The movers showed up late, of course. We knew they would. We got up at seven so we could be out there to meet them just in case they came at eight. We should have slept the extra half hour. They had split our shipment in two, loading half on one truck, with most of the large furniture ending up on the second truck. They came prepared to go to work right away. Cally spread out out the list of contents on the only flat surface available, the kitchen counter, and the guys started bringing stuff in, hollering out numbers. For the most part it worked pretty well. They soon discovered that it was easier to peel off the numbers and bring them in. One of our movers pasted them on his forehead. I tried to keep up with them, determining the destination of furniture and boxes. The second truck pulled in an hour or so after the first. Then we had a crew at work, and everything seemed to speed up.

They broke for tea and a couple of them just had to try my recumbent bicycle. Otherwise, they were a very dedicated bunch. They were curious about our situation and wondered what we were doing here and what we thought about Australia. By 4 o’clock nearly everything had been accounted for. It was a long day, not my idea of an ideal birth day celebration, but sometimes you just have to take what comes and enjoy it.