I'm here

Well, I am finally here and I have absolutely no idea where to begin.

We got our internet connection up and running a couple of days ago and I have been trying to catch up with stuff ever since. BT really messed up. It was a bit of a nightmare. Their customer service is a disgrace. In total, over several days, I spent over 8, yes 8, hours on the phone to them. I spoke to over 15 different people. I had 6 promises of call backs that never happened. DO NOT EVER use BT! You have been warned! Suffice to say that I am preparing a letter of complaint to their head office.

It has been a really busy time for us, first the move, then Christmas, then Saskia's birthday, then New Year, then Simon back to school and finally the first weekend with just the 2 of us. Hectic or what?

Anyway, we are finally here, in the new house. 4 weeks ago I thought it wasn't going to happen, but it did and we are here and slowly adjusting. That last week was a nightmare. I can't believe how stressful it was. As you know we exchanged the contracts on the Monday about 3.30pm. My stress level was through the roof! From that point on everything just went a bit crazy. I had 3 days to get everything packed up. I thought we were half done but looking back we were nowhere near that. I had help from Coralie and by the Wednesday evening we were there...more or less!

Simon and I went to bed for our final night in our house.....................of course I couldn't sleep! I just lay there thinking back through 25 years of memories. I was excited and sad all at the same time.

Before I knew it the day had come. Thursday the 15^th of December. The big moving day. Simon was up and gone with the dogs by 7am. I had my last cup of coffee in my bed in my bedroom just as I had done for all those years. Fortunately I didn't linger too long and so I was up and dressed when the removal men arrived three quarters of an hour before we were expecting them.

There were 3 of them and they were brilliant. Very friendly and very efficient. It took them 5 and a half hours to get us all loaded up. They left at 1.15pm. Simon and I then checked each room to make sure that nothing was left behind. We stood in each room, looked around and ….........remembered. It was very hard. There were lots of tears. I had spent over half my life in that house. Most of my married life. All those years of bringing up the family. I knew it was time to move on. I knew we were doing the right thing but locking that door for the last time and walking away was just awful. Simon said don't look back....................of course I did and there were more tears.

We got in the car and drove up the road for the last time. I can't really explain how I felt as we drove to the new house. I was excited, sad, worried, scared................ a whole host of emotions. It didn't help that Simon wasn’t at all well. He had gone down with a virus of some sort on the Wednesday and he was getting worse by the minute as removal day wore on. Several times during the afternoon I thought he was going to keel right over.

We had received the phone call from our solicitor at 11.30am to say that completion had taken place and that we could collect the keys from the estate agents whenever we wanted. So as we drove through Bourne Simon pulled up on the double yellow lines so that I could jump out and go get those keys. Ten minutes later we pulled up behind the removal lorry in front of our new home. Those guys had been there an hour waiting for us so they were eager to get on with things. The unloading was much faster and they were gone by 4.30pm. The 2 of us were then alone in our new house, surrounded by boxes and chaos for the first time.

It didn't take long to get visitors. Our first one was Carol who lives in the next road down and is a teaching assistant at Simon’s school. She dropped by with some home made cakes for us and to introduce herself to me as I had never met her. I thought that was really kind. Not longer after our son Sam popped in with the girls. It was nice to see them and Ellie couldn't wait to see around. However it probably wasn't the best time for them to come as it really was chaotic and their poor Granddad was very unwell.

He did summon the energy to go and fetch Alfie and Loulou from the kennels. They were really hyper when they arrived. Thrilled to see their Mummy again. Remember they have never been in a kennel before. They were very tired so they obviously hadn't slept all day. They also felt very cold. Poor babies.

Simon went out again to get a take away and once we had eaten he managed to get the bed put together before finally giving in and collapsing in to it. I unpacked some boxes. The dogs were asleep with their Daddy. By the time I was ready for bed it didn't seem like a good idea to disturb them so I spent the first night sleeping on the sofa in the living room listening to the 3 of them snoring!

So that was moving day! I am in the process of writing up a blog specifically about the last few weeks but you will have to wait to see what we have been doing! I will get round to some photos too.

Now things are slowly getting organised and Simon is back at work, I shall be trying to get back into daily blogging. I may even do some of the DPT's. In fact I shall do today's one.