Part 3: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
This story will be way more chaotic than the previous ones, but it needs to be told (or at least I think so). I have no idea if anyone is still reading or I’m just writing for myself for when I grow old and find it hard remembering things… or for the future generations, who knows ;) Well, here goes nothing.
As per my previous story, in my head the gloves were off. I was convinced I will be able to do one last Poland-UK round trip of the year after a few days, but.. I was wrong. Instead of driving, I ended up being driven to the hospital in the middle of the night with the worst stomachache in the history of my existence. Looking at this from a perspective, it was my body’s way of saying: dude, slow down or I’ll do that for you! And oh! It sure did. The great wisdom I’ve earned from that experience is: the body is never wrong!
In my previous story I mentioned a project we’ve been working on for the past three years while keeping alive the parquet business. It was a big deal - without it we wouldn’t be able to push matters forward and move to a new warehouse, as well as many other things.. So because of that, the day after I came back from the hospital, Maciej was meant to go to Warsaw to supervise the packing of seven lorries worth of wood which he had to count before they could be shipped the following week.
The stubborn creature that I am (actually, used to be), I insisted on going with him, in the second van, in case it was needed over there. As you can probably imagine, that was not a good idea. Long story short, it went like this: the pain got me again. We waited a while for it to go away (two hours I think - I was that stupi-…stubborn! I meant stubborn, of course!) which only made it worse. Eventually we abandoned the Smurf at the petrol station 60 km from home/warehouse, visited a nearby hospital which was another waste of time, energy, nerves and dignity on my part (I got shots in the butt! Again.)
It got really cold outside and started snowing heavily.
We got in the van and Maciej drove us through the night and snow.
Over the next five days he was freezing his arse off in the cold, dealing with the wood, lorries and the lorry drivers (we could write a book on the subject), and I was trying to recover. Thankfully, the shipment went well. The day back in the land of the living for me was the 24th of December - a true Christmas miracle, ha!
We stayed for Christmas with my family in Warsaw - totally last minute as the original plan from two months ago was to be out of the country, somewhere warm, on a long overdue holiday from everything and everyone… and then eventually we went back to the warehouse with a quick stop along the way to pick up the van from where we left it 10 days earlier. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see the Smurf all in one piece and with its wheels still on!
Thankfully, the last few days of the grand year 2022 were uneventful and we said farewell to it with a massive sigh of relief… not aware of what challenges the 2023 was about to bring.
And now I’m getting to the most difficult part of the story. Difficult in terms of making sense out of it...
We’ve been looking for a new space since November. The couple who had worked for us since November 2021, knew about this since mid-December 2022 although to be fair, they knew from day one that eventually we’ll be looking to move. They just didn’t take us seriously on that one or at least didn’t expect for this to happen so quickly - in five years, maybe! But not one year..
It’s funny how the universe starts working in your favour, paving the way ahead and making room for the new the moment you make a decision about something, and especially when it’s something big like moving.. and how in most cases at first it all seems just really bad. Finding out about their messing about was like a bucket of ice cold water. A true wake up call if you ask me! Thankfully, it happened fairly quick - in the first week of January.
I’ll keep the fine details (not) for my „dear diary” entry and I’m only going to say that checking a CCTV footage can be a real game changer.
First week of January was, ironically, their last. That didn’t come from us - they just stopped coming in to work. They did us a huge favour, even though it meant that now it was just the two of us and one other guy plus a long list of parquet orders to prepare in the next couple of weeks. I’m writing about all of this for two reasons - firstly, I guess I needed to let it out. And the second is to say that I am a great believer in signs, and that situation there, that was definitely a sign that we had the green light to push things forward...
TBC
