Ark

I wonder how Noah felt about loading his ark? I mean, building the ark itself must have been a hell of a job but at least he had a pretty clear spec regarding size and I guess he could lull himself to sleep at night with the thought that if the Lord had managed to assemble the whole of creation in six days, then he was not the sort of DIYer who would get the dimensions of a boat wrong.

And when he looked around, working out just how many animals he had to get on board, I expect that wasn't too much of a worry. The really big animals, like whales, were sea-based, so they would probably just hang around the ark for company and not actually require berths.

Plus, when he thought about it, there were a lot of small animals: insects, for a start. And mice, hamsters, gerbils et cetera. They wouldn't take up much room. (Incidentally, I'd like to think that also that there were some really big spiders - the size of cats! - that Noah 'accidentally' left behind.)

And that left dogs, sheep, camels, cows, cats, goats and, well, not much else. So really, there was going to be plenty of room on the ark for his family. He probably wasn't even that concerned when he found out that the birds would be wanting some perch space. (Here's a great song by Eels called 'I Like Birds'.)

It has to be said that, prior to last Wednesday morning, my confidence was on a par with Noah's. Van hire on Tuesday, get all the big stuff moved, a few trips in the car on Wednesday, job's a good 'un. It was only on Wednesday morning when I realised just how much stuff was left :-(

Unlike Noah, whom one must assume had his ark pretty well organised, if only to prevent the lions chomping on the gazelles, I had not really thought about where I was going to put everything or, indeed, anything. Thus, despite the fact that the new cottage is significantly bigger than the old one, I have found myself with a ground floor that is completely covered in boxes, piles of clothes, books, CDs.

This, as you can see, is the hallway. And any time now, I'm going to need to find something...