Who Ya Gonna Call?

A few weekends back I offered to help a friend move house.

He had put out a request on facebook and sounded so miserable about the impending move back to his mother's house, complete with pregnant wife and 16 month old baby girl, I could not help but offer my services.

He seemed a little perturbed.
" It's mostly heavy stuff, you know, furniture and the like...we're hiring a truck."
"Cool. We hired a truck when we helped my sister move. Don't worry. I'm pretty strong. I once helped Himself lift a wardrobe up onto the top of the Jeep you know."

And so it was arranged. I turned up at the appointed hour on a pleasant Saturday morning as my friend (a work colleague) was reversing the truck into his long, curving, soon to be former, driveway. There were several other friends there to help and they hung about eyeing off the access, the shaky looking steps down from the uneven patio and the size of the first two items for packing.

They were all men. Youngish men at that.

This fact didn't register for a while as I had arrived in time to attack the first two really heavy items, a couple of tall wardrobes. We used lifting straps and four of us staggered down the front steps, down the patio steps and down the sloping curving driveway with only two stop/collapses on the way, none of which were my fault I might add. Back we went for seconds and before long we had a long queue of furniture lining the curving driveway, awaiting allocation in the back of the truck.

I rode the hydraulic tailgate up to truck level and, with another fellow who had obviously done this before, proceeded to work out a plan for packing the space efficiently, covering items so they wouldn't get scratched and receiving them into the bowels of the vehicle like so many 'Tetra' blocks. About 90 minutes later we swung up the tailgate and I hopped into the cab with my friend for the short drive to his Mum's.

On arrival we were confronted by a set of moderately daunting stairs leading up to the main house and an underhouse storage area which required us to navigate a tight gate, a narrow path and an entrance at the rear. What fun. The lads and I went back and forward from truck to house to underhouse storage area......

In the process of all this I met my friend's mum who was preparing lunch for the troops.

She is two years older than me.
My colleague could be my son. How depressing.

I had to leave at lunch time to pick up the Small Boy from the Yacht Club so I didn't get to help with the second truckload. I got home and had a quick kip on the couch, planning to do a bit of housework or something after my usual power nap.

Well. When I awoke I could barely move. I felt like I was coming down with flu or something. Every joint ached, I felt feverish, I couldn't get off the couch. What was WRONG with me? I slept on the sofa for most of the afternoon.

It was only later that I put two and two together. The Mother who was making lunch, only two years older than me; there was a reason why she was not out there hefting things into the back of a truck!

I think I am finally past it.

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