General News
23 August, 2024
If moving house was in the Olympics, we would have swept the medals
A Mum's World: discovering new muscles while moving house.
Melbourne
A Mum's World
Olympic gold medals may be impressive to some, but it's the everyday acts of heroism that get a gold star in my book, and last weekend my husband romped one in.
With the help of a promising young man who has only been dating Katianna's housemate for about a month, and another housemate's fiancé, Kym moved our eldest daughter out of one rental in Melbourne's eastern suburbs and into another.
Both homes were built by Italian or Greek immigrants in the 1970s at a guess, as they were masterpieces of brick, white balustrade and concrete with lots of room for gardening.
There were flights of stairs to carry the refrigerator down and flights of stairs to carry the washing machine up.
Beds were pulled apart, sets of drawers loaded into the trailer and swivel chairs wrangled.
The gigantic dining table saved from kerbside collection moved in one load, whilst the dryer we gifted last Christmas travelled with the heavy television cabinet and strange collection of lounge chairs.
One fingernail will eventually blacken completely and be lost, but luckily, someone else's uncle swung by to deal with the piano - which is almost always a deal breaker.
Arriving a couple of hours later than Kym, my strength lay in the sweeping and mopping department, mainly helping clean the old rental ready for inspection, then folding clothes to put away in the gorgeous built-in robe in the fresh location, whilst making sure no one had to cook dinner on their first night in the new place.
The four housemates quickly reestablished a kitchen, dining room and lounge and divided up the remaining useful space with aplomb.
Secretly dreading the amount of gardening required at the original rental to earn back their bond, they thrilled at the outdoor entertaining area available at their new address, complete with large water fountain feature.
My husband is often known to spend a whole day cutting and collecting wood, but this house move had him groaning in a new tone and headed to bed earlier than usual.
Heavy household items come in all kinds of strange shapes and sizes, difficult to lift then balance.
I'm pretty sure muscles that had been untapped for possibly years had a workout that day.
My hero. Two gold stars.