Nightmare on Cracroft …
With high hopes we busily prepared for the arrival our shipment of “stuff” from Brisbane earlier this week. Most families will have a white elephant tucked away somewhere; in our case it happens to be a white piano. Cath’s parents bought her an upright piano when she was 14 years old made by Wayne Stuart now of Stuart and Sons. Although the piano is an early Stuart, its sentimental significance probably outweighs its pecuniary value, but its main feature is undoubtedly its massive weight. I have seen grown men cry trying to move this masterpiece. So, we busily emptied space in the hall for the final resting place and Cath even painted the wall against which it is to sit, recognising that once this eagle landed it was not going to move again for a very long time.
Having seen the semi-trailer with the two containers parked outside our former Brisbane residence, Cath had 'phoned the removal company and warned them that getting a semi-trailer with two containers up our road at Cracroft Farm was a fool’s errand. “Yeah, yeah!” they replied. The double positive is an interesting grammatical construct is it not? Many languages use the double negative, French being a prominent example, but only in English is there a syntactic construction containing two positives with a negative meaning. Sure enough, first thing on Tuesday morning we beheld a semi-trailer coming up the road to the farm!
The driver got out, looked around, and pronounced that there wasn’t any room to turn around and that getting the vehicle into our driveway was going to be a bit tight! I have never been a fan of the Simpsons, but the response “Doh!” sprang readily to mind. Eventually the driver made the decision to proceed further up the road into a field owned by our neighbour and turn around there, prior to attempting to reverse into our driveway. It doesn’t take much imagination to work out what happened next – while trying to turn the semi-trailer the driver strayed slightly and the soft mud on the verge of track gleefully claimed its victim.
While I was watching this comedy of errors unfold, the day took a rather more sinister twist. Neighbours (who we as yet had not met) from some way up the road were out walking their two absolutely massive Belgian Malinois off the lead. Of course, these two massive hounds spied a small, terrified Collie and set off in pursuit. Poor old Pepper – I have never seen her run so fast. They chased her all around the garden, through the shed, up onto our deck and all the while their owners seemed completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation. Eventually Pepper still fleeing in panic, led the two larger dogs back past their owners, who were then able to grab them and put them on the lead. Never have I been so glad that Pepper is a skinny, agile, fit and above all, fast little dog.
My heart rate had not yet returned to normal when I walked up to check on progress with the semi-tailer. The news was not good as the vehicle was showing no signs of breaking free from is muddy prison. In fact, in a rather alarming turn, it started to slip sideways and lean over precariously. The nightmare scenario of it falling over and taking out an adjacent power line on our neighbour’s land was too awful to contemplate. Common sense finally prevailed, and attempts to free it were halted while help was sent for. Help eventually arrived about 3 hours later in the form of a heavy haulage recovery truck. Unloading therefore began about 4 hours after the time of arrival. No attempt was made to reverse into the driveway, meaning that there was a fairly long trip to be made with each item.
It wasn’t long into the unloading process before Cath and I started to hold our heads in dismay at the sheer volume of material that was emerging from the containers. Why hadn’t we sold more stuff, donated more stuff, or even binned more stuff prior to leaving Brisbane? Soon our nightmare turned beige, as box after box was unloaded from the containers. By the end of the day there were boxes everywhere and any hardly space to stand.
But the one bit of good news is that that white piano arrived, relatively unscathed and is now proudly standing the hall. It did however claim a strained latissimus dorsi muscle on one of the removal men – a salutary reminder that white pianos are neither light nor to be taken lightly. And just to ensure that our unpacking got off to a good start, the next morning the Huon Valley delivered a spectacular sunrise to help us set stout hearts to the strenuous unpacking brief …
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