Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

The removal adventure

I have spent the last few days at Julio's new house in London. All very
nice, although it does need a lot of work. It had been empty for the year
before he got it for a steal at auction, so he has some modernising and
the like to do. Nice house and good location, though. We spent 3 hard
days doing odd jobs and getting him organised so that he can live easier
- fixing boilers, installing cookers, sorting out wiring, tidying and
moving stuff. That sort of thing.

My favourite classic Julio-ism from the weekend?

Me: "Blimey, this garden is a bit overgrown, it must be very popular
with all the local wildlife."
J: "Do you think I will get lots of it here, then?"
Me: "Oh, yeah. Loads of Foxes and Squirrels and the like" *pause* "Heh,
my mate calls them 'Squiggles'. That makes me laugh"
J: "What? Foxes?"
Me: "No, you twat. Squirrels".
J: *laughing* "Oh. Oh, yeah. That'd make more sense"

All in all it was a good, although very much hard working, few days. One of the
days involved us leaving at 6.30am and driving 300 miles to where his
stuff is in storage, filling a big van with it all, then driving 300
miles back again straight away. We'd finished unloading at 9.30pm, in
T-shirts despite the cold as we were running around, so we were pretty
pleased with ourselves. Totally knackering day - 600 miles in 11 hours
or so in a van was a tad hard on the backside, but needed to be done!

Other delights that came our way were:
-Being blatantly flirted with (despite the fact that we were covered in
crap and sweaty, having just done the removal trip) by two very
attractive Russian girls in the pub as we sunk a few well earned beers (due to the fact that we stunk and were exhausted, the house had no heating, no hot water and only about 3 sq ft of clear floor, we left in an enigmatic fashion, rather than pursue the issue. Dammit).

-Enjoying a fantastic traditional Carribean meal (Ackee and Saltfish with
rice and peas) at one of the many millions of take-always that central
London has to offer.

-The best bacon sandwich I have had in a long time the following morning.

- Seeing the funniest and crappest home made trike I have ever been
unfortunate to witness. I have photo's, I will try and dig them out.

-Generally having a bloody good laugh and taking the piss a lot.

-Finding out that Julio has actually moved next door to the bloke that
runs the comic shop in the Simpson's. Honestly, I swear it is the same
bloke - he even has all of the Star Trek DVD's on a huge rack in his
living room, and Julio is pretty convinced he speaks Klingon. His main
redeeming qualities are that he is a really nice bloke, and he has a
full size Dalek in his house. How cool is that?

Despite the fact that the trip was all nearly entirely practical and
only mildly socially orientated, it was really good fun. I even managed
to knock 30 minutes off Julio's best time between his and mine, which
mildly pissed him off and delighted me. Looks like I won our argument
about the relative merits of cutting through London versus going out to
the M25 and around...

posted by Brock @ Friday, December 23, 2005