Home, sweet home

We're in! We picked up the keys on Monday and discovered that the house is bigger than I'd remembered, which was something of a relief. Our shipping arrived yesterday -- all 118 boxes of it -- which we're still unpacking. Boxes to the left of me, boxes to the right of me ... it's too much. Despite those 118 boxes, there are still lots of things we need to buy: Food, wine, toilet cleaner (damn!), 5 amp fuses, TV license (if we can ever get a signal), etc. But we're making progress and should have everything sorted out/binned/reboxed and put up in the loft by the time our "vacation" ends. I'm not moving again for at least a year.



[BTW, PJ just asked me to blog about how wonderful he is. It's true: He is wonderful. He got me broadband.]

What is also wonderful is having outside space. It's only a small patio, but I can sit out there, feel the sun on my face, have a cup of tea, and not look at hundreds of boxes -- a rare treat. I've started on the weeding, and have discovered that my OCDness transfers outdoors. Ten minutes of light clearing on Monday turned into a defoliation exercise the likes of which have not been seen since Vietnam. Despite PJ's hippy plea that "weeds are just flowers whose faces don't fit," I was ruthless. I'm planning to get a tomato bag, a potato bucket, some rosemary and some lavender, and then a small table and chairs so that I don't have to eat my fish n chips off my lap. Restful, not oily, is what I'm going for.

What's not so great is the leak in the kitchen ceiling. We'd pointed out some light staining when we first looked at the house, and the landlady promised to get it fixed before we moved in. And she did. There was a huge patch of new plaster drying out when we came in, and it should have been an easy paint job at some point this week. However, water started dripping through the plaster this morning and has continued all day. The plumber is coming back tomorrow to take up all the floorboards in the bathroom to hunt down the problem. It's irritating, but I don't have to fix it -- my landlady does. Renting is fun!

Blogging will remain intermittent until we have everything sorted out. Be patient.