100th Entry: Just Like A Well Soiled Machine...

With only five days to go before our guests arrive from England the remodelling and move into our house needs to run like a well oiled machine. Unfortunately yesterday the oil ran dry. We got to the house before 8 a.m. It was due to be a complicated day, but so well planned nothing could go wrong. The builders were still working on the house, we had scheduled the cable guy, our new first floor furniture was going to be delivered and all our old English treasures were being taken from storage and delivered before 10.30 a.m. Easy. In fact I was confident we could even fit in a spot more shopping before the day was out.

We had one little blip before hand. It was decided that the new furniture would now be coming on Tuesday afternoon, because our new matress wouldn't be ready until then. Not sure why we changed it since our new bed won't be ready until the week after, so while our guests are sleeping in the lap of luxury, we'll be sleeping on a matress on the floor. At least it will be new, I guess.

When we arrived Matt was already there. He had actually been there since 6.30 a.m. with the carpet fitters, desperately getting the new bedroom carpets down before the beds were due to be placed on them three hours later. So far so good.

Next piece of good news. The cable guy turned up on time! Bad news. He was alone and it took him four hours to do his work. Even worse was that he had to rely on Ross to help him, so while the cable guy was in the attic locating wires, Ross had to run around the house grabbing the ends as they poked out of the walls.

At 11.15 a.m. I decided to give the removal company a call. It wasn't that I didn't think they were coming, you understand, I just wanted to make sure.

"Shipment? Today? No...we have nothing scheduled for today."

"What!!?? Do you know I have guests arriving in five days and a house to remodel? I know it's not your fault, but I need my stuff today!"

"Well, I'm sorry, but we're fully booked today. You'll need to reschedule."

"Reschedule? Are you mad? I want it as soon as possible. When can you send it?"

"Well...let me see...we're closed tomorrow....how about Wednesday?"

"Wednesday!!! But I have guests coming on Thursday. That's too late. We need a bed!"

"Let me put you on to the president of the company. One moment please."

Deep intake of breathe. Let's try to be calm.

"Hello. How can we help you?"

Calm thoughts.

"I need our shipment today and I see it doesn't seem to be scheduled," I say as lightly as I can, doesn't help to get too irate.

"Don't get angry with me madam."

Obviously not quite as light as I thought.

I'm not sure what happened next. It could have been when the steam started coming out of my ears but not sure because all that red was obscuring my vision.

Shaking, I gave Ross the phone and to cut a long story short, the delivery was promised for later that day. Don't quite know how that happened when they had no spaces in the schedule, but two hours later the van arrived and we were back on track.

As the removal men took box after box upstairs and downstairs, the cable guy was cabling, and Matt was busy scrubbing floors. Unfortunately today's painter was unexpectantly delayed (a night in jail apparently), but by nightfall our regular painter was back hard at work and the tiler was back at the chimney breast. Who needs Ty Pennington?