I’m moving! | And it’s been terrible!

I’d moved between homes in Ontario, moved between homes in England, and moved internationally from Canada. Somehow, the move I shared in May 2021 felt like the worst of the lot. My partner and I were heading to another part of Kent, with an unfamiliar area to explore and a new flat to settle into. First, we had to get ourselves and all our belongings there.

Our small old flat had become a maze of boxes. We’d left little pathways between the stacks because there was nowhere else to put them. I was excited about the move and terrified at the same time, especially about whether the moving company would take everything. What if they couldn’t take the couch or the television? We needed to be out of the property the next day.

The movers took everything

We’d booked through AnyVan, and the inventory we filled in asked for specific boxes and furniture. I worried that anything missing from the list might be left behind, or that adding it would cost extra. We could do more trips in our car, but it didn’t have much storage, and we were already moving late in the day. Waiting for the truck gave me plenty of time to worry about all of that.

In the end, the movers were wonderful. They loaded the flat in about an hour and a half, carrying several boxes at once while I sat outside out of their way. It didn’t even rain. They took everything I’d been worried about, plus some things we were supposed to leave behind that I hadn’t spotted at first. My partner would need to bring those back when he came to collect me.

The awkward part was our timing. The movers had a three-to-five arrival window, called after hitting traffic and expected to reach us around four. The new letting agency needed someone at the new flat at 4:30 to collect keys and go through the check-in. My partner went there while I stayed behind with the movers. I couldn’t ride with them because of the Covid arrangements, so once they left, I was still at the old property.

An empty flat and a long wait

There was no couch, no chair and no television left. I had my book and laptop, and hoped I’d packed a charger. My partner had to wait for the truck to reach the new property and unload before driving back for me. We were going to a different part of Kent, so this involved a lot of driving. Meanwhile, I could see all the dirty bits of carpet the furniture had been hiding.

We weren’t taking our garden furniture because the new place had neither a back garden nor a balcony. I thought about bringing some of it inside so I would have somewhere to sit. I also thought about reading, playing Animal Crossing and ordering a pizza. Mostly, I was waiting. About an hour later, I was bored, hungry and cold as well.

We hadn’t heated up the storage heaters the night before, and the old flat was freezing. I put on my coat and stood by the one electric heater that warmed up straight away. By then I’d ordered pizza through Just Eat because we had no plates or cutlery. It was late arriving, and I was standing in a small room warming my legs and waiting for food.

We got in, but I didn’t get much sleep

We finally reached the new place around eleven that night. The move itself had gone okay, without major issues, which was great. There wasn’t a curtain on any window, though. Apparently the landlords had ordered bespoke blinds and they were delayed. I rummaged through our boxes for the green screen I used for livestreaming and shoved the material into the bedroom window to get a little darkness. I still woke up around five because it was bright.

On our first full day, my partner went back to finish things at the old flat while I began unpacking the kitchen. It was huge compared with what I was used to. The property was old but had been restored and remodelled, with exposed brick that I thought looked cool. There wasn’t a single closet, so finding homes for our things was going to take some work. I was still excited and nervous about the unfamiliar area; we might hate it, but we were there now.

Then I found another reason to want those blinds. One bathroom had a window so low beside the toilet that I worried about being visible while sitting there. I’d looked outside and seen no windows, but the next morning I noticed a woman in what was apparently a backyard opposite. Hopefully nobody had seen me in the night. Welcome to the neighbourhood.

Watch my original video about my moving day in Kent.