After the highs of the weekend, so follow the lows. Now she’s a Doctor (couldn’t resist that), Jo has to move on the the next phase, which means leaving Aarhus after four great years.
So her flat needs to be vacated.
- Try moving house when you need to put all your possessions into a suitcase. None of “oh I might want to keep that and so sling it in the car”, so it’s been really tough.
- On the positive side, I’ve loved watching the Danish recycling culture. Not a single visit to the tip – mainly leave stuff on the street and watch it get picked up. And that can be half-empty bottles of cleaning fluid or olive oil, to cutlery and crockery, to a dining table. And she has sold so much of her stuff she’s almost broken even.
- But finally the Danish requirements for tenants are to leave it “as new”. I guess that’s a bit of a quid-pro-quo for rent controls and security of tenure. So a couple of my jobs were:
Window cleaner (outside and in)
Oven cleaner (first time for everything 😃)
Others had more skilled tasks such as removing light fittings and curtain rails (really) and vacuuming
and loading vans
Plus a tremendous effort by Eileen on kitchen and bathroom – sparkling and looking like new – but no photos allowed.
And as I write on Tuesday evening and we fly back tomorrow the last remaining worry is how to get 3 people, 5 suitcases, one small case and a few sundries into my car to get home from Stansted. As the driver I might be the only comfy one …..