76) Back Again

I have had a nagging feeling recently that it is about time I added to my blog, then I got a gentle reminder from some of my loyal readers J so I looked up to see when I last posted an entry. I was amazed to see that it was on 28^th Dec 2011. If I don’t get in an episode before the end of this month there will be no entries for 2012 so I had better do something about that.

 It has been a busy year with quite a lot going on, we have a new granddaughter, settled into our new home and I have retired from work so I have a lot of catching up to do.

 The actual move into our new house in Barry Street was rather traumatic. We had arranged for a removalist to take our furniture but we spent a great deal of time packing all our belongings into cartons ready for the big day. I thought it would only take about three hours although the gentleman who I spoke to on the phone said he thought about four hours. Eventually we were both wrong it took a whole five hours, starting at 7 am and finishing at noon. Even then the removalists only took the furniture and the heaviest boxes.  Jonny and I worked the rest of the afternoon bringing a few loads with our little trailer. By 6 pm it was getting dark, it started to rain and we were worn out. We packed in bought fish and chips for our dinner and sorted out the kettle so that we could have a cup of tea and our bed so that we would have a place to sleep. We were sure that the weather would be better the next day but we could not have been more wrong. When we woke the next morning it was raining heavily but there was nothing we could do about it as all our things had to be out that day so that we could do the handover to the owners that afternoon. As we were driving out to go and get our first load Dominic arrived to help us and it stopped raining, it started pouring instead. In fact the rain was so heavy that the next day on the news they reported that it had been the wettest September day in about 30 years. Dominic and Jonny worked hard bringing all the remaining things across from the old house; they got soaked to the skin every time and had to change all their cloths three times over. I cleaned out the old house and started to unpack in the new house. I was inside warm and dry all day. In the old house Jonny had had quite a bit of space to store his tools and equipment but in this new place there was only a single garage. When the garage was full the rest of the things just had to be dumped on the lawn at the back of the house, in the pouring rain, but there was no alternative. We would never have managed without Dominic’s help though; he spent the whole day with us and was a godsend. (Thanks again Dom) At least we had the comfort of knowing that the roof didn’t leak, with all that torrential rain we had that weekend there was not a spot of rain in the house, except for some that had run into the garage under the door.

When we first managed to sit at our dining room table for a meal we were pleasantly surprised at the view from the dining room window. The house across the road from us is built on a fairly large triangular shaped block as it is on the corner of the intersection with another street and the house is placed on the widest part of the triangle so it is not in our direct view line. What we see when we look out of that window is the narrowest section of the triangle which is just their garden. So we don’t look out on to other people and they don’t look out on to us. It gives us an illusion of being far away from everyone even if we aren’t. Admittedly not a stunning view like we had in Spoon Bay Road but very pleasant none the less. We are very grateful for that.

                                  

The inside of the house was a bit like a war zone. Boxes everywhere and no room to move. Although the house had been left clean it was still a very old house and left a lot to be desired. There were many things that needed doing but for the first two weeks or so I think we were just concentrating on putting everything in its place. There just didn’t seem to be enough room for everything. Moving house always makes me realise just how much stuff we have and I always resolve that I will go through it all and get rid of what we don’t need. Needless to say I never do.