Following up on the flatmate situation, Amanda is going to be moving in on Saturday. It’s cool. It’s somewhere in between meeting the people that you move in with and moving in with friends. Ish.

I have stuff again. The movers came by to drop off my belongings yesterday afternoon¹. There seems to be more stuff than I remember. In fact, I think I got more than I was expecting. There is some kitchen stuff that I was planning on giving to Julie that arrived with everything else. I guess it’ll get boxed up again and either sold or donated somewhere. Also on the plus side, there is no apparent damage to any of the paintings. I was pretty nervous about this. Original paintings can’t just be replaced.

The plants are another matter. I had let the movers, Crown Relocations, pack 3 of my potted plants to bring down. There was no way that they were going to fit in the car, so I was pretty much out of options. Besides, the same moving company handled the plants wonderfully when I’d moved up to Auckland from Christchurch in 2004. I think the short story is that I’ll never use Crown again as movers. All 3 of the plants are near dying. 2 of them need to be transplanted right away, as a result of being mishandled and neglected. In addition to being left in a storage container without light or water for a week, it’s also obvious that all 3 of the plants had tipped over and suffered a lot of damage as a result. They were packed badly and it’s horrible that they had to wait in storage a week before being delivered to me just because it was more convenient for the moving company. That is not good customer service.

I still have quite a few boxes to go through. They’re just stacked up all over my bedroom at the moment. It’s almost enough to dampen the echoes from the bare walls, but it’s still far from feeling like home. It shouldn’t take long, though. There’s enough stuff that I’ve been waiting for that I’ll dig in and get organised quickly.

¹ They were only about an hour later than the original time I was given. When I was called on friday, I was told that they would be here between 2:30 and 3:00. They amended that time by half an hour as I was leaving the office, and then they were an extra half hour late. I’m a bit disappointed, because the weather was stellar, and I would have loved to get in a short skate if I knew they were running behind. I could have made it to the bank after all.

I got an email from Abby at Spiral Gallery in Auckland. It sounds like they’re closing their doors. It’s quite sad, but I’m sure there are good reasons. But there is a glimmer of promise within the email she sent:

It is said that the end of one thing is the beginning of another and in this instance the saying rings quite true. Although Spiral will not longer be available for all you artists and art lovers, our new gallery, Satellite, is opening in early June. Satellite is a fabulous, street level gallery located at the corner of St Benedict’s Street and Newton Road on the city fringe. There is great parking, it’s a vibrant area and, as a bonus, really great coffee just up the road at the fabulous cafe, Benediction. For more infomation about Satellite check out http://www.satellitegallery.co.nz/

I’ll have to head up there at some point and check it out. If the quality of exhibitions at Satellite is anything like Spiral, I’ll be easily satisfied with the changes.