You know those days where the new secondhand couch and table arrive while your bloke is at a meeting and that's okay because back home in New Zealand you would have coped but ... living on the top floor with a door that you reach via that pretty little spiral staircase makes unsupported deliveries all but impossible.
The guys were kind enough to throw the couch into the teensy weensy elevator and get it upstairs but it was there, on the spiral staircase, that it got stuck ... really stuck, and it was about there that I realised Gert had the little purse with my 10euro in it too. And it was there that the couch had to stay until my Belgian came home ... pulled out of a meeting by his quietly panicked kiwi because letting go of the couch could mean death and destruction for unsuspecting neighbours below.
It's rarely dull here and when it is I complain.
I guess today was my punishment.
He came home and found me resting, having run up the 100+ stairs because the elevator was full; having shown the guys were the garage was for the table; having done all I could to help move it.
There was me, the forlorn creature sitting on the spiral staircase, holding the couch so he could exit the elevator.
We lifted and shifted and twisted the thing but there was nothing happening.
I had removed two couch legs earlier, we pulled out the tool kit and contorted ourselves, removing the 3 screws holding the difficult-to-clear back leg and by something akin to a miracle, we twisted and lifted the couch up the stairs.
I may be booking a hip replacement next week though ...
So I put the couch back together while he raced back to his meeting.
Photographs to follow once the room has been suitably adjusted.
Shanti, we need you!!!
12 comments:
LMFAO! Oh poor you. Normally, people use one of those moving elevators to move heavy stuff upstairs coz staircase and elevators tend to be annoyingly little things.
Oh dear.. having dragged ... or let your Belgian and you drag my heavy suitcases up those widing stairs.. I KNOW how awful that must have been!! HOpe the desk arrived safely ???
I delivered furniture for my last two years in high school and it is exhausting work. be kind to your back.
What an adventure! Proof that it is a nightmare moving furniture in Europe, with tiny doorways and elevators. Hope you - and Gert - have recovered by now. xo
It's my hip, arms and knee at the moment lol ... I moved house a lot in the first marriage and assumed I was superb at this shifting thing but by crikey, maybe I'm less superb these days.
It surely is a nightmare moving furniture in Europe, Tara. It's 8.37pm and we're still going. xo
Having hauled my ass up your spiral staircase, I don't want to imagine you hauling a sofa up there.
At least when crazed things like this happen, you have good material to blog about.
And Gert has a great story to bring back to his meetings...
Oh but the pain of it all V. We're both groaning whenever we move our arms, legs or any other body part.
I have to clean the couch marks off the wall tomorrow.
Oh my...
I've got a major household appliance arriving at my place, over an in-house spiral staircase.
I'm holding my breath...
Lead story on VMT: "Series of incidents involving Antwerp residents being assaulted by furniture on apartment stairs being investigated by police."
Now this is the sort of thing they should cover in Integration Classes. How to get your stuff into your apartment without permanent injury!
Oh Peter, I do hope it went well but you're used to this stuff ... my possessions have always been moved from house to house in New Zealand, or were so sparse that I moved them myself mostly in Turkey.
And yes V, moving furniture from and into apartments definately needs to be on the social orientation list. It's surreal after life in a country where we all live in houses.
If I remember correctly, it's a challenge to get two humans, and a small day pack out the elevator and up your stairs. A couch?! A COUCH?
Oh my.
I know, we're marvellous aren't we Pam :)
Ladder lift next time ...
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