Life continues
Well, I'd expected to start working by now, but there seems to be a delay with my pre-employment paperwork, namely the CRB check (I have my copy, but their's hasn't arrived) and one of my references have yet to get to their HR dept. So instead, I've got on with some of the house admin that's needed doing. I've notified the district council that we need to start paying council tax, I've contacted the water company to ask them to install a water meter and I've downloaded various forms to fill in, one for a resident parking permit, one for the electoral register and one for a library ticket. I'm particularly excited about a library within walking distance and open sensible hours (the previous library that was within walking distance for me wasn't open on Saturdays, which was about the only day I could manage to get there).
With respect to the interior of the house, I've shoehorned most of our stuff into the house, it's surprising how much we've amassed between us. Sadly, our beautiful solid oak wardrobe and chest of drawers didn't make it up the stairs, because there wasn't enough turning space, so they're living in the rear lounge on the ground floor at the moment. Regrettably, we're probably going to have to either sell them or give them away (we'd only give them to family, as they're expensive and high quality). This has left us short of clothes storage in our bedroom, so we're considering flat pack furniture to put in, instead. It does mean that there are bags and boxes of clothes all over the bedroom, which isn't ideal. I suppose that getting more of that sorted will be tomorrow's project, since I obviously won't be working! The solid oak bookcase (which matches the wardrobe and chest of drawers) is residing in the entrance hall, with my upright walnut piano. There is room to get through, but it is far from ideal.
The kitchen is crammed full, we've got rather a lot of crockery and cutlery - about sixteen of everything! Except glasses and mugs, of which we have three (yes THREE) cupboards full. We also have duplicates of stuff like kettles, filter coffee makers, toasters blah de blah. I expect that the only rational way forward will be to decide what we don't want to keep and do a big boot sale at some point, so that we can clear the decks a bit. There is also a somewhat surprising amount of cocoa/drinking chocolate, so I can foresee some baking involving cocoa in the near future (which is just as well, as there's also a load of sugar and flour as well). There's also a lot of tinned fruit, but since I've also got my icecream maker back, I think that that will be put to good use fairly early on. The reception room downstairs has also ended up playing host to my dresser, bureau, filing drawers and glass bookcase, as they've all fitted in neatly. A surprising amount of boxes disappeared once I unpacked books into shelves.
Unsurprisingly maybe, for a pair of geeks, we've managed to get a lot of our tech set up. There's a 40" LCD tv, with HD recordable satellite and a blu-ray player in the front lounge. There's a 37" LCD tv with DVD player and Wii set up in the rear lounge. There's a 32" LCD tv with DVD player and satellite set up in our bedroom. And thisispoki has sorted out broadband, with powerline connections to make sure that the house is fully networked, with server storage (and accessible media, such as photos and music). He hasn't quite got round to setting up the media PC yet, but I don't suppose that will take him too long. We have small CRT portable TVs for the other three bedrooms, but at the moment, they're only available for playing videos and DVDs, we haven't got aerial signals to them, which is a little annoying. Still, the girls all have laptops, so can always stream tv shows from the various services that are available, if they want to watch tv in bed. And we actually have spare laptops for other visitors, although a vast majority of our visitors are likely to have their own!
Talking of the girls, two of thisispoki 's daughters joined us from Good Friday to Easter Sunday - his eldest visited on Saturday, but is now a free agent - we'll see if she comes to stay more often in future. The two younger ones are excited and enthused about the house, so much so that they both disappeared to bed early on the Friday night to test drive their own rooms. They've both chosen the top floor, with the younger having the smaller of the two rooms. Sadly, the divan bed base wouldn't go up to that room, so she's had a mattress on the floor this time; not that she minded, as she loves sleeping like that. Again, I'll look out for a bedstead that takes entirely to pieces to assemble up there - that's what the small double that ended up in the middle daughter's room was like and it worked perfectly.
The middle daughter has a lot of school work at the moment, as she has her GCSE examinations beginning in May and extending through June. She was happy to find that I was a little bit of help to her in her Classics revision, as she struggled to get to grips with Ovid and Virgil and I think she may well use me as a resource a little more over the coming weeks. She needed quiet time on Sunday, and we managed to give it to her. thisispoki went back to the flat and finally emptied it, whilst I took his youngest daughter to the cinema, to watch "How To Train Your Dragon 3D". It's wonderful to be able to just stroll there, it took fifteen minutes and means that we're all going to be getting that little bit more exercise than we have been, as we no longer need to drive everywhere. Not to mention that using your legs is cheaper than paying for town centre parking and fuel!
All in all, I'm probably happier now than at any time in the last four months - it's been pretty traumatic losing my job and control of my life, but the purchase of the house feels like control is returning and I have a direction in which to aim.
With respect to the interior of the house, I've shoehorned most of our stuff into the house, it's surprising how much we've amassed between us. Sadly, our beautiful solid oak wardrobe and chest of drawers didn't make it up the stairs, because there wasn't enough turning space, so they're living in the rear lounge on the ground floor at the moment. Regrettably, we're probably going to have to either sell them or give them away (we'd only give them to family, as they're expensive and high quality). This has left us short of clothes storage in our bedroom, so we're considering flat pack furniture to put in, instead. It does mean that there are bags and boxes of clothes all over the bedroom, which isn't ideal. I suppose that getting more of that sorted will be tomorrow's project, since I obviously won't be working! The solid oak bookcase (which matches the wardrobe and chest of drawers) is residing in the entrance hall, with my upright walnut piano. There is room to get through, but it is far from ideal.
The kitchen is crammed full, we've got rather a lot of crockery and cutlery - about sixteen of everything! Except glasses and mugs, of which we have three (yes THREE) cupboards full. We also have duplicates of stuff like kettles, filter coffee makers, toasters blah de blah. I expect that the only rational way forward will be to decide what we don't want to keep and do a big boot sale at some point, so that we can clear the decks a bit. There is also a somewhat surprising amount of cocoa/drinking chocolate, so I can foresee some baking involving cocoa in the near future (which is just as well, as there's also a load of sugar and flour as well). There's also a lot of tinned fruit, but since I've also got my icecream maker back, I think that that will be put to good use fairly early on. The reception room downstairs has also ended up playing host to my dresser, bureau, filing drawers and glass bookcase, as they've all fitted in neatly. A surprising amount of boxes disappeared once I unpacked books into shelves.
Unsurprisingly maybe, for a pair of geeks, we've managed to get a lot of our tech set up. There's a 40" LCD tv, with HD recordable satellite and a blu-ray player in the front lounge. There's a 37" LCD tv with DVD player and Wii set up in the rear lounge. There's a 32" LCD tv with DVD player and satellite set up in our bedroom. And thisispoki has sorted out broadband, with powerline connections to make sure that the house is fully networked, with server storage (and accessible media, such as photos and music). He hasn't quite got round to setting up the media PC yet, but I don't suppose that will take him too long. We have small CRT portable TVs for the other three bedrooms, but at the moment, they're only available for playing videos and DVDs, we haven't got aerial signals to them, which is a little annoying. Still, the girls all have laptops, so can always stream tv shows from the various services that are available, if they want to watch tv in bed. And we actually have spare laptops for other visitors, although a vast majority of our visitors are likely to have their own!
Talking of the girls, two of thisispoki 's daughters joined us from Good Friday to Easter Sunday - his eldest visited on Saturday, but is now a free agent - we'll see if she comes to stay more often in future. The two younger ones are excited and enthused about the house, so much so that they both disappeared to bed early on the Friday night to test drive their own rooms. They've both chosen the top floor, with the younger having the smaller of the two rooms. Sadly, the divan bed base wouldn't go up to that room, so she's had a mattress on the floor this time; not that she minded, as she loves sleeping like that. Again, I'll look out for a bedstead that takes entirely to pieces to assemble up there - that's what the small double that ended up in the middle daughter's room was like and it worked perfectly.
The middle daughter has a lot of school work at the moment, as she has her GCSE examinations beginning in May and extending through June. She was happy to find that I was a little bit of help to her in her Classics revision, as she struggled to get to grips with Ovid and Virgil and I think she may well use me as a resource a little more over the coming weeks. She needed quiet time on Sunday, and we managed to give it to her. thisispoki went back to the flat and finally emptied it, whilst I took his youngest daughter to the cinema, to watch "How To Train Your Dragon 3D". It's wonderful to be able to just stroll there, it took fifteen minutes and means that we're all going to be getting that little bit more exercise than we have been, as we no longer need to drive everywhere. Not to mention that using your legs is cheaper than paying for town centre parking and fuel!
All in all, I'm probably happier now than at any time in the last four months - it's been pretty traumatic losing my job and control of my life, but the purchase of the house feels like control is returning and I have a direction in which to aim.