Lists of lists

Being a person of Lists I always think of moves as a large collage of them: sorting list, disposing things old unwanted broken list, (different kinds of) packing lists, people to tell list, farewell meal list, utilities to be dealt with list, important documents to be sorted list, things to see before we move list, restaurants for one last meal list. And so on and so forth. And as move day approaches I wait in anticipation of final things to be ticked of in order to bring one side of things to a close. 

Of course on the other side there are new lists. Set up lists. And these are usually administrative things like ID cards, school set up, banking and the like. V and I have a pretty good system going to tackle these and in the first 6 weeks of service apartment living I could concentrate on getting huge swathes of these done swiftly and with a modicum of efficiency. 

Usually the move into a rented home has meant an additional set-up list: utilities of various kinds. However, unlike previous rented apartments we had lived in this one had no fittings - no lights, no fans, no curtains. Another list was written up. I organised blinds to be put up the day we moved in (serious forward planning mode) but we only looked at lights and fans cursorily and came to no decisions before moving in.

And then the unpacking revealed a number of broken things, television panel, feet of a chair, salad servers, sagging bookshelf, bits of the iron and so on. So two new lists: find original receipts for insurance claims and start looking for replacement products.

It would seem that the 18th of December is the last day of set up. Just over 3 months from move date. While I've spent many a day with handymen installing fans and watched electronics being replaced, while some boxes have been slowly unpacked and things rearranged to fit new spaces it is the last 4 sets of lights that will go up on that December day. All material lists will be ticked off. And frankly that's not a day too soon.