The Woods: 02/2009

The first thing you do is get a quote from a removal company, because just the prospect of traversing half a dozen nations with your worldly possessions seems like it will entail way too much red tape and panado, and secondly because its a mooorse schlep. On a good day, moving house reeks, switching continents with your house is a good enough reason to hire help.

We’ve been good these last 2 years, sure we’ve put on a few pounds, but then again we’ve kept the materiality of our existence to respectable levels. When the TV stand is the box it came in draped over with the off-cuts of the two windows we curtained one can’t really be called excessive. The move to Prague did little to help though, Ikea got another major visit from the Woods – the difference between a furnished apartment and an empty one. It was a bummer having to either sell or move all the stuff when it was only a few months old, but hey, our landlord had done good by us and the savings we made on agents commission alone probably paid for half the kit. …but I digress.

So, you get the quote. You read it through and re-read it, wondering to yourself if there was an adding mistake in their calculations, because, what they want to move the whole shebang is more than it is worth in the first place. After you’ve traced through their calculations and discover that there is no mistake, you consider selling everything, packing 3 suitcases and catching a plane!

To make this boring story less painful to read, for whoever was brave enough to read this far, the answer is that you hire a van in the UK, fly to the UK with family and leave them in the capable hands of one Aunty Judith (God bless her) and presently drive back to Prague to collect all the stuff that didn’t get sold.

As we arrived here, the UK was just getting over the shock and horror of 6 inches of snow – the poor blighters, and I wondered how well the trip would go. When a country is paralysed by literally a few inches of snow because there are no snow ploughs or any other kit to deal with the problem, you know for sure that they’ve never heard of winter tyres. On the continent, you better know all about them or have 6 months of supplies and a potty in the boot because you’re going to spend winter in your car on the side of the road, hippie style until spring liberates you. The weather in CZ had been good and dry up until then, not particularly warm yet, but not too cold either. I figured I’d be fine.

Got to Dover ok, but very late, there was wind in the channel you see and so the ferries weren’t sailing and the backup was a long one. Paying £200 to drive under the sea didn’t appeal to me either, so I waited for the boat. Got horribly seasick on the way over and spent a miserable 3 hours holding back the nausea. Driving either left or right hand drive vehicles is absolutely no sweat anymore, but driving a right hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road was a new twist, like a slice of lime in your coke.

By this time all the weather had quit beating up on the English and was busy with the continent especially in Germany. I thought I’d drive till beat, pull over in a truck stop, snooze and drive on. Most of the journey was fine, it was snowing, but the roads were clear and the traffic was going along nicely, the van felt like it ought to though an empty van in wind is like a skateboard with a sail – when the wind blows you move. It helps you make friends on the freeway.

France, Belgium and the little sneak through the Netherlands were all good, as was the first hour or so of Germany. But then it all went for a ball of… well, something bad. Ze sno in Deutschland wuz ferry hard you zee, unt it was zis deep on ze grownd (about up to the knee) evn on ze frreevays – which was a bugger. Several things all happened together. Firstly, visibility got bored and left the party, it was PELTING down in fistfuls, then it got cold, I would guess about –10, it was getting late – wee hours and I was beginning to run low on fuel. Nothing to cause immediate alarm… yet. There are zillions of heavy trucks on the roads, uncountable many, untold billions of them, are you getting a sense of how very many of these things there are? They go slowly in the snow, which is good, but it does a very effective job of jamming up the freeway, which makes your average speed 15km/h in second gear. The problem with this is that, speeds that low are merciless on fuel consumption and you have no momentum. When you add no momentum to no grip on the road courtesy of no winter tyres then hills, even little ones become a challenging prospect, not to mention acceleration. All is well, the wind is blowing hard, and the van is doing a lot of sideways movement, skidding regularly, but it is manageable because the speed is so low, and I am content to use the trenches behind the heavies because there is actual tarmac to drive on – changing lanes requires a manoeuvre over islands of snow 30-40 cm deep, and is not a reasonable option. Therefore I sit, white knuckle grip on the wheel, using all my eyes and wits to keep my well lubricated ride on the road.

I see a fuel stop coming up, I have more than enough in the tank to get there, and I can rest the muscles in my forearms before continuing. Then the traffic on the oncoming side stops dead behind a jack-knifed pantechnicon – not good news, and I am hoping hard that it doesn’t happen on my side. The Km’s tick by and the stop approaches, but when I get to the exit, it is blocked by cars stuck in the snow, not one or two – dozens, they tail back into the freeway.

It will have to be the next stop… whenever that comes along.

By the time it showed up, the needle was far below red, I needed to pee so bad I was doing the seated fandango and I’m sure the car was on fumes. Refuel I did, drain the stinger, get some snacks and hit the road again. Drive till about 3 and then pulled over for about an hour, it was too cold to sleep, so I just drove on. By sunrise the roads were being dug out by an army of graders and the traffic was pelting along as it ought.

A few hours zzz in Prague and then began the packing of the van.

My good friend Jon showed up to help with the heavy items and then it was a box at a time for a day – how unfit I am! 6 AM is departure time again, but this time Jon's coming with, and there’s good conversation coming, just like the many we’ve had before!

Philosophy, theology, values, the endless pursuit of truth, personal histories and other deep things of the world flowed sweeter than honey for a day without a break, so that my mouth was chaffed from the talking and my brain was filled from the listening. What a pleasure to find a fellow Christian who can handle himself and his unabashed faith in dialogue more sophisticated than the usual pre-modern, con-op magic / mythic goop that bungs up so many minds. I could wax even more lyrical here, but I shan’t. Suffice it to say that it was a grand time, it’s nice to be understood once in a while – certainly well worth the wait.

So engrossed was I that I missed many a turn prompted by the GPS, probably a few too many (it started getting embarrassing), so we took a slightly longer return route. Overnight at Calais and at the boats by sun-up – would you look at that sky!

Jon

Rainbow

Boats, rising sun, smoke and sh..tuff contrasting nature with the industrial age

Jon… again

Hark!

The white cliffs of Dover – the German view

Seagulls, rays of light… long live the 450D

Jon

You guessed it… this time we are exploring the cliffs – should be driving, to make the lunch time rendezvous with the wife and family, but taking some time out to see stuff.

The cliffs – Allied view

… again

Jon on the brink

This is interesting – a shipwreck – been there for a decade or three, but the most amazing part of it is that the thick hull steel has been beaten over the rocks so that it looks like the rocks have been steel-plated. It is astonishing to think that the gradual hammering of a trillion waves has integrated that strong steel and rock.

Read the markings, some lively 40-year-old got laid here on her birthday. Romance doesn’t die at 40!

Dug into the cliffs are these gun encampments. A series of them joined together by tunnels would have greeted the naughty Germans if they attempted a landing.

The cliffs are soft, limestone type rock all set about with very hard black flint-like stones, when the cliff wears back, these little things fall out and become the pebbles you see here.

Jon on the panel-beaten shipwreck

Afore-mentioned gun positions

This one is a bit out of order – was from my sailing Dover – Calais.

Sunset!

Got home only 4 hours later than we should have, but managed to get a good tour of the cliffs in, and a few shots of the Dover castle in for good measure.

The van that took an entire day to pack on my own took 20 minutes to empty with 4 pairs of adult hands, oh yeah, and the help of 2 girls who would use the cart to move boxes etc the 2 metres from the van to the front door!

All in, an exciting, stimulating and memorable trip!

On Friday after school, we invited the Luesinks for a final visit and and an evening of Wii and Chinese. It was a very sad occasion to say farewell to our friends that we had so recently met. The irony of it, is that they were our first friends to visit our home… and the last.

Another strange twist of fate was the small romance that started to blossom on the way home that day… see if you can spot it :)

Sarah, Malory, and Greg; Eric and Amber:

Eric and Greg boxing on the Wii:

Believe it or not, this is the sum total of our apartment when packed. Well, it is a lot more than the handful of suitcases that we left SA with (3 Big suitcases; 2 laptop bags; 2 barbie bags ... and a week in London)!