn, and he also viewed a stack of boxes that I want to get put into storage now.

The first thing he said about the boxes that are already packed was, "Those boxes won't do at all - we need double walled cartons for international transport". I only bought "those boxes" a few days ago, from Belfast Self Storage, after talking to a Pickford's girl on the phone and asking was it okay for me to pack some things myself. I made it very clear that I would be packing them in order to have them stored for a while and then shipped to New Zealand, so I wasn't at all impressed to hear that I had wasted £35 and a load of time. Happily, Ron agreed that I had been misinformed, and said they can take the boxes as they are for temporary local storage, then they'll re-pack them for transit and I won't be charged for the cartons they're re-packed into. Phew.

He is to email me tomorrow with a quote for their services, but the things for temporary storage can go into a big crate that costs £12 per week. We don't have enough to fill that crate yet, so I have some more packing to do, but hopefully we'll have a much clearer house in another few days. Clearer, that is, until Skry gets all his stuff from his old house in Killowen Street - it has been languishing there since we got married because there wasn't any room for it here.

It'll be interesting to see what the quote is for the rest of the packing and transporting. I'm expecting something in the region of £3,500 - £4,000, but I should find out tomorrow. That sounds like a lot, but it's a whole lot cheaper than replacing everything we own!