The sea shipment arrives!

We got the notice earlier this week that our sea shipment would be arriving on Thursday (well ahead of schedule), so we booked some time off work and started scratching our heads as to just where all this stuff was going to go.

Thursday came, and quite a bit earlier than we were led to believe: expecting a 10 a.m. arrival, I had to run out of the shower -- not once, but twice -- because of a door bell ringing not much after 9 a.m. I have no idea who was there the first time -- I'd imagine I was way too late to catch them -- but luckily Tea was blow-drying her hair the second time, and she was able to catch the truck driver before he left -- although where he would've taken our sea container at that point is an interesting question.

This self-proclaimed "crazy" Welshman -- unfortunately I never caught his name in all the confusion (wait for it) -- was absolutely fantastic. One of his first questions was whether we had any movers. Keep in mind that there were a couple of guys with the truck when our air shipment arrived, so this question really threw us for a loop. But the Welshman wasn't fazed a bit by our hesitation, simply stating, "Well, I guess it's just us then!" with a big ole grin. :-) Oh, and he must've told us that the shipment was closer to four tons -- that's right, dear readers: four times what the movers back in Canada estimated, unless he was speaking colloquially -- by that point, because my back began mewling in despair at the thought. (The Welshman, by way of explaining his grin, said, "Oh, we normally do 40!" -- which, again, makes me think my calculations are off: what the heck does 80000 lbs look like?)

Luckily Tea was a touch more practical, and got on the phone with our moving contact on this side. He immediately assured her that the movers would be showing up -- in a separate truck -- at 10 a.m. on the nose. I was still outside at this point, however, watching the Welshman expertly guide his container-laden truck down our narrow lane, after knocking on many neighbourhood doors and politely asking that they move their cars for a short spell. All that accomplished in no time flat, he then asked me, "So, do you have a hacksaw?" Because, in addition to the lock that he had a key for, there was a great big bolt that we needed to get through to open the container.

Tea then emerged, saving us from what was bound to be the entertaining task of begging around for a hacksaw -- "It's ours, honest!" -- and so we put the kettle on and settled in for a bit of a wait. Good to their word, the movers showed up shortly after, cut through the bolt and then proceeded to take a crowbar to the wooden divider that separated our stuff in the container (see right).

I'm not sure how long the unloading took, but I barely had time to unpack the bikes, ask if I could borrow their toolbox, and put on the pedals and straighten the handlebars. Oh, and, crazy as it sounds, the garbage truck came by while they were taking up the lane; I had to run out and take a picture of that tight fit (see right).

Next post: the unpacking party! :-)