This is a long one...

Ok.  So i have moved.  For those interested, this is how it went:
(spelling is likely to be shocking - sorry)

Thursday night saw me up til 1:30 am doing last minute packing before my parents arrived the next day with the van.  My key for my new place was put in the post on Tuesday night, but it still hadn't arrived.  I called my landlord who said that he had a spare but we would have to meet on the M25 somewhere as he lives in reading.

The friday morning arrived earlier than i would have liked.  I was up at 8.30 ready to shift my things down the 3 flights of stairs, to make things easier to load into the van.  Luckily my landlord said i could put stuff in their livingroom in the morning, so i started to shift the boxes down there.  My current landlords said the post could be anywhere between 10am -12pm, so i was egarly keeping an ear out for the letterbox.

My parents arrived with the van at about 11 and luckily i had managed to get most of it down stairs by then.  I had even managed to get my 32" tv downstairs on my own which i was quite impressed about.  We took my bed apart and packed up everything into the van.  My snake was put into a box with a thermal heat thing that you use for muscle ache, stuck to the outside of the box to hopefully keep the temperature a little bit warmer for her.  She is shedding at the moment so wasnt in the best of moods.  anyway.

We did very well at packing everything and even had room to spare in the pack of the van.  My flat looked like a bomb had hit it with random bits of rubbish scattered around the place, but i didnt have time to sort it out.  It was coming up to 12 and the post man still hadn't turned up.  We were nearly ready to set off, my dad securing things with rope, when i spied the post man.  I ran up to him and asked if he had anything for me as i needed my key to my new house and thankfully he had it in his hand.  That was a blessing at least.

The van was quite a ricketty thing and had one of those 1 1/2 seats next to the drivers seat.  My mum had come along for the ride because she wanted to see my place and see where i will be working.  Unfortunatley my mum is quite a bit larger than i am, and im not exactly waif like, and we had to both squeeze in to this cramped up front seat.  There was practically no leg room and given that my Mum said i was to sit in the middle, i had the gear stick almost constantly jamming into my leg.

The journey in total took about 9 hours.  This is a long time to spend with my parents at the best of times.  Sadly on this occasion we were all tired, irritable and uncomfortable, and had to sit in the M25 rush hour traffic while there were also road works and an accident which didnt help the traffic situation.  We also ended up taking the wrong turning off the M25 which meant having crawled at a snails pace to the turning we had taken, we had to crawl back up the M25 only to turn around again.

We got onto the A24 eventually and managed to refuel.  It cost £90 to refuel the tank.  My dad also picked up 4 tinnies and a bottle of wine from the station.  I think he was feeling the strain.

Once we arrived in Worthing, we tried to find my flat.  We asked around for a bit and eventually we were pointed in the right direction.  The location is spot on.  My flat is about 10 paces from a Co op and about 10 paces from the nearest pub.  Excellent.

Given that it was now 10 oclock, we decided that we wouldnt be unloading stuff that night so my dad just pulled the van over slightly as there wasnt anywhere to park, switched the engine off, and helped me move my snake into the flat.

It felt very odd letting myself into a house i had never seen before, at 10pm at night.  I opened the door to be greeted by a very small set of staircases, with a small bathroom on the left, up a few more stairs to the top landing where there were 3 shut doors, and a small kitchen.  I was told that there would be a key in the door of my new room, but none of the doors had keys in.  I could hear some music or something coming from one of the rooms so i knocked on the door.  It was quite a sureal conversation.  I introduced myself and said i was moving in, and wanted to know which room was mine.  The girl who opened the door didnt know.  It is her BF who lives at my place, but he couldn't come to the door because he has a "bad eye" (?!)

I tried the door next to theirs and there wasnt a bed in there so i assumed that was my room as i am bringing my own bed.  It is a nice size but a little grubby.  There were stickers on the wall and stains on the carpet.  There is also no living room which makes me a little bit sad.  The kitchen and the bathroom are ver small, and i was just feeling so disheartened by it all.

After getting the snake inside and we all got back into the van, my dad tried the ignition.  It wouldnt start.  It sounded like a travel hair dryer.  He tried again.  Same thing happened.  Great!

Luckly the car that was parked in front of us had moved, so we pushed the van into that space.  Unfortunately the back end of the van hovered over the yellow line, and to top it all off, the area is permit holders only.  We left a note in the windscreen and called the police to say that we were goign to have to leave the van there, because if we called teh AA, they would want to tow the van and we still had all my stuff in the back.

We left my worldly goods in the van (totally uninsured, as my goods are only insured once they are inside the house), and went to check into a hotel.  It was nearing on 10:30pm now and we were all knacked and hungry.  My dad and i cracked into the tinnies and we decided what to do next. 

Food was next on the agenda, but the hotel dinning room had stopped serving, so we went on a hunt for a restaurant.  I was very doubtful that we would find somewhere that would serve after 10:30, but after asking a very drunk chap where the nearest restaurant was, we managed to find a really nice chinese.

It was quite a posh place, and given that we had been lugging stuff about all day and travelling for a long time, we were all smelly and scruffy so it was a bit embarrasing.  Luckily they were still serving food though and it turned out to be really nice.  I was feeling very woosey at this stage.  The day before, i had gone to the doctors to get injected with a load of fake nasties that i might come across in Nepal.  This had started to effect me and i was even more shattered and out of it than even i realised.  I was struggling to concerntrate and answer even simple questions like what i wanted to drink.  The meal was very nice though and im looking forward to going back there, less spaced out.

I got to my room, and decided that i had to take a shower before goign to bed.  I couldnt get the shower to work and it almost brought me to tears as i was just so worn out that the slightest thing upset me.  Eventually it started and it felt really good to get cleaned up after the day i had.  I went to bed and was ready to collapse when the people upstairs decided to shout at each other.  This lasted til about 1am,

I finally managed to crash out when i was awoken by a repeat performance at 6 am SIX! i mean really.  Safe to say i didnt have a very restful night.

The next morning we went for breakfast at about 8am.  This was when they first serve breakfast on a weekend.

When the doors opened and we went to sit down, we were suddenly ushered to tables that had the letters A, B, C and D on them.  This seemed quite odd as there were a lot of made up tables, but obediently i went along with what the chap said.  My dad however realised that this was set up for a party, and told the man that we werent with them, and suddenly this man's reaction to us changed dramatically.  He was hidiously appologetic and offered us any table we wanted.  It transpired that the hotel was host to a German party.  We discovered this when the waitress came over to ask what hot breakfast food we wanted.  She said "ooo those germans keep going through all the food.  They will be making up their pack lunches with that lot you know.  We also have a bunch of nigerians staying here at the moment"

I was so suprised at that closed minded attitude.  Every member of staff were treating these germans with distain.  I couldn't believe it.

We left the hotel and returned to the van.  The van still refused to start, so while my mum passed me things to take into the flat, my dad called the AA.  They turned up really quickly, and after the chappy looked at the van for a bit, it was concluded that it was indeed buggered.  The AA man said that he could tow us back, but there was still al ot of stuff in the van.  What he suggested was that he could tow start the van, but first we had to remove some of the stuff out the back.  The AA man then went on to help get my stuff out the van.  How nice is that?

The van was tow started but once the engine started we were unable to turn it off, because it wouldnt start again.  This meant we had to keep the engine running while we got all the stuff into the flat.  THis also meant we had no time to put together my bed or anything.  All of my stuff is heaped into piles in my flat. 

My dad started to have a massive nose bleed while shifting my stuff whcih was quite worrying.  It eased off and finally after maanging to get everything in, i locked up my bedroom door and heading for the van.

The journey back was a bit odd.  It was lucky that we had filled the tank up the night before, because we were unable to refuel given that we couldnt turn off the ignition.

My dad's legs started to cramp from holding the same position for hours, and each time we pulled over so he could stretch it out, we had to shout at him not to turn the engine off.  It is just instinct to turn the key when you pull up.

I ended up having to go back to barrow with the parents, because there wasnt enough fuel to go around lancaster, and get teh van back to the depo.

Got back around 7ish so the journey took about 8 hours in total.

In other news:

Watched St Trinnians which i thought was quite funny.

Cleaned my flat and gave back the keys on Sunday.  This felt really weird.

Currently staying at Chloe and Jons which is really nice, but it does seem odd that i am now officially a lancaster visitor.

Went to Laura and Dans to watch Die Hard 4.0, each indian food and say farewells to monica and steve.

Got today and tomorrow left at work. 

Tuesday night im going to Mung Mee for tea with lesley and andy

Wednesday i am hopefully going to sallys to paint murally goodness

And hopefully thursday and friday i will be visiting people in manchester.

Then heading back to Worthing.

It's going to be a busy and expensive week.