He Moves

The movers, five of them, turned up at 9 o'clock on Sunday morning and emptied the entire house of all valuables and invaluables within an hour, levering the hideous Chinese bed out over the front, strapping themselves to flowerpots the size of small mountains, everything. My belongings, such as they are, filled the whole lorry.  They drove over and performed the same manoeuvre in reverse and were all done before 1 o'clock. I've never seen anyone work so efficiently, or certainly not recently. All for 2,500 baht for the lorry and driver and 300 each for the strongmen, who would have been worth their weight in gold, but who am I to quibble. I gave them my TV and the dvd 'collection.'


Here, on the other hand, no progress at all had been made. The top floor was in the pristine state Nek had left it, gypsum wall a moonscape, airing holes uncut, dust an inch thick, no panels in the windows. A buck-toothed gentleman and the painter fixed the walls within about three hours -- as contrasted with the three weeks they'd remained unfixed -- and then I forced them to buy glass and do the back windows. On a Sunday? they said. Last Tuesday also good, said I, but failing that a Sunday will have to do. By the end of the day the windows were in, and I spent a restless night in my new bedroom listening to the cats explore their new home with anguished cries for help and orientation till I was well nigh out of my mind.