Moving To Scotland : Part Two

Welcome back, gentle reader and settle in to hear the tale of Our Move To Scotland, Part Two: The Exhaustening.
If you missed part one, it’s available here.

Day Two dawned, grey and muggy. By now the girls and Gary were waking up in Edinburgh whilst Zoe, Sammi and the cats had just set off on an intrepid car journey across the UK, too exhausted to feel that emotional about leaving London.
Andy has been left behind to supervise the second day of loading stuff into the moving van before setting off on the train. 

Just before the car left our main removal person, Colin, had arrived with the van and confided that it was making a “funny noise” and he was concerned about it getting to Scotland in one piece. A great way to begin, we’re sure you’ll agree. 

However there was little to be done about it, so Sammi and Zoe set off, having got Andy’s promise to update us on the progress of the move.

We’d just gotten too far up the road to turn around and come back when Zoe suddenly exclaimed “Oh dear. I’ve still got Andy’s train tickets.”

The first of the day’s panics ensued as we recalculated how much later our route would be if we turned around, gazing at the traffic jams choking up the roads on the homewards side of the motorway and hurriedly checking ticket websites. Eventually we had to admit defeat and call Andy to tell him to book new tickets. 

This turned out to be the first of many phone calls pinging back and forth over the day, including:

“Three men have shown up to help, yay! I’ve given them tea and biscuits, is this right?”

“The cleaners are here early, there may be a turf war brewing between them and the movers. Worried!”

“P’s had a bit of break down on a litter tray break once she clocked the other cars moving and now she’s tried to bury herself under the pot plants”

“The van’s noises are getting worse, we think it might be broken but Collin says not to worry!”

“Something’s up with Rocky, he’s doing this sad howling thing. We don’t know what he wants!”

“Things have really sped up now we have a full crew of workmen, we might even get back on schedule if we can get the van going!”

“Disaster, Collin has just got pinged on the track and trace app. He needs to go into isolation for eight days and they need to find a new driver. Maybe worry again!”

“On the bright side, the movers and cleaners seem to be forming some sort of flirtatious coalition, there is harmony in the house…..”

“We know what Rocky wanted! We tried letting him out to see if he would stop howling and he’s just curled up to watch the lorries go by and now he’s super chill…..also possibly stoned”

“The van has maybe been fixed, but Colin can’t drive it so it’s being driven to Luton now, to someone who can take over. They can’t tell us when they’ll arrive at the new house, it won’t be tomorrow though, like we planned. We are totally off schedule. Erk”

As the hours passed it was clear how helpless we were in the whole situation, we could do little to affect things, all we could do was try to keep stress levels down, laugh and keep positive. 

(Of course, at the same time that all this drama was going down, Sun Queen and Moon Queen were enjoying multiple ice creams at the beach, living their best lives with nary a thought to their beleaguered grown ups.)

As the second day came to a close the car pulled up in Edinburgh and Zoe and Sammi were reunited with the rest of the clan at Hilary and Stephen’s temporary flat. The original plan was to stop here overnight and move into our house the next day but it was clear now we might need to make this our base of operations for a longer period.

Andy was still in London, having finally wrapped up loading and shutting the door for the final time on Hartington Road. He would join us the next day, if he could figure out how to drop the keys to our now shut estate agent….

Day Three: a call came from the moving company to say the van would hopefully be in Scotland the next day (day 4). It would be driven by a new driver and we needed to be there to meet it or else be charged a fine for keeping them waiting! 

So we used the day to gather energy (especially Sammi who was still suffering tonsillitis), gather Andy from the train station and early the next morning we left the girls to have another day at the beach as we set off at a pace to North Berwick, eager to be on time for our van.

Halfway to North Berwick, Zoe realised that she’d left the house keys inconveniently in the flat back in Edinburgh.

So back we went once more!

And back again we drove, slightly panicked and against the clock. 

We arrived fifteen minutes late, expecting scowling faces and penalties, only for the van to not be there at all! It gave us enough time to run like excited children through the house (or in Sammi’s case, gently wheezing through it) and see our new rental* home for the first time. It really struck us how much of a crazy gamble this had been, agreeing to move to these places off of photos. How lucky we were that the house was more beautiful and even bigger than we expected. Our heads were immediately filled with thoughts and ideas of where to put things and future plans and possible visits from friends and family, for the first time it really seemed real. We were here, this was our home!

And if you stood outside, looking in the right direction on tip-toes, you could see the sea!  

The van pulled up and the only person to get out was Rob, an impressively brawny man from Aberdeen. Unfortunately, even he was going to struggle unloading the entire van without extra workers, of which there were none. He called the depot and discovered that the office had forgotten to confirm with the agency hired for extra staff during the pandemic, so the men hadn’t been sent out. 

Curses. 

We began unloading and made as much progress as we could and after an hour or two the cavalry arrived in the form of two extra men to help us unload but even with the extra hands it became clear that we’d really pushed ourselves to the limit. Long days of physical activity, fast food choices and poor sleeping had really taken their toll and Sammi’s tonsillitis was proving harder and harder to push through. So the final stage of unloading and unpacking enough essentials to be able to stay in the house took a couple of very long days.

But we’d done it. Everyone was here, more or less intact. And now we had our temporary homes and our stuff sat strangely in the new environment. 

The cats were released into the house to prowl around sniffing and yelling and we left them in peace. 

As things calmed down we wandered to the beach as a group, slightly stunned at all that had happened and the glorious views before us. Drifting along in a daze, murmuring how grateful we felt and how tired we were but wildly happy to have made it. 

We found the harbour, we found fish and chips (another poor food choice perhaps, but delicious) and we gazed out to sea. 

And that, gentle reader, is how we moved to Scotland.

* We have moved to Scotland before our new-build home is ready to be lived in! This sounds crazy right? Except we wanted to be in Scotland in time for the new school year, starting in August, to give the girls as much of an easy transition as possible. Therefore, we’re renting a place until November, hopefully!