A week until we move (we hope)

I'm beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed about moving. It always happens as we approach a moving date. No matter how well we seem to be doing with the packing I come to a stage where I find it hard to think at all, let alone do anything constructive. All I want to do is curl up and sleep. Of course it doesn't help that Sophia has got back into her noisy wake-the-family-up-at-5am mode. For a while she stopped and I got a full night's sleep a few times, but not for the past few days. All the cats are a bit disturbed by the house gradually being packed away, but it's only Sophia who complains about it loudly. Unfortunately, if I'm woken at 5am there's no way I can get back to sleep as it's almost daylight.

This morning - several hours after I got up! - we went out to look for paint and mattresses. I'm not sure why we bother to explore other shops, since we nearly always return to the tried-and-tested old favourites. Demetrius Pavlempeus (which looks much better in Greek letters) is a lovely furniture store down-town, with many items made to order. Lovely real wood bookcases and cupboards, a wide variety of sofas and chairs, a few appliances, a selection of beds, and lots of mattresses. It's a large old-fashioned showroom and things are somewhat higgledy-piggledy but the staff are helpful and nearly all the stock is attractive. It's where we bought our sofas last year after looking at dozens of other shops and finding nothing we liked anywhere else.

When we cleared out the last of our things from our UK house last October, we brought out the pine bed we had as a wedding present, and also Dan's pine 'cabin bed' created and constructed by Richard. All in pieces, of course, so we hope they'll go back together without anything missing. We didn't bring mattresses for either, however, as they were old and not very comfortable. We don't need one for Dan yet, since he won't be back for 18 months, and we're not entirely sure of the measurements. But we ordered a good quality sprung mattress for ourselves. Eventually we'll order one for our current bed, which will become our main guest bed, but again that's not urgent.

The two single beds which Dan and Tim have used since we came here match and are in good condition, so they're going to be put in our second guest room. Which means that Tim needed a new bed. He wanted one to match his bookcases, approximately, and found an endboard that was just what he wanted. So we ordered that too, plus a new mattress. These will be delivered next Tuesday morning to the new house.

We had a look at dining room chairs, too. So many variations on wooden chairs, with or without built-in cushioning, lots of different prices. The ones we currently have are getting very scruffy, but it's not urgent to replace them yet. We'll wait awhile and think about it.

As I looked at them, I suddenly felt as if I were in the middle of TheSims buying furniture for a newly-created house! I haven't even played the game for about four months...

Then we went to CYTA, the phone company, to ask if we could transfer our phone number to the new house. No problem, said the girl. Whether or not it's a problem apparently depends on who you see, since we've heard from other people that numbers can't always be taken to different districts. Perhaps it's because we're only moving a kilometre away, although it's not technically in the same area of Larnaka.

Could they do it next week, we asked? Preferably Tuesday. Yes, said the girl. What happens is they'll disconnect us on Monday, and then we'll be reconnected in either one or two days. No problem as far as the phone is concerned - we don't use it much anyway, and since we'll be doing the house completion and deeds transfer on Monday, and more decorating and receiving deliveries on Tuesday, it doesn't matter at all that there won't be a phone working. Richard and Tim have mobiles anyway.

The only problem is that our Internet connection will also be closed on Monday, for up to two days. Gulp. Of course I wouldn't expect to have much time for email or anything else, while moving, but it's nice to sit down for half an hour to read and write. Ah well. I expect we'll survive. If withdrawal symptoms are too much, we could always go to Richard's office.

Whether or not we will correctly be connected by Wednesday remains to be seen. CYTA are not renowned for either speed or efficiency in such matters.

Finally we went to our favourite paint shop, a Crown dealer. We needed a set of stepladders (the one in this house belongs to the landlady, and is rather rickety). There were three possibilities, so that was easy. Then we looked at paints. So much choice. Dan hadn't let us know what he wanted for his room, so we left that for now. We would like to paint everywhere before moving the furniture in, but it may not be possible.

So we chose a pale blue for our room, a very pale apricot for the living room, a darker version of apricot for Tim's room, and a kind of pale golden yellow for the dining room. I doubt if we'll do that much in one weekend, and we can always choose more on Monday if we do. Tim won't be here to help - he goes away with the inter-church youth group for their annual camp in the mountains on Friday morning, and gets back Monday evening.

If only it were as simple as TheSims... an instant click with the chosen colour, and the wall is complete!