Four seasons in one day,
Lying in the depths of your imagination.
Worlds above and worlds below…
The sun shines on the black clouds
Hanging over the domain.
Even when you’re feeling warm,
The temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day.

Nine days to go. The removal van is booked, and the only thing left is for the insurance certificate to turn up.

On the day we exchanged, I phoned the insurance company and explained that I’d just agreed to buy a house and needed to insure it. I repeated the fact that I didn’t want the paperwork sent to the new house, as I didn’t own it yet. They said that that would be no problem and repeated my current address back to me, reassuring me they’d send the certificate to the right address.

They didn’t. I phoned a week later and was told it went to the new house. No problem, they said, we’ll send you new copies. Have they turned up yet? The hell they haven’t. Fortunately I managed to get hold of the current owners of the house and they’re forwarding me any letters that do turn up at their address.

And then there’s removals companies. I’ve contacted three, two local companies and one big name, well-known firm. The results?

• Local firm #1 Booked an appointment for Tuesday evening, which they rescheduled for Thursday after other issues. He failed to find our current address for looking over our stuff but otherwise seemed OK, and promised a quote within a couple of days.
• Local firm #2 Turned up on Saturday morning as booked. Looked around, had done their homework (the estimator already knew our new house is set back from the road with a green in front of it) and promised a quote within a few days.
• National firm – Couldn’t get a survey done for at least two weeks, and would only do it within office hours. Then decided they couldn’t do a survey at all and sent me a questionnaire to fill in which would get me an accurate quotation. Failed to send said questionnaire to me for a couple of days.

And the results? Local firm #2 won. The fact that they’d been the most reliable and accessible of all the firms contributed, always calling back straight away, getting things done as and when I asked. The price was good too. The national firm just didn’t seem to want our business, and local firm #1 lost out just through being slightly less well organised.

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