Nope, I haven't fallen down drunk, I've finally moved into ugly house, and it seems that me carrying boxes around is a disaster waiting to happen.
Saturday 13th December will now be only known as moving day. As it was the day after my birthday, I should probably have spent it curled up in a little ball of hungoverness, eating McDonald's and feeling like shit, 23 year old shit...
But instead, I packed up my car (and my parents car) and drove down from Newcastle to get everything out of my little city nest and across to ugly house. Who knew I had so many clothes?!
That's where the fun and games began.
So everyone knows that Leeds is an awful city to drive around in general. So imagine my delight when on approaching the outskirts of the city centre I discovered there was a football match on.
It was out and out CHAOS! A sea of people in blue and yellow scarves were wandering drunkenly through the gridlocked traffic where I found myself stuck for quite some time listening to my SatNav repeat itself.
Another thing everyone knows about Leeds is that parking is very expensive. Luckily, getting a short stay permit for the service yard behind my building had never been a problem... Until moving day.
"I'm sorry I've let all of the passes out for today" the concierge man told me. He seemed perfectly calm, nice even, in my head even now I know it wasn't his fault, but at the time, it felt like he was trying to be as unhelpful as possible. So I yelled at him... Just a little.
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? CARRY MY FURNITURE DOWN THE STREET?!"
Oops. Bad Leanne.
Then to make things worse, my landlord rang. He seemed to think I had arranged to meet him at 12pm to hand the keys over. As it was now 2.15pm and I'd kept him "waiting", he was less than impressed and gave me an earful of abuse too.
So stressed, angry, and with a limited time of about 20 minutes to clear my entire flat out, the parents and I started racing up and down in the lift carrying as many bags and boxes full of stuff as humanly possible.
My haphazard angry packing skills are not all that great, so our cars resembled a badly played game of Tetris by the time everything was in. All that was left then was to find our way out of the city to ugly house.
Even with 2 SatNavs and road signs, we got lost. Apparently I ran 3 red lights in my blind panic to not end up on the motorway to Manchester, but I think it was more like 1...
It was completely dark by the time we arrived at the house so I don't think my parents got the best first impression of the house, but by the time they left I think they could see the charm in it.
My housemate said to me afterwards: "It's amazing what 3 determined Geordies can do!" Referring to the rigorous cleaning spree my parents went on while I unpacked.
So ugly house is now not looking quite so ugly!
I'll admit I was disappointed that all the building work is STILL unfinished, and that our new fridges/freezer/tumble dryer/washing machine/dishwasher/TV still haven't arrived, but we have 2 Christmas trees and some flat pack furniture. What more do you need eh?
So now I guess it's just a case of settling in. My first night I was so exhausted I pretty much passed out, but tonight I haven't been so lucky. I'm finally noticing all the new noises and my overactive imagination is of course thinking the worst.
The worst being I think we've been burgled twice in one night.
I've probably had about 2 hours sleep and my alarm is due to go off in 20 minutes... It's going to be a long day!
L x
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