Day 104 – The first half of the move

Rainy day. I managed to complete several hours of work before Auréle and I headed for the quartier of Carouge, to meet the crowd. Carouge is a very quaint part of town—well known for its farmers market, restaurants, and boutiques—so I thought it was a funny meeting place, but I had not counted on the fact that strenuous labor could not get started without preliminary restoration! So once again we sat down to a delicious and pretty hefty lunch, and it was probably not until 2 pm that we got into the rented moving van to start collecting moving boxes, buying bright red chairs, and picking up random items that Yvette had stored at the houses of Loïc and Alexis. We dropped the first load at the porch of the building where the new apartment is located, leaving Auréle behind to move them in, and Yvette, Loïc, Tina and myself went to Interio (a very nice furniture store on the style of Ikea) to buy the bed and a few side tables. Yvette was lucky in that she found furniture she liked that was on stock, so by 6 pm we were all loaded and ready to roll. Ah, but by that time it was time to restore our forces again, so before doing any further work we had to go to the local bar to drink a little something and wait for Auréle and Nura.

Finally came the time for the heavy work (around 7 pm). The good news was that Yvette’s new apartment was not in the sixth floor. The bad news was that it is in the fifth floor and there is no elevator. Fortunately many hands make light work, and with some huffing and puffing we soon had the boxes up. Loïc had brought his bag of tools, so while he put together the tables, Auréle and I put together the bed, and the women folk started unpacking and putting away the stuff.

When we finished the apartment still looked empty, so Yvette had to explain that she had ordered the kitchen (which will be redone, with integrated sink, cabinets, stove, and refrigerator), armoirs, couch, table, etc., but the delivery would still take a couple of weeks. Poor thing, she is going to have to live with a half house for some time to come!