Here goes:
- Saturday, 7 February: The plasterer has done a good job of the wall where the woodburning stove will go, and it's already dry/nearly dry everywhere apart from where Glyn blocked up the old opening/around the flue. Both Richards have finished - the utility room now only needs the lights reinstating, and a washing machine to be complete. David sanded the remaining unsanded coving in the kitchen, and all of the hall - phew! That's all we are going to do sanding-wise, as we are fast running out of time. I painted a second coat on the second quarter of the sitting room ceiling, and started the first coat on the third quarter. I'm still being "hamstrung" by the shoulder problems, so am doing as much as I can without making my shoulders so bad I need to take time off; we figure a little bit of work every time we come is better than doing eight hours and then being unable to do anything for months. Later, I finished the first coat on the third quarter, but keeping track is fun!
- Sunday, 8 February: I painted a second coat on the third quarter of the sitting room ceiling, whilst David concentrated on sweeping up all his sanding dusting, and taking the plumber-generated rubbish to the garage, before vacuuming downstairs. [The outbuildings are not secure, so we're not storing anything there other than rubbish/recycling.] My shoulders are now both really bad, so I went for a walk, and managed to walk the perimeter of our land for the first time. I "found" the Roman road, and tried to walk down to the end of it, but it looks as though the neighbours on the perpendicular road have removed the fence [it was there when we checked before signing the paperwork], and put a static caravan awfully close to our boundary (if not slightly over it). I was too scared by the dogs that were loose to get any closer, but it's currently worrying me that we might have a neighbour dispute in the offing... On the upside, the Land Registry plans for their property and ours clearly show the "ride" as belonging to "Brookside", and not belonging with their land. Fingers crossed we get the fence reinstated with no fuss, and I can walk on our land without being terrified I'm going to get bitten!
- Friday, 13 February: The plaster around the flue continues to slowly dry... I painted a first coat on the fourth quarter of the sitting room ceiling; the end is in sight! Steve came and re-fitted the lights in the utility room - so much better - and connected the earth-bonding to the gas supply. Parker, sadly, has a cough, but looked cute in his little coat.
- Saturday, 14 February: We started moving house! I painted a second coat on the fourth quarter of the sitting room ceiling, whilst David put away the second van-load of our belongings. Because of the bad shoulders, I hadn't fully packed before we started to move, so it's a much slower/more irritating process than it could/should have been. Oh well; hopefully we will never have to move house again. We celebrated the first night in our new home with a bottle of Kentish "champagne" - Chapel Down pink fizz - lovely to be here at last.
- Sunday, 15 February: Two more van loads, and we're nearly(-ish) done?
- Monday, 16 February: The mail re-direction works... The telephone; not so much... We're keeping our fingers crossed it's just a simple "we forgot to activate the line". I spent the day cleaning windows, as David had the car, but he brought another load of stuff from the house in Maidstone, so that all helps.
- Tuesday, 17, and Wednesday, 18 February: David drove me and the car to Maidstone, where he left me with the car and took the train to work. I spent another couple of days packing up the remaining belongings, and cleaning. Increasingly wishing I'd pushed through the pain, and done all the packing before we moved. At least doing a bit a day, I'm not hurting my shoulders, and we are on track to have the place emptied and cleaned [hopefully] by the end of the weekend; it would be nice to hand it back early, so I don't mind the long days.
- Thursday, 19 February: BT engineer - yay! I was starting to scrub the floor in the sitting room [expecting visitors some time early March, so wanted to try and get one room vaguely livable, but the priority remained to empty/clean The Old Laundry, so it was only being "tied" to the house for a day that made me think of "Brookside"]. A pair of engineers arrived pretty promptly, then went again almost as swiftly, leaving a device plugged into the phone jack... I didn't want to damage their equipment, so I cleaned the area below where the hearth will be. More importantly, they fixed the problem (and it wasn't anything wrong in the house, so we avoided a bill). I found it astonishing that the problem was because the line to the house was a DACS party line; I hadn't heard of anyone having one of those since the early 1970s, but apparently it's not that rare in the country round here. We have a wonderful telephone number [I found it instantly memorable], so I am really, really, pleased about that as these days I don't remember phone numbers as easily as I used to. And the broadband connection seemed superfast compared to Maidstone [>6Mbps vs regularly <1Mbps (BT Openreach tested it at 0.2Mbps the last time I had them there); although now I'm using WiFi it's about 3.3Mbps (so I'm going to find my old router again, and see if it speeds up, as the "internet" seems to be largely of the opinion that ethernet is always faster than WiFi)]. I am so pleased, and now we are connected up to the 21st century again, I can catch up with my life beyond our hedges!
- Friday, 20 to Sunday 22 February: emptying/cleaning The Old Laundry, yada, yada, yada. With the exception that we finished! So pleased about; I naturally want to hand someone's property back to them in perfect condition, but this time I was trying to protect our deposit, and trying to protect the heavily-pregnant future occupant from exposure to chemicals...
- Monday, 23 February: Day off. Sort of... I painted a mist coat on the wall where the woodburning stove will go, as we have a delivery date for the hearth of Thursday, and the less clambering over the woodburner involved in painting, the better. I'm not convinced the plaster around the flue will be dry in time, and I haven't painted that "square" yet, but if I only have to paint a small area it will be much easier than leaving the whole wall. In the evening, we handed over the keys to our old home in what could have felt like a clandestine meeting in the car park in Headcorn, but wasn't - I think they were so glad to have extra time to move in, and we were really pleased that he'd agreed to us handing the house back early/release our deposit without having to do an estate agents' inspection. David got a text saying the place was spotless, so our efforts were worth it. I'd made a note whilst cleaning The Old Laundry "cleaning up after tenants, yet again... But this time it's us!"
- Tuesday, 24 February: Slightly weird feeling - we've been living here for 10 days, but this feels like the first day of living here properly - all the time we were still moving out/cleaning, it didn't feel like we were truly here, but today marks that point of no return. It feels slightly odd [and I suspect that will continue until we are fully unpacked, or even when we manage to use upstairs for something other than storage], but I could get used to it! [David says I have to; we're not moving again, apparently.] Second mist coat to the wall, and back to floor cleaning, and then a first "proper" coat of paint on the fireplace wall (excepting the area around the flue, which continues to dry infuriatingly slowly]..
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