Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

Let's get back to my trip to Loughborough, aka, the dark side. I was there on a mission; to help my cousin Jane move house. My pregnant cousin that is. Pregnant as in 'can't lift heavy shit'.

As I sat in the kitchen and surveyed the scene, I turned and asked her, "how much have you packed so far?"

"I haven't quite started yet," she replied cheerfully.

"Christ!" I exclaimed, "you've got to be out by tomorrow evening and this place is brimming with crap."

"I know," she said unconcernedly.

"Ok, this might be a stupid question, but have you got empty boxes for all this stuff, and a van lined up to transport everything?"

"Ahhhh," she said, pleased with herself, "I've got a van."

"The van's no bloody good if you haven't got any boxes to pack stuff into," I pointed out.

"Suppose so," she replied, then added, "do you fancy going to the pub?"

I mused for a while. "Yep, let's go. The boxes will sort themselves out."

Bad idea.

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I woke up the next day with a banging headache. The first thing that came into my head was the house move. Aw crap. Then I picked up my watch, it was 11am. Double crap. 

I ran downstairs to the kitchen and found Jane sitting with a coffee, "bloody hell, we've got about five hours to get you out of here and into the new house," I shouted.

"There is some good news," replied Jane, "Martin has found us some boxes."

"Cool. Let's get cracking then," I said.

We filled up box after box, and whilst doing so, I realised something. It is quite interesting packing someone else's stuff because you never know what's coming...... like this wig for example.


After hours of packing and then staggering to the van under the weight of the boxes, it soon became apparent that there was no way that the house move was going to be completed that day. Especially as I couldn't resist the temptation to dress up in comedy wigs when it came my way.


"You're gonna have to do something," I said to Jane.

"Erm, ok. I could ring my landlord and see if he minds giving us a bit more time," she suggested. After five minutes on the phone, she came back into the room, and said cheerily, "apparently I got the dates wrong and we don't have to be out for another two days anyway."

"So we've busted a gut for nothing, you naus," I said.

"Look on the bright side, we can go to the pub now," she replied.

"Good idea, let's go," I said, dropping a big box on the floor.

That's me all over that is. A million times bitten and never shy.

P.S. For the duration of the house move, I was given one solitary, and very small screwdriver which I had to use for everything from dismantling furniture to taking down light fittings. I cursed, huffed and puffed, and threw it down in disgust many a time. Just as the final bed was disassembled, Jane appeared in the doorway, "oh look! I've found my toolkit," she said. Bloody hell.

P.P.S. Sorry about the picture quality. All I've got is this horrible ancient phone with a 10 pixel camera. The good news is that today, I put in an insurance claim for my iPhone that went down the toilet.