Moving house in a small town…

Moving into a new house is hectic at the best of times, but trying to do it in a small town like Graskop is totally crazy. After moving to Graskop from Pretoria 18 months ago, we finally took the big step of actually buying a house. Not just any old house, a timber one, because I’ve been dreaming of living in a timber home in the mountains where I can write stories since I was in standerd 6 (grade 8 for our modern scholars, but remember I’m kind of middle aged, so I’ll stick to terms I know.)
Anyways, we bought the house and the date for the big move was set for the end of January 2014. Now in the city you would call a moving company and they will pitch bright and early with their big trucks, load your stuff and unload again at your new home. Not quite the same in Graskop. For one thing, we don’t have any moving companies in town, and should you move more than 5 km, your way out of town already. As it was, we had to move 2 km, too far to walk, too near to hire a truck all the way from Nelspruit (85 km away.)
After considering our options we opted to ask one of the local gardening services to bring his almost-as-big-as-a-small-truck vehicle and four of his workers to help us with our Groot Trek across town. That was mistake number one. The young lad left it too late to organise his workers (it was end of the month and they do like their booze when they have money), therefore on the morning of the big move he was looking for workers, while I was having a panic attack. Not that he searched too hard, because I finally caught up with him at a local restaurant having breakfast. He pitched two hours later with two guys clearly picked up from the streets and clearly drunk.  Anyways he was given his marching orders.

The date turned out to be mistake number two. Learn from my experience… Never, but, never try to move house in January, because it is the raining season! The evening before the scheduled move, Graskop had 90 mm of rain. The results at our new home were muddy to say the least.

But, they do say that things always turn out for the best. A frantic call from my side to Pastor Ken Scrimnger of the Emmanuel Assemblies of God ensured that we had three of his congregation members helping out, while Lucy organised her two sons for the occasion. Fortunately we managed to hire a trailer at MB Trailers in Sabie.

For the first time in more than a week there was no rain and we managed to move the whole house within one afternoon, despite slipping and sliding in the mud. Unpacking everything took a while, especially after young Jordan (11) decided to unpack all my books in the store room. But all is well, that ends well… We are now officially Graskoppers with our own piece of this wonderful town.