So much has happened in the past week it’s hard to know where to begin, so I’ll just take it day by day.
Tuesday, Sept 20th—I got nervous about not hearing from Hamilton Stiller, the estate agent who we found our flat with, because we were supposed to move into our new flat on broad street no later than Sept 31st (an old tenant was moving out then, so we could move in)and we still hadn’t heard anything about signing a contract a little more than a week out from our supposed move in date. So I had James call Hamilton Stiller up. Long story short, the guy who is currently living in that flat on broad street decided he didn’t want to move after all. Situation: James and I are flat-less with 375 deposit down.
Wednesday, Sept 21st—James and I went flat hunting again with Hamilton Stiller. The estate agent showed us a few places but we decided on a flat in a new development complex. It’s a big flat for 2 people in England—spacious bedroom, living room, normal size kitchenette off the living room and a decent bathroom. This flat is in a new property development comprised of about 7 flats (and they’re working on an 8th); it’s a gated community (gates with keypads and swipe cards, etc) with a grass and patio common area in between the flats. And each flat is its own building, so no sharing common entryways with anyone, and ours at least is 2 stories (So the bedroom, front door, bathroom and closet are downstairs, and the kitchen and living room are upstairs). And the flats are fairly new—there’s only been one tenant before us(for only 6 months) so the place is practically new and really clean. BONUS! The price on this flat was 525pounds, but me being the little money grubber I am, haggled down to 480pounds a month. We shook on it and the deal was done. The estate agent told us to come back Friday and we could sign the contract, pay the rest of the deposit and get the keys.
Monday, Sept 26th—After waiting 4 days, James and I finally strong-armed Hamilton Stiller into letting us sign the contract(he was still working on it until about 6pm mon night, and we came into his office right when he was finishing it). We got the keys, then went hunting for a witness. Since it was already late(almost 7:30pm) by the time we signed the contract and no one was around, we went to the flat complex where our new place is and the estate agent knocked on doors of our neighbours to see if anyone could sign our let agreement as a witness to our signatures. Luckily someone was home, and we met our neighbour Robin. Robin’s a nice girl in here late 20s it seemed like, and she has a kitty. J Since the signing I’ve actually seen here coming or going and stopped to chat with her a few times—lovely girl—and I see her cat wandering about, which makes me happy. I miss my kitty, Twister, back home. After we got all the signing done we started packing up boxes at the Dam Barn, then went to sleep.
Tuesday, Sept 27th—James’ ONLY day off. We moved all the boxes, and other light/small stuff into James’ car and shuttled it all over to our brand new flat. We made I think about 5 trips that way in between running errands around town. Then at about 6pm/7pm finally we received help; we were waiting for Rob, a guy who does painting/construction around the Kings Head for James’ dad, to finish work and help us move the heavy furniture in his van. Even James’ dad came down from the Hotel to help us unload (The Kings head is only a 5 min or less walk from our flat, but still it was nice for James Sr. to help out). In total we got in: a bookshelf, TV stand, and coffee table that one of James’ old workmates, Stacy, gave us; a refrigerator that his mom gave us so she could have the bigger one we found for her; and a dressing table, bed and mattress from the Dam Barn that Alice also gave us. That night we went to a place called The Golden Horse for a Chinese take-away and sat on the floor watching Napoleon Dynamite on James’ TV/Playstation 3.
Wednesday, Sept 28th—The unpacking began, and almost got finished actually. (At this point we were still waiting on a dresser/bedside table that we bought Tuesday afternoon from a second hand shop, and a wardrobe from the Dam Barn that we couldn’t fit into the van Tuesday night, so our clothes still were in boxes). We also made a trip out to Hereford to a shop called Argos to pick up a load of home stuff we needed—bathroom shelve organizer, toilet paper roll, a dish drying rack, basic home cleaning kit(mop, bucket, broom, shammies, etc)—then I played happy little housewife all night, sweeping and moping the upstairs and downstairs while James went to work. When James came home, I was finishing the cleaning around the house....then disaster struck. I noticed as I was cleaning dishes that the floor was wet. I thought maybe the counter got wet and it was leaking onto the floor, but upon further investigation found out that the leak was coming from the storage cupboard underneath the sink. There was a load of stuff I bunged in there—shopping bags, empty trash bags that we moved our clothing and such in(that I was saving for trash bags later), etc—that were absolutely soaking wet. Turns out that the girl who lived here before us probably had a washing machine or dishwasher hooked up to the sink draining system etc, because the drain for the sink, that was located below the sink in the cupboard, didn’t have a cap on it so everything we washed for a day and a half(which was only a few things—probably 2 meals worth cause we ate out or without dishes the rest of the time), the water went straight down into the cupboard and got everything wet and proceeded to leak out of the cupboard and onto the floor. Luckily, that day at Argos, we got a little basin so we started filling that up in the sink with water, washing dishes and then walking the basin downstairs, and emptying it in the sink in the bathroom.
Thursday, Sept 29th—James went to work early in the morning, and I got up to do a load of stuff, finish unpacking everything but clothes, put together some of the shelves/appliances/etc of stuff we got from Argos, run errands around town, and be back for the delivery of our Dresser and bedside table. Once the dresser and bedside table came I started filling the dresser with my clothes and they just about all fit. James and I discovered that we like different ways of storing our clothes—James is used to having his clothes hung in a wardrobe, so that’s deemed his, and I’m used to having most of my clothes folded in dresser drawers, with the occasional dress or something that NEEDS hanging up all the time—so the dress will be mine. When we found the bedside table (it’s a nice pine wood, 3 drawer bedside table), we only found the one, not a pair, so James claimed that right away—which I’m fine with until we find a bedside table for me. I don’t mind not having one for a while. The other exciting thing that happened is I FINALLY GOT A JOB! I walked into a store called Store Twenty One who had a hiring sign out in their window, went in, the manager invited me back for an interview later that day, the interview went well, she told me I’d hear back from her by the end of the day Thursday if I got the job and I DID! I start Sunday for training and basically it’s retail work. It’s a clothing plus store. Sells everything from clothes to home decorations and the hours aren’t bad. Earlier is probably 7 or 8am, and latest is 7 or 8pm. And that’s only if there’s inventory needed doing before or after store hours (which are 9am-5:30pm). I’m happy I got a job and the people in the store seem really nice so I’m excited for my training.
Friday, Sept 30th—Luck had struck Thursday when only of the regulars at the Kings Head—nicknamed Fosho—who is a retired plummer said he could come round Friday morning to fix our little sink/draing problem, which he did. He popped by about 11am, fixed the sink in 5 minutes and was on his way. Luck struck again when we received a couch from another one of the regulars from the Kings Head, Freddy, who said that he had a couch that he needed to get rid of if we wanted it. James had been complaining since we moved in that all he wanted was a couch, because when he gets home from work his feet kill and without a couch that means we’re eating Indian style/criss-cross apple sauce on pillows on the living room HARD WOOD floor--which is not nice if you need to just ‘put your feet up’ to relax. So, we headed over to Freddy’s about 3pm, loaded the couch into Freddy’s van, then unloaded it and hefted it upstairs into our flat. James is VERY happy now. And so am I with the sink fixed. Also today we ventured over to James’ mum’s house to hack the wifi, get signed up for gas and electricity, and possibly some home entertainment—internet, phone, basic TV—as well as to do our laundry. With that all settled....James went off to work again, while I stayed home and watched movies til bedtime.
Which brings us to today, Saturday the 1st of October. Today is rough. James is on a split today—8am until 4pm, then back at 6pm until Restaurant finish which is usually around 10/10:30pm. Tough day for him cause he’s on his feet all day, and tough for me cause I miss him all day. Luckily though today is French Market day. Apparently like once a year on a Saturday there’s a FRENCH market day, as opposed to the usually Local Thursday market day in Ross on Wye. So, I’m going to check that out, possibly go to the Surgery(hospital) to get signed up since now I have correct ID documentation with my address(the flat let agreement), and run other errands around town before everything closes...which is 5:30 or 6 normally. Bummer that things close so soon, but it is a small town.
Hopefully we’ll have more things sorted out, like internet so I can keep up to date with my blog(instead of hacking wifi in random places), by next week. Pictures of our flat soon to come mu
and dad! Until then.....
