Monday, May 06, 2013

M day approaches - update (we have moved :) )

After a very, very long process of chain breaks and chopping and changing we are finally 2 days away from moving house. The loft is empty, the garage is full. Walls are bare and flat pack furniture is once again flat. On Wednesday 8th we head to the new place, though tomorrow we have the removals people come and get most of the stuff. Then it will be the slightly tense wait for money to flow form solicitor to solicitor to get the completion to happen. It also needs to happen in enough time for the removals people to be able to unload before their cut off. We are in a chain of 10 houses but as we are about 3 or 4 or the chain and the money starts form the bottom we should all be ok. None the less we automatically took out the late key waiver insurance. It is going to be strange leaving the area as we have lived here for 23 years now. Which is a long time in anyones books. It is only 35 miles up the road but there is a whole new area to explore with the predlets. After the move we have the fun of re attaching all the important utilities (water, gas and electric obviously are there) but we need the phone and internet enabled. That will take an extra week or so and we probably wont be getting superfast broadband despite the exchange being enabled. A bit of a pain to say the least but its all check and balance. I think the clocks will be ticking a little slower today as we all do the last bits of shuffling of house things around. Fingers are crossed and roll on Wednesday night when we will be installed at last in the new place. Update... We moved, it worked and there has been lots going on. The house is an older one, build in the 50's as a bungalow, turned into a house in the 70's The new abode We are busy changing things. A new front door (the old was draughty). A large workshop and 3 green houses have been removed and the concrete base broken up ready for an extension to be built. Roof tiles have been reset. Some electrics have been rewired. We had a gravel driveway with a tree in the middle as a roundabout (that's still there) but there were some raised beds with a 2 brick high wall shaped around the outsides. We all managed to bump our cars into the wall (even the ones with parking sensors, so they had to go. We got a huge grabber lorry (the same one that removed 2 loads of broken up concrete from the back, to remove the soil. The small wall was a few days of toil with a sledge hammer (but great fun and good choi training) We also built a new shed (that took 2 days) Shed making (day 1) Shed complete 2 day job they said 1/2 a day :) Luckily we had a very warm and dry summer as between the workshop being dismantled and the shed being constructed we had nowhere to put things (the garage was full) So I put up a large tent to act as a shed for the summer :) Tent Done you can get a lot in there. We also inherited a pond with a lot of very large koi carp in so I have been busy learning how to look after these beasts. Which included going for a swim in the pond to try and find the filter pump. The pond seems stable now though. The predlets are in a new school and that seems to be going well. We walk everyday about 15 mins to get there. Life is almost settling back to normal, apart from all the building work. We have an internal wall we want to remove so have had a structural engineer do the calculations, which will lead eventually to a new kitchen layout. The current wall has a large aquarium in it, with a red tailed shark and several tiger barbs, again we got those with the house. So I will have to find a new tank location and rehouse them. Basingstoke is proving to be very nice too. The park out the back is great fun for the kids lots of frisbee throwing this summer :) We are close to town and to leisure facilities. Minutes from the station for @elemming. So we often pick her up from the station on the way back from Basingstoke Choi Kwang Do. She has also started Choi on Saturdays and recently graded (despite having a broken wrist from ice skating !) New choi belts great birthday present