(I am) Packing Up

In just over three weeks we will be leaving India and heading back home to Britain. Rod and I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to sort out everything needed to make the move back as painless as possible. One of the things we had to arrange was a moving and packing company to get all our stuff back home. You might think that wouldn't be so hard...but, if it was that easy, I wouldn't be writing about it here, would I?

On our first attempt we called a number of moving and packing companies we found in a local version of the Yellow Pages. Two of them had quoted for our move from Gurgaon to Hauz Khas last year. One turned up, walked around the house looking knowledgably at the furniture we would be taking back, made a few notes on his pad and never got back to us. The other turned up, walked around the house, went away, came back the next day with another guy, took some photos of our furniture and went away again. When Rod called a couple of days later asking for their quote, both guys came back to our house with a scrap of paper. They said it would cost us 160 rupees a kilogram to send our stuff by air, or $70 USD a cubic metre to send it by sea. But they didn't know how many cubic metres the stuff they'd photographed was, nor had any idea how many kilograms our stuff weighed. So, a really, really comprehensive quote... Now, as I do not work for a moving and packing company I do not assess housefuls daily, so I didn't know either. But I was going to hazard a guess that with two sofas, a double bed and mattress, a dining table, six chairs, a chest of drawers and assorted boxes all made from Sheesham (Indian Rosewood, really heavy) and a longarm quilting machine and frame, as well as clothes etc, we wouldn't be sending our stuff by air!

Thankfully, our third moving company had a representative who did assess housefuls daily. Maybe not daily, but often enough to be able to look at each piece of furniture to work out how much space we would need in our container. And Peggy got back to us with a quote, typed, on headed paper without us asking for it. But the only problem was, even though we had had three companies visit, we only had one quote. So we tried again...

This time, we asked for recommendations on an expat internet group. Peggy's name came up, along with another two companies. Joy, joy, joy, more appointments...

A guy came, but he wanted to tell us how he'd arranged lots of moves for people at the British Embassy. We told him we weren't with the British Embassy, and weren't using the British government to pay for our move back, so we didn't want an "Embassy quote". The money's got to come from our pockets, which even in these troubled times, are not as deep as Gordon Brown's (or whoever is running the country right now!). And could we tell him how much we wanted for the RO water filter?

A lady came. I say came, she rang to say she was on her way, could we give her directions. We did. Then she rang back, telling us what landmarks she could see around her, and could we give her directions from there. We did. And then she called back, describing another set of landmarks, further from our house than the first set of landmarks, and asking could we give her some more directions. We did. Didn't think this boded well. If a moving and packing company can't find our home in Delhi, can we trust that they might be able to get our stuff to us in England? Anyway, she found her way here eventually. I say she found her way here, only after Rod told her to stop driving and wait for him and Thalia to walk to where she was so she could follow them. Anyway, once she got here she was very nice and efficient, but I couldn't help feeling maybe her company would do better if they invested in a map. Not a world map, just an Eicher map of Delhi...

Unsurprisingly, we went with Peggy. She found us first time, was on time. She has this air of efficiency about her. She's tall and imposing, speaks fluent German, English and Hindi. I have this feeling she won't let anything go wrong on her watch. Please God, let me be right this time!