apologies

Sorry not to provide more updates recently. Been busy:

Unpacking boxes

writing 3 articles

1 novel (unfinished)

organising 40th birthday party (am old man soon)

taking arlo to doc’s in London

doing above while avoiding snow

worrying about house

-for some reason am convinced the plaster’s going to suddenly fall off the wall, the kitchen floor will cave in and one day when we flush the loo in the upstairs bathroom the soil pipe will fail and there’ll be a jet of toilet flush shooting across the garden into nextdoor neighbours… not that it keeps me up at night. Oh no.

Also convinced the fact that bulbs keep blowing and fire alarm goes off loudly if you even whisper the fact that you’ve got the oven on is evidence that the electricians stitched us up.

Need sleep, methinks.

Arlo thinks our lampshades are lovely. And so does his finger puppet dolphin. And they are.

three pictures speak a thousand words

so, all our belongings were moved in a few days before Christmas and we’ve been trying to find the fittings to put up  shelves for some time now. And then we move a box to see:

thanks, guys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and so…

not exactly stylish, but getting there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and…

a short shelf life

overheard in Ikea

“…your dad tried to move the kitchen cabinet without taking all the things out of it. That was when it feel on top of him and I found him like that…”

I caught this as mother and daughter wafted past with trolley. Didn’t hear the rest of it. I’m not making this up.

This weekend the remaining fixtures and fittings (i.e. rubbish) has been gathered up and shifted out to the nearest recycling centre. Huzzah! The garden has just about got it’s original shape back and the recycling centre / tip didn’t turn me away when I showed up in a hire van half full of rubble bags, wood, polystyrene, cardboard and general crud. (General Crud led the campaign with Sergeant oh I can’t be bothered with this parenthetic gag.)

A few items of furniture have been sent to a charity organisation in the back of the van, trees which were in Jack’s garden are now in our garden, the WORMS have returned!!!! and I went on a whistle stop tour of Ikea.

Two shelves, one 2m length of kitchen cabinet cover, a pocket full of metal prongs which keep the Ikea modular shelves up – which we have somewhere in the house but which are naturally still packed some place.

We also managed to get some stuff from Safestore including my guitar and amp (huzzah!) and managed to do this run without quite being locked in despite running close to closing time.

This week’s plan is to finish the kitchen / utility rooms. Oh, and maybe fix the eco toilet upstairs which is currently not being very eco since it usually leaks after flushing and so has a constant flow of water going down the pan.

I remember when my dad told me that cars had finally become so electronically controlled so technical that he could no longer service and maintain his own car. It wasn’t worth it and it wasn’t like the Ford Cortina where he could spend a happy Sunday changing spark plugs and filter etc.

I feel the same about toilets.

Not too long ago everything was run off a ball cock valve (of sniggering responses) now I look in the cistern of our toilets and don’t understand it. Consequently there’s nothing I can fiddle with or tighten up or anything. Have to phone the plumbers again.

talking to the plasterer about flooring men

Plasterer thinks flooring people have an easy life. Turn up at 8.30, pour some leveling fluid over the floor for an hour, maybe two, then go away again. If he was here today he’d certainly have signed up for retraining. The final flooring man poured the latex surface over the floor, cut out the floor templates in the front room and then sat and read his paper for three hours or so. He was waiting for the floor to ‘go off’ which means ‘to dry’ for everyone else. not sure if there’s anything more technical hidden in that phrase. Waiting for the floor to ‘cure’ is also another way of putting it.  I think I need some more technical terms for what I do. A neat euphemism that makes lethargy sound like something highly technical, highly skilled process.

all i want is a room somewhere…

We face a busy two weeks. the removal men are booked for 18th. If things get out of hand we can go and hang out or do i mean hide? in the loft.

Plasterer is confident he can do it. Plumbers should be done soonish, flooring people for kitchen also lined up. Nothing can stop us now…

As long as the bedroom drainage works ok…

i’m board….. chairman of the board….

 

attic....

 

attack!

 

keyed up

And so we have bought a house with no keys. to get into the house we now own i still had to jump the back wall. 

ironically the estate agent gave us the bunch of useless keys with a brand now keyring of their attached and their thanks very much for buying a house form us letter also said they were giving us the keys. This is a lie.

This after i told them this morning it was pretty stupid and only now, on the morning of completion do they tell me its really my fault because it was our surveyor. the estate agent then got all moody cos she didn’t want to talk to our surveyor because he was so rude last time, so i closed the issue down. just wait till you see our feedback form…

i receive spam for people.i know no one reads this. if anyone does, go do something more interesting. i’ll tell you when to look.

the key thing is

our surveyor lost the keys whilst surveying.

that was over a month ago. since then the estate agents have been adamant that they will get the locks changes and charge our surveyor. today our surveyor turned up and gave them a chub lock to fit in the door. and that was it.

second, i told the estate agent there was still rubbish in the property, in the attic and outside. they said they’d tell the current owner. the rubbish – and bizarrely a dyson hoover and wobbley step ladder and a long pole with a hook on it – are still in the property. And there’s crap in the attic. 

But when we have it tomorrow we will have control and that is the main thing. no more arsing around at other’s beck, we have house, we do with house what we wish.

Apparently it’s cheaper to hire a skip than take it down the dump in a van. Must look into this. And rubble sacks.

bin a long time comin

So for the past who knows how long we’ve been trying to buy a house. tomorrow we will have one and yet and yet and yet…

We will not have proper front door keys. I shall have to continue to dream of a front door key that opens a lock in the door. up until now I’ve had to jump over the back fence in order to get in. somewhat surprisingly I’ve yet to be challenged about this and no one’s called the cops. maybe this should worry me.

Two electricians down, one electrician stood me up. trying to find a handy man who’s handy for two days next week so we can clear everything out. the routine appears to go strip out, damp, rewire, replaster. oh and then reroof, refloor, refit loft.

need also to rewrite an article and reinvigorate myself. but for now just rest.

need to buy tools or alternatively find tools in safestore. lordy we might actually move out of safestore in the next month. might not of course, but there are the things adventures are made of.

an interesting corner of our new house

 

you can see why we chose this place.

Thought you’d like to see something of the house we’re going to buy. Received the mortgage offer today so everything’s on track. Need to talk to yet more people about it tomorrow as the work they want done is far from clear. I hate to be bitchy but the valuation surveyors really were having a bad day. I mean look at the potential of this place. It’s screaming out money and value and homeliness. It’s gonna take a huge mistake on our part decor wise to remove any intrinsic value from this million pound property.