Home at Last

Well, finally moved and more importantly finally got the PC back on line. I really hate moving house, it takes ages to get anything done and I feel so disorientated for ages afterwards. Told the vicar who we are renting from that We're not moving ever again and if she ever decides to sell the place (she claims she isn't) that we're gonna claim "squatters rights". She laughed and said that we could buy the place if we want to. Ooooh right oh then.

The move in itself was really difficult, definitely the worst one to date, we reckon it's due to the fact that Luke is that bit older and much more sensitive to change. The wagon turned up half an hour early which when you have three cats and a three year old to handle isn't a good thing. Luke had been pretending to be cool about it all but really wasn't, so decided to be a stroppy little sod, the cats were in panic mode and trying to launch themselves at closed windows and cat flap, Richard was stressed, I was just going "aaargggh" (well trying to calm everyone down, but going arrrggh inside). Turned out we only had two cat carriers that were usable so I had to go the pet shop at 9.00am and buy a new one, this coincided with Luke having a meltdown and the removal guys starting to shift stuff willy nilly into the wagon (I'd wanted to cats to be in their carriers before people started to move stuff out of the house in case they freaked and bolted). I told the blokes they'd have to just wait for 10 mins while I got another carrier which they begrudgingly did. I dropped Luke off at mums as he wasn't really in a preschool kind of mood and also was starting to get a cold and then rushed off to grab a cat carrier.

Once the cats were locked away in their carriers the rest of our stuff was loaded and dropped off at the new place. Richard and I took the cats in our car, I felt so sorry for them, they hate change and they mewed in very angry voices all the way to York Street (took all of 5 minutes!). I was really relieved when the removal guys had left and we could start unpacking all our stuff and getting at least one room looking normal just so that we could let the poor little things out and reassure them that it was all going to be ok.

We were just making some kind of sense of all the boxes when mum rang on my mobile to say that Luke was really upset and could we pick him up (whaaaaaat!), so we nipped over to find him looking very sorry for himself and running a temperature. He did perk up though when we took him to the house and he could help with sorting his room out. You could see him relax when his room starting to take shape, Richard had even decorated his walls with his old Winne The Pooh wall motifs (yes, I know he's 3 but he still loves looking at them!).

Well, I could ramble on for ages about all the various mishaps but I'll just give you the condensed version .....

Richard and I didn't get to bed until 2.00am as we were unpacking and unpacking and unpacking

The boiler decided to pack in during the night and we woke to freezing cold rooms and no hot water

Said boiler didn't get repaired until two days later as the vicar couldn't decide on a repair guy (!!!!)

Richard was back in work the day after the move so I had to deal with all the residual crap on my own

Luke developed a really bad virus which has only just cleared up now and was running temperatures for three days

I then got ill and lost my voice (still croaky now)

But we do love it here, the area is much quieter for us all, the cats love it although we are very near to the cemetary so am hoping they don't start venturing over the gates and using some grave as a giant litter tray.

Luke is delighted with his huge room although not very impressed with the fact that we don't have carpet as when the house was renovated they decided to leave bare floorboards varnished as a feature. It's very noisy and even though we have rugs, not really quite the same as good old carpet (especially on the stairs) so we will have to sort it out I think.

But, I know we have made the right decision to come here, especially when Luke turned to me today and said "mummy I love my new home, it's better than the old one 'cos my cars go faster on the landing."