I'm back did you miss me ?

I'm back !! The big move has happened, and we are safely in our new house ...well bungalow, and we love it !!! When we actually got inside the bungalow, we were pleasantly surprised to find, that it looked bigger than it had from the outside when we peered through the windows. Also there was more storage than we'd hope for too, including a small storage room, which has now become the new place for my mountain of glass and art stuff.

When we came to sign the lease last Weds, we were very surprised when the council guy told us that we had to hand the keys in for the old place by the Friday at 4pm or we would have to pay a weeks rent. We were expecting to hand the keys in on the following Monday, thank goodness we'd already spoken to my son in law about the possibility of moving on Thurs already, and also that the van hire place had a van available on the Thursday too. My oldest daughter text me to say that my grandson Martin couldn't help us move after all. So we were left one man short, luckily after a couple of phone calls, a friend of ours Gwyn agreed to come and help us. So thanks very much to both of you, and my daughter Jen for making a stressful time, a lot less stressful.


There were times when we looked round at the mountain of boxes and bags and wondered if we would ever manage to get them sorted out. But now 6 days later, we're getting there very slowly. There's been a constant stream of moving boxes from one room to another in order to try and get one room straight, and then having to fill that room back up again in order to get another room sorted. My constant aches and pains meant that my daughter had to do almost all the moving and rearranging of boxes and bags on her own, where she got the strength I don't know...but thanks Jen. My son Billie and his girlfriend Alisha came round on Friday and Saturday, and Billie helped move things around, and sorted out some wiring for us too. Then on Sunday Billie tried to help my daughter Jenny lay the laminate flooring...what a nightmare that stuff is, to someone that's never laid it before. No sooner was one piece laid, than it popped out again. So yet another attempt failed miserably.

Just as we were about to give up on the laminate, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine to see if we were alright, as he hadn't seen me online. After hearing our tale of woe about the laminate, he offered to come and help Jen lay the first few rows to get her started in his dinner hour. The first few rows ended up being half the room, but I have to say even though my friend had experience at laying this type of thing, it certainly didn't go smoothly. As he had to get back to work himself, we'd hoped that Jenny would be able to carry on laying it with a little bit of help from me ...wrong !! My numb fingers on one hand and raging arthritus (which has only flared up this past few weeks) on the other hand, I just didn't have the strength to pull and push the strips of flooring enough to help Jen finish the job. My friend rang again to see how we got on yesterday, and has suggested we see if we can get my son to help instead, if not he'll book a day off work and come and help Jen get it finished. Thanks a lot El.

Sunday found us heading off to our local car boot to try and get some curtains and odd and ends. We had to try and be very strict with ourselves and only buy really essential things as I'm very short of money at the moment. But I just couldn't resist a beautiful steel ornament in an art noveau style, it was only £6 and I loved it. On the same stall my daughter saw some gorgeous pictures which she fell in love with and found it very hard to walk away from. But walk away she did. On another stall we bought an ashtray and from overhearing us talking the couple selling realised we'd just moved, and asked us if we needed a washer dryer. We didn't, but luckily they had a mexican pine bed ...which I did need, after sleeping on the settee at the old house for the last 18 months, it even had an orthopedic mattress. We arranged to go and pick it up that night.This lovely couple Mel and Vikki insisted on giving us some lovely stuff for free, and even filled their car up with stuff to save us having to do 2 or even 3 trips. How Mel managed to get a double mattress in my daughters car I'll never know...but he did lol. Thank you both so much, I hope karma returns your kindness many times over.

As we collected all the various bits and bobs we returned to the stall with the pictures my daughter fell in love with. She really wanted them, and much to my surprise she actually bought 2 of them for £29. Anyone that knows my daughter, will know that she, like me is constantly short of money despite being as thrify as possible, so for her to pay out this much on two pictures, I knew they meant a lot to her..but I'm so pleased she got them.