Smoked Fish Pie
Three weeks ago the packers came into our Christchurch home and converted the contents into 300+ individually wrapped items, cartons of goods and loose odds and sods.
The intention was that the goods would be shipped up the South Island and across Cook Strait and delivered to our Wellington address a few days later. By then the Wellington house would be renovated and redecorated, work having started back in April.
Ever since the packers arrived I kept seeing visions of winged pigs.
When I walked into our Wellington home the pigs came home to roost, to mix metaphors. Sure, the wall had been knocked out between the study and an adjoining bedroom to accommodate a new library/study. The 50 odd cartons of books in the kitchen were testament to some action on that front. The new room was taking shape with extra windows almost in situ, a support beam in the ceiling, extra power points.
The carpet in the living areas and master bedroom had been pulled up, the hallway re-lined. What about the wallpaper stripping elsewhere? The plastering? The new fireplace?
I kept stalling the moving firm and leaving our goods in storage as long as possible as we chose carpet, a fireplace, colour schemes.
In the end the furniture was delivered and now remains wrapped in various rooms round the house. Fortunately the cartons were well labelled so I was able to locate and unpack the kitchen goods. There were some unexpected bonuses there - the full garbage bags that had mysteriously vanished by the time I went to put them out in Christchurch, turned up neatly packed into a carton. The spare touch-up paint I had left in the garage for the new owners also made its way north along with the Christchurch phone directory and the local council rubbish bags.
As I motored four hours north to take my car across on the interisland ferry, I had visions of the cleaning people I had engaged to make the vacated house spic and span toiling their way through my list of instructions. Son Ben went to check out the results at the end of the day. As I waited to catch the ferry, he phoned to say that if the job that indeed been done, it had been done once over lightly.
My blood pressure was rising as I called the cleaners and requested that things be put right. Fortunately I had left the new owners a note to say cleaners had been engaged, and had given the contact details, so at least they knew the place was intended to be sparkling.
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