2004-11-16 - 3:34 p.m.

The house-moving process over the weekend was somewhat fraught, and in fact might have been easier had we dismantled the old house brick by brick and reassembled it in the new location using only our teeth.

For starters, the cheap van we hired soon betrayed its price, and trying to change gear was like wrestling your way out of a pin-hold. Our spirits were high, though, as we set off on the first leg bound for south of the river with a song in our hearts and a tottering pile of furniture in our rear end.

An hour later, we already had a parking ticket and a severe reprimand from someone in uniform � something about blocking vital roadways on the day of the Lord Mayors� procession. It wasn�t until we�d unloaded that the latter bit of information sank in, and we realised the second leg could be something of a face off.

Pablo in a van vs several hundred thousand revellers complete with huge floats and a police presence blocking every route to south London known to man, woman and taxi driver.

Hmmm. You�ve got to love those odds.

Admittedly, on the second leg, the powers that be and their so-called official procession had the upper hand. Time and again we approached the river, only to be turned away faster than Boy George from a Klan rally.

Several hours in slow moving traffic is just the kind of provocation me and my navigatorial sidekick Bruce needed, though, and just when they thought they�d got us, we had the genius idea of just driving through the unmanned roadblocks. Oooooooooh, I�m SO afraid of you, Mr NO ENTRY sign, I don�t think. What are you going to do? Run and tell a copper?

And so it was that we made our merry way, weaving in and out of the signs, down to the bridge. We could see on the horizon a police presence, and us and the few vans and cars that had had the same idea slowed down to square off against our adversaries. Personally, I was ready for me and Bruce to undertake a Thelma and Louise (bagsy Thelma) style leap into the Thames to our certain, er, soaking and eventual flu-like symptoms.

Sadly things were not so dramatic, and as we pulled up to the police, they simply asked us if traffic was now being let through, to which we replied politely that we thought it was.

Anyway. We�re in.