Our younger daughter recently moved to Melbourne to undertake uni studies. Leaving her older sibling “home alone” (minus the cute and saner version of Macaulay Culkin).

But it wasn’t that long ago the tables were turned and daughter #1 decided to leave the nest and fend for herself (and three housemates), only to fly back home 12 months later.

Loading 20 years’ worth of our younger daughter’s stuff, as well as a donated six-seater outdoor setting, a queen size mattress and bed surround, a desk, copious amounts of clothes, shoes, make-up and collated new and used household goods into one ute and one very small car recently was like playing a good game of Tetris. But we successfully nailed it (figuratively, not literally) and headed up the highway to the big smoke.

But that was only the beginning of a very big day for us.

This latest move was a lot more strenuous on the body than the previous one, thanks to daughter #2 failing to tell us her bedroom in her new house was on the second storey and there was a tricky spiral staircase to navigate first. That’s after we had already hauled her belongings down from her upstairs bedroom at our own house.

Trying to carefully squeeze a queen size mattress around a narrow spiral staircase without marking the walls or floors of the rental would have been a sight to behold for anyone peering through the window.

Add to that an extended fit of the giggles when someone mentioned the “pivot” episode from TV show Friends – you know the one where Ross, Rachel and Chandler were trying to negotiate a large couch up the stairs – and it really ended up a scene from a comedy movie.

Things were going swimmingly and the mattress was a quarter the way around the spiral staircase, when daughter #2 started yelling out “Pivot!!”. After 15 minutes of trying to quell the giggles, the said mattress was finally in her bedroom.

After all that, I think I need a massage.