My dear family & friends
We’re in our new home and we’ve mostly settled where everything must go. Although the house is much bigger than our previous home, there isn’t that much more packing and hanging space. Indeed, there never seems to be enough packing space wherever we go. I think architects should be trained to draw in the cupboards first whenever they design a new home. And no salmon pink carpets either; they are entirely impractical highlighting every last speck of dust, lint or dog paw. I know it’s more difficult in winter, given that everything is wet and muddy, but I have to wipe the dogs' paws off every time they’ve been outside. It was easier at our old home where the entire downstairs floor area was covered with wood and tiles; no such luck here.
Apart from those minor gripes, we really like the house. It feels so much more spacious and it gets plenty of light as it is directly south facing. There’s a school playing field on the other side of the fence which enhances the feeling of spaciousness.
The move went off without a hitch. Well, mostly. I dropped a chair on my face. I don’t quite know how I managed it, so I clearly wasn’t concentrating. The sitting chair in question belonged to Lucia’s grandparents, I think, and is trimmed with heavy carved wood. It was this carved wood at the top of the backrest that came directly down on the bridge of my nose, skinning it and leaving a fairly deep gash (for a nose) down about half the length of my nose. I was not happy. Suffice to say though that it is healing very quickly. I would have liked to take a picture of it to put up on the web as proof of the seriousness of the injury, but our camera had been playing up and finally stopped working. What I mean to say is that I bought a new camera yesterday; it’s a Canon Digital Ixus 82IS.
That the move went so smoothly though (apart from the nose incident), was entirely due to Richard’s help. (Richard’s partner Ann worked with Lucia at MillwardBrown in SA.) I hired an extra-long wheelbase Mercedes panel van for the day and employed a burly Portuguese labourer through Helder at the Pastelaria Portuguesa. Richard came to help, but quickly assumed the role of director of operations. His expert direction in packing the van and manhandling and moving furniture made the difference. I was, for instance, expecting that the sleeper-couch would present a problem because the “professional” movers had struggled with it when we moved into the house last March. Richard and Lino (the Portuguese helper) had it out of the house and into the van in a matter of minutes when I wasn’t looking. We moved the house in three trips.
That was Friday. Lucia and I spent most of Saturday cleaning the old house, and Sunday fitting in to our new house. On Monday morning I hired a Rug Doctor carpet cleaning machine and cleaned the carpets at the old house. The landlord came to inspect the house at lunchtime, pronounced his satisfaction and called the estate agents to release our deposit.
As you can imagine, the move has dominated our time over the past two weeks and we haven’t done much else. I think I’ve managed to change all the services we need and register our change of address with the people that need to know: there’s Warwick District Council for council tax; Severn Trent for the water supply; NPower to cancel our gas and electricity account at our old address, and Scottish Power to open accounts for our new home; then BT for the phone line and broadband service; SKY of our satellite TV; HSBC for banking and our credit cards and home insurance (still to do); Royal Mail to forward our post; Honda for car insurance (still to do).
Changing the address for SKY was enlightening. I discovered that apart from all the electronics to decode the satellite signal in decoder box, there is also a global positioning (GPS) device so the box will only work where it’s registered to work. So when you move and you plug your box in, it recognises the change of position and stops working. You have to call SKY, register the new address and wait for instructions to come via satellite to “unlock” the box. That’s sneaky. What’s it to them where I’m watching so long as I pay my monthly bill?
In between times, Lucia and I have really enjoyed watching Oz Clarke and James May’s “Big Wine Adventures” in France and California which I downloaded from the internet. It’s not often that our viewing tastes merge, so it’s been an extra pleasure. They’re informative and funny; I would certainly recommend them if you enjoy a glass of wine.
Let me also note that another milestone in this adventure of ours passed today; we’ve been here exactly a year. It’s hasn’t been the easiest year, but it has been interesting. I know it’s a cliché but I have to say that the time has spun by so fast my head feels dizzy.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
