I turned 26 two weeks ago. To watch me that day you wouldn’t have thought so. There were a few cards, a present even, then 14 hours of back-breaking hard work while I virtually single-handedly moved all our furniture and much of our possessions to our new home 15 minutes drive down the motorway. There was no cake to me had, no food even besides a small bowl of porridge that I ate for breakfast as there simply wasn’t time in the day and eating being something I prioritise over almost everything else indicated just how much work needed to be done!
At some point in the day I realised that I have far too much stuff, particularly when I found myself cramming what was 7 rooms and a garage of stuff into what is now 5 rooms and a small shed. I managed it though in-spite of those initial few days of having to contort oneself around randomly-dumped objects even to climb above it all just to get by. I honestly don’t remember it being like this last time I moved though last time there was just me and a bedroom’s worth of stuff and that was over 4 years ago, things have changed, life changed, I have changed, and recently I’ve watched it happening fast behind my own eyes..
Since then things have improved. We’ve reclaimed the downstairs and have a functional kitchen and living room. The bathroom looks like a bathroom and the bedroom…well…you can get to the bed which is a big plus! Drilling started almost immediately while I fitted a few wall-mounted fittings and shelves and as a special treat for the kitties (and for me (to save me opening the door for them)) I fitted a cat-flap to the back door which took a surprisingly long time as I gradually shaved off more of this 2-inch-thick solid wooden door, millimetre-by-millimetre while simultaneously endearing myself to my new neighbours at 7 o’clock in the evening. Well they better get used to it.
This is the first time I’ve bought a house and like a new pair of shoes you quickly get to exploring it’s darkest corners and quirks. For the most part it’s solidly built, the roof doesn’t appear to leak anywhere and I haven’t yet found any creaky floorboards that I’m so used to from my last rented house. The back door is a bit big for the hole and needs a good jolt to open and after finding only 10 TV channels on the auto-tune function I traced the main aerial cable to a rusty and broken main aerial on the roof – not the shiny new double aerial at the back which appears to lead into the kitchen’s boiler cabinet and the back-bedroom, no idea why..
Using Hollydog as an excuse I’ve got to exploring the local estate which is a mixture of middle and middler-aged council and ex-council housing. We’ve walked into the main village which takes no more than 10 minutes and tried out the local Saturday market which is on every weekend and is now my primary source of fish and veg being about half the price of Tesco! I haven’t yet tried the locals which is a shame but time hasn’t permitted it, actually I lie, there was one but we went there 2 days before we got the keys after visiting a mates house who returned the favour of witnessing the signatures on the land registry forms and a few other legal documents. Which brings me to another thing, conveyancing…what a pain in the backside!
I’m back at work now, after 11 days off to handle all of this I’m in need of another holiday. A real one with sun loungers, glasses of funny looking liquids with umbrellas and perhaps a massage though I have had one since courtesy of Zen’s on-site masseuse who had a job on her hands which my knotted and torn back muscles. Never again! At least, not for less than 20 grand!
