Driving in London Is So Much Fun!

I'm lying. It's not. Especially when you're driving a van and it's raining. But even less fun than driving a van in the rain in London? Sitting in the passenger seat while someone else who is nervous by nature drives a van in the rain in London.

(That's a lot of bubbles.)

I felt quite bad for M, because it was a terrible day to drive. We made it to the warehouse to pick up our boxes just fine, but we had to sit out in the rain for 20 minutes until they were ready for us. This caused a bit of a problem, because we only booked the van for 4 hours, and it took us 90 minutes to get to the warehouse. 90+90+20+we still have to pick up Mr. A's bed with this van = Not Good.

(This is our neighborhood park. It's small, but nice!)

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Why didn't you map this out first?" Well, we did. But maps don't take into account horrendous London traffic, compounded by road work, and of course, the lovely English rain.

We made it out with all of our stuff intact, thankfully. I had it palletized before we left, so I was pretty sure it would all be safe anyway. We frantically pulled all the boxes out of the shrink wrap and threw them in the back of the van, with M saying, "How are we going to fit that bed in here?"

Then we drove off to pick up Mr. A's new loft bed. With absolutely no time to spare. . .we got lost. Oh yes, we got REALLY lost. The guy ended up meeting us at the edge of his town and drove us back to his house so we could pick it up. M kept saying, "He's got a van. Why didn't he just bring the bed here?" I dunno.

When we got there, though, the guy was like, "Uh, I don't think it's going to fit in the back of that van." Doubt not, Mr. Englishman. I was raised on Tetris. So while the men fretted and M managed to drop a box on my foot AND accidentally slam my head into the side of the van, I repositioned the boxes and we slid the bed in on the top. It took less than 10 minutes total. Nice.

It didn't rain on the way home, so we actually got to appreciate the Essex countryside. UH-mazing. Seriously gorgeous. We were pretty pleased with ourselves until we hit traffic and ended up 90 minutes late dropping off the van. Fail.

By the time we unloaded everything and carted it upstairs (including a box of solid books -- haha, WHAT was I thinking?), we were pretty over the whole moving thing and vowing never to do it again (until next year, right?).