You haven't taken your dustbin

Our little band huddled together for comfort as we tried to familiarise ourselves with our strange surroundings in our new office. We paced our floor, opening and closing the drawers of our brand new desks, peering around corners, fingering our unfamiliar telephones, hoping that someone would show us where the loo was. Five of us had relocated, had left our comfortable nest to fly, well, into Camden Town.
Far below us we saw a furniture van, our furniture van. It was driving away from us. We succeeded in making the unfamiliar telephone produce an outside line, and contacted the removal company.
"Does your van have a mobile phone on it" Mr Removal man sadly had to admit that it did not, but suggested helpfully that the van might come back again. Besides, he had been distracted by other things. It was April 1st , and he was not appreciating a joke. One of his pantechnicons, en route to some far northern destination, had been stolen, then turned on its side. The thief left a shoe behind, and in next to no time, the police had stopped a car, the driver of which had a missing shoe. Cinderella like, it matched with the shoe in the van.

Many minutes later our van reappeared and the same men who had loaded it the day before emerged looking a little stiff.

And not surprisingly. For days we had been packing the detritus of 25 years into boxes labelled "cauliflowers".
While the files and books were on their shelves and in their cabinets they did not look bulky.
They were reasonably neat (leaving aside for the moment my desk which was neither reasonable nor neat). They appeared at home, and it seemed a pity to move them.
Perhaps it was their protest, for as soon we started to shift them, the volume grew. It was like the Sorcerer's Apprentice or one of Aesop's fables. The more boxes we filled, the more files materialized.
The removal men had delivered scores of flat packed containers. My son Nick had thought he was being perverse by making them up in vast numbers, filling my room with a mountain of cardboard. We begged him to stop. There was no way we needed so many, until, that is, we started to fill them.
As we dug deeper, the years peeled away. Legal archaeologists would have traced the different types of photocopy paper (from flimsy and now indecipherable to modern cartridge which will no doubt last a thousand years), from the first efforts at making popular calculators which would hardly fit in a brief case, to those which are so small that you need a pin to punch out the numbers.
Old letterheading surfaced with the names of half forgotten partners and telephone numbers that were so short that they could easily be remembered. There was even a telephone with a dial. How did we manage to make calls when we had to turn that silver wheel for each number? Have there been any claims for rotating finger syndrome?
And there were the old minutes of partners meetings, where it was recorded with pleasure that each partner had earned as much as £7000 in the last financial year. My restrictive covenant prohibits me from revealing how recent those accounts were.

Old envelopes, perished rubber bands, forgotten business cards and petrified throat lozenges were unceremoniously emptied from my drawers, along with a collection of three penny bits and a florin.

The boxes were still being filled when the removal men arrived. Panic set in. Careful packing was cast to the wind. It was like an old black and white movie where the action had been speeded up. Even though they had to walk up three floors the men moved quickly. It was a race against time to fill the boxes. We did it in time, but only just.

Then just as the doors were being shut, a booming voice shouted: "You haven't taken your dustbin". A gaunt figure emerged with the plastic bin at the end of outstretched arms. The dustbin and its contents had been an exhibit in a case. It's a long story, and there is no time to tell it now. It had been a nuisance for months. No filing system can be adapted to accommodate it. We rather hoped no one would notice.

Nobody stole our furniture van, let alone left their shoes in it, during its over night stay. But the boxes seemed to have bred.

The removal men, delighted at having a lift to aid their endeavours, made light work of unloading. Three hundred and fifty boxes announcing that they contained 12 x 1Kg of cauliflowers (to be stored at -18o or below) stared at us, and glowered at the two boxes that said they held broccoli.

It was a fitting farewell from my former vegetarian partner. If I move again, it will be with boxes marked "hamburgers".

But we were not long in contemplating this thought. The door burst open, and in hurried two new figures: my bicycling partner, followed by the tall one with the motor cycle. There are more bicycles here than cars in the car park. There is a bicycle shed, and the day starts with the gentle click of Sturmey Archer gears.

We spent the day in a haze of introductions, directions, welcoming drinks and, inevitably (for the benefit of franchise auditors everywhere) the inductions. One of the good things about the induction procedure here is that it involves celebratory drinks. I am sure that was not in the office manual back in Norfolk, but it is a useful addition.

We are now installed. The cauliflower boxes are yielding everything but vegetables, but of the plastic dustbin there is no sign. Only a lid remains. Police are currently scouring the Great North Road for a bin without a lid. If you find it, just keep quiet. It will be much happier in Norfolk.
This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in April 1998