Christmas in November, sort of

It may seem hard to believe — it’s certainly difficult for us — but the movers arrived at our home in Toronto on Monday, July 26, packed up everything we were sending to Daglan, and waved goodbye. And it may seem harder to believe that our goods arrived yesterday, November 5, or more than three months later. (Don’t get me started…)

In any case, after all this time, and a considerable amount of international phoning, emailing, gnashing of teeth, tears and anguish, we were glad to see the two charming fellows from Bordeaux pull up with their truck.

Evidently, our goods landed in Le Havre, eventually cleared customs, and were then shipped to the AGS office in Paris. There, they were separated from another Toronto shipment (apparently), and eventually shipped to Bordeaux. (Don’t ask.) Then, eventually, they were shipped here.

For all the agony of this ridiculously long process, we were delighted to see our things arrive. In fact, said my wife, it was almost like Christmas — getting a whole bunch of presents to unwrap. First, here’s the truck arriving, backed up to our garage door:

The moving van arrives -- at last!

One of the cutest “presents” in the bunch was my road bike. Of course we’ve had bikes here in Daglan for several years, having bought them in nearby Gourdon, and we love them. They’re MBK hybrid bikes, and they’re terrific on our country roads. But since I had a road bike in Toronto, I thought I might as well have it shipped. (I might not travel any faster, but I’ll look faster.) In any case, the cute aspect is how the movers in Toronto packed the bike for shipment. Here it is:

My road bike: Fresh from a transatlantic crossing

Another plus was the speed of the two movers who brought our goods. They unloaded our container from the van in less than 45 minutes, including the time it took for them to break down the special wooden crates that had been constructed to ship our original art. Here they are, hammering away in the garage:

Taking apart the protective crates

There’s a downside to everything, of course, including Christmas. Among our concerns are (a) where in the world are we going to store everything? We thought we had down-sized! and (b) will we ever use all these clothes? And then there is the whole challenge of unpacking. As you can imagine, I’ve made many, many trips to our village déchetterie (garbage collection area) with cardboard and paper for recycling. How much paper? Well, check out the pile of it in our kitchen. This should keep the recyclers busy for a while.

More than enough packing paper for this kitchen