Yay! Halfway through the week. Although in truth nothing that taxing has happened so far, and is unlikely to in what is left of it either. Just a Wednesday; I'm home and looking at we in Britain laughingly call snow refuse to melt in the back garden. I have been packing up my CDs and records, yes records, ready for the anticipated house move.
Jools is very eager for everything to be packed as soon as possible; I'm the opposite and thinking what's the rush? But, I guess we have both come to respect each others feelings and are taking the middle ground. So, I pack a couple of boxes, and then mess around online a while, pack some more, have lunch, pack some more, read a magazine.
Phew, it's a tough life, but I am gitting it done. I do have three cats to help me; although two of them are asleep and the other one wants feeding; but sitting on another pile of vinyl whilst looking at me with leading eyes. OK, have some kitty treats and stop looking so darn cute.
So, this is the day when the sale of my house is completed; money should change hand and a cheque of some size will be ehading my way. I will try not to feel rich as the cheque is to be used as a deposit for our new home and not for a case of vintage champagne and a gross of the finest Cuban cigars, or that bottle of extremly rare Highland Malt I saw on the whisky exchange site. Hmmmm.
So, we are heading to the house on Saturday to measure up the windows for curtains and nets, and really see how the carpets are and should we think about replacing them. And then there are all the other things to do in a house move; arrange for services to be turned off, direct debits cancelled and the such-like.
We did find ourselves looking round a soft-furnishings shop in Canterbury the other day; cushions: what exactly are they for?
Friday 9th January 2009:
So, I wake up this morning no longer a home, or house owner. I say house owner because this flat where Jools and I live is my, our, home.I got the call from my solicitor on Wednesday to say the sale had all gone through and she had the money. And yesterday the familiar envelope from messers Waffle, Piffle and Fluster dropped through the letterbox and inside it was the cheque for the balance; minus their fees, the remainer of the mortgage and other various costs.What is left is enough, along with the money from the sale of this flat, for the deposit on our new house.
At this point I would like to describe the house to you. But I have not darkened it's doorway for some 5 months, and from what I can remember it is rather fantastic. However, tomorrow morning we are to see it again, armed with tape measure to size up curtains and the such-like.
What I do hope is that it is as good as we remember.I have spent the past few days slowly packing our stuff. In truth, it's my stuff, as I'm a hoarder. A life time of vinyl records, CDs, books and photographs, all packed away in boxes and waiting for the moment to move into the new place, of to go into storeage.
The cats suspect something is up. My old cat, Molly is puzzeled by the rows of empty shelves and seems detirmined to try each one out for size. The youngest of Jools' is just paniced and is hiding most of the time when I am wrestling with packing tape.I use the terms mine and hers in the paragraph above just to describe the cats; everything is really ours now; although no one really owns cats, and we only give them names to further humanise them. I remember a really old Garfield cartoon, where a friend of Jon's says that when he was a kid on the farm they had four cats. Jon asks what they were called; the friend replies, Cat, Cat, Cat and Cat, as there doesn't seem any point in naming something that doesen't come when they're called; I see his point.
So, we have more packing to do; just glasswear and the stuff we are using. Oh and the wine and whisky. That's going in boxes at the last moment as well I think.You will be glad to hear that I am finding time to take more pictures; I went out early yesterday morning to stand on the cliffs above Dover Harbour to watch the sun come up over France. There was a little mist on the ground, and it was wonderful, if a little cold.
Looking out over the 21 miles of the English Channel towards Calais and the shipping and the ever changing light is something I just know I will never tire of. During spring and summer when the light is clear, we can see the colour of the fields changing from brown to gold. There are chalk cliffs over there too, and we can sometimes see those. On very clear days I can see the buildings in Clalais through my telephoto lens clear enough to recognise The Hotel La Ville.But what is best is to sit on the cliffs at night and look at the lights over there twinkle whilst we tuck into fish and chips out of their newspaper wrappings whilst the radio burbles in the background.
I think what we will miss most from the flat is the view out of the back windown. I can see it now, accross the railway line and the rugby club to the wooded hill, and further to the right to the valley where the town of River nestles, this morning cloaked in a slight mist and heavy frost. Although we live on a main road, it is peaceful in the living room and out over the back garden. We love the changes of the seasons and the changing colours through the day.
Our new place has views over fields, and that is something new, and something we will grow to love as well.
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