Leaving and Arriving

The removal firm we decided to use was a pretty reputable, mid range one and we contacted them quite a while before we had a removal date as we thought it would be wise to plan ahead because of all Keith's 'stuff'. If you are not aware of the amount of 'stuff' we are talking about, have a look at  his YouTube channel and you may get some idea. Suffice it to say that the contents of a workshop, his van and half a garden shed were not going to be easy to move, so the agreement with the removal company was that they would come the day before the move to pack up his workshop, store it overnight and come back the next day to load up the house contents.

 However, it soon became clear, as Keith started to pack up some of the stuff, that further solutions would be needed. Men were dispatched several days before the move to collect what had now been offloaded into the conservatory and that was taken away to be stored.

Two days before the move, the rest of Keith's stuff was taken, leaving only the house contents. Nearly home and dry, we thought.

"We'll be here at eight o'clock on the dot on Wednesday," said one of the men, leaving us in no doubt that an early start was planned for that day and we had better be ready. This van load was to be kept overnight in the removal company's facilities and driven up on the Thursday, which was our official moving day.

Wednesday morning dawned, last minute things were packed away and as much last minute cleaning done as possible.

Eight o' clock came and went, as did 8.30. When Keith and I rang, we were given different excuses: the men had 'checked in', the receptionist said, she had 'definitely seen them', followed later by,

 'There's a puncture on the van. They're just waiting to get it fixed."

To cut a long and boring story short, the crew (three men now instead of two) finally arrived at 10.30 and we worked out, using our Sherlock Holmes skills, that they had probably been doing another small job on the side before coming to us.

"We might be old but we're not stupid!" roared Keith, having told them and not being contradicted, that we just didn't buy the story of the puncture. 

The foreman, who had decided to play it hale and hearty and 'what's all the fuss about?' visibly blenched and stepped back as he realised he needed to add a little contrition into the mix. 

There followed fervent promises to pull out all the stops and get on the road by 1pm, which did actually happen but, as Keith said, a stressful day, bringing to an end nearly twenty years of living in that house, was made all the more stressful by the events of that morning.

However, the van departed and so did we. We stayed in a hotel that night (kindly arranged for us by Kathy and Claire) and got the keys for our new abode just as the removal van arrived, to be followed the following day by Keith's stuff. 

Keith now has an 'office' adjacent to the kitchen and a garage. Filling them both, as you can imagine, has not been difficult but filling them with the right things in the right places is still a work in progress.

Time for updates!

Yes, I know. I came back and then disappeared again. Annoying, but hear me out ...

If you have been wondering whether Keith and I had suddenly been dropped down a hole or vanished from the face of the earth, you wouldn't be far off the mark, especially if you consider those possibilities in internet terms. Before our move, Keith had done lots of investigations and discovered a few useful bits of information:

•  BT could not provide a broadband service in our new area any where near comparable to our existing one.
• Therefore, instead of charging us for the remainder of our contract (£700) as they had initially threatened to do if we changed provider, they were forced to concede defeat and allow us to leave our contract with reasonably good grace.
• This meant we could change to Virgin for broadband and TV (we had already left Sky TV) and get a very reasonable deal.
• Our new house was already set up for Virgin, although the previous owner hadn't used it.

Virgin said we would need an engineer to get us set up as the equipment already there was not up to date, so we ordered the TV box, modem etc plus an engineer to get us up and running.

As the big day approached, Keith was constantly getting encouraging texts for Virgin, including three offers of £150 to let the engineer come earlier than the arranged date, which he regretfully had to decline as the house would not yet be ours.

Moving day arrived (with its own problems, for a later post) and the following day, July 1st we were expecting our package of goodies plus engineer ...

The equipment arrived, plus more encouraging texts about the engineer, who sadly didn't.

After much to-ing and fro-ing of phone calls, it finally transpired that no engineer was available until four days later, so internet-wise, we were indeed down a black hole, made all the worse by the fact that there was no landline and the mobile phone signal, which we had been led to believe on their website was good, was pretty well none existent. Apparently the local mast had gone down and attempts to access it for repair were scuppered as the farmer on whose land it was, refused to let anyone near it, so the company were having to take him to court. Yes I know, you couldn't make it up.

All of this, however, made it abundantly and infuriatingly clear how much we depend on the internet and mobile phone network these days. If we had had a decent mobile signal, we could at least have done some of what we needed to do with a temporary dongle. 

Anyway, as you may by now have guessed, we are here, safely delivered and tomorrow the story will continue - hopefully! (This photo shows the view from the front garden of our house).

Tiptoeing ahead

We have been quite lucky really. I have harassed our solicitor (who in turn harassed our seller's solicitor), got the Homebuyer's report back quickly (no awful problems this time), and the searches, which apparently can take forever in some council areas, were done very quickly and didn't produce any unwelcome news.

Meanwhile, I carried on filling boxes and organising what was to go into them. I was reminded of a news item I once heard about someone who, throughout the many years he had lived there, had collected newspapers and magazines, stacking them up around the house as he ran out of room, until the only space he did have was a network of narrow walkways to enable him to get around the house. I think one of the TV drama series once featured a similar storyline  but in that case, the character was crushed to death when the piles of papers fell on him. Well, we're not that bad yet, but this house is pretty compact, so the boxes are beginning to loom somewhat. 

Since I wrote this post, contracts have been signed and exchanged and a completion date has been set.

I feel I want to throw my hat in the air and shout "Hurray!" as I write that but there's nobody here except Toby. Keith is outside hovering over the removal men who have come to collect the rest of the workshop contents (yes, they did come back!) and if you have ever seen a mother hen clucking over her chickens, that's Keith with his machinery.

This morning, I have carefully packed up my Apple Cinema Display monitor, which dates from 2003 but which is still absolutely fantastic, and I shall be threatening the removal men with severe consequences if anything happens to it. :)

Meanwhile, things are beginning to move elsewhere!

Could it be that we are getting there?

Is this the one?

The area was quite near Claire's but not near enough for us to be in each other's pockets and, according to her extensive investigations, was quiet, near to countryside and walking areas for Toby and was unlikely to be high risk for axe murderers knocking at the door, which had to be a plus. 

It also fulfilled all the requirements  that Keith had mentioned during our extensive searches. So it wasn't too near road noises, the garden was a reasonable size, there was a garage, so potential for a workshop, AND an 'office' in the house, which should by rights be a utility room for me, but I'm willing to concede that  - for now. 

The best selling point, as far as Keith was concerned was that, by dint of scrutinising Google Maps, he discovered that there is a very promising looking butcher/pie shop in the vicinity. Each to his own, I guess.

And so began the process of putting in an offer, having it accepted, organising the RICS Homebuyer's report and attending to all the million and one other things involved with buying a house. 

As our first potential purchase had been a non starter, our buyers were still waiting patiently for things to get underway,  so I was anxious that this procedure would happen as quickly as possible, with the result that I wouldn't be at all surprised if I have at times been put on the 'Avoid this one!' list for harassing estate agent, solicitor, removal company ...

Keith began to 'sort out' his shed/workshop and with that came the realisation that what I have been telling him for years is true. He has FAR too much STUFF! Initially, he began packing it up and stacking it in the conservatory, but that was already housing stuff from the van, which had gone to auction.

Plan B was to put the contents of the conservatory in temporary storage with our removal company and then carry on emptying the shed. 

I will just add that the removal men who drew the short straw and came to do this job deserve a medal for not taking one look and running up the road as fast as their legs would carry them.

Meanwhile, lots of sorting out was being done by me in the house and many boxes were being filled. However, one area still remained untouched:

We still have work to do!

Another diversion

Just time today for another little segue which is linked to the fact that I haven't been on here since Monday.

One of the more boring, or at least less welcome parts of a house move, is tackling the long list of utilities, companies and other august bodies to inform them of said house move and register the change of address. When I was helping Dad to move up here, the list was probably just as long but didn't seem nearly as onerous, possibly because in every case, I was able to ring up the people I needed to speak to and get things organised relatively quickly.

This week a very good example of how things are not working nearly so well is my experience of contacting our old and new councils. The new council was a piece of cake. I could inform them online, set up the direct debit to be activated from the date of our move and I even got an email of acknowledgement.

Fast forward to our current council.

Approximately ten minutes trawling through the website to find out who to contact and how to do it (council tax department, on the phone only), followed by my first attempt at ringing.

Several minutes of chat in Welsh and then English, basically trying to persuade me to go online, even though I couldn't do what I needed online, or in desperation, suggesting that I might like to push off and try again another time as they were "currently experiencing a high volume of calls" How often have I heard that phrase this week! 

I tried again the following day.

This time my strategy was to try the switchboard number which failed because I was told I would have to be put through to the council tax department anyway and although she would do her best,  'they are very busy' (Isn't everyone?) With that, I found myself listening to the same baloney as last time with the same invitation to push off.

Next attempt: Keith rang the number and vowed to stay on, listening to the rubbish music until he managed to speak to a human. By this time, the battery of our cordless landline was dying, so he had moved on to his mobile and, hey presto! after much more waiting, he finally got through to a human and passed the phone over to me.

And would you believe it? After going through all the details, the wretched woman said she couldn't register our change of address until a week before we move!

"Please don't say I have to ring this department again," I said, metaphorically banging my head on the floor.

"Yes, you will have to ring here again," was the reply. (Did I detect a note of triumph in her voice?)

"You have no idea how long I have spent trying to get through today and yesterday," I said.

"Well, it's best to ring in the afternoon. We're less busy then," said my tormentor.

"Well you weren't less busy yesterday!"

"Ah well, it was Monday yesterday," she said.

I rang off and went to wrap my head in a wet towel ...

On we go ... and on and on...

So it was back to the drawing board - or rather the house search websites. The internet sprites began a period of overtime, hurtling back and forth conveying texts and emails between Claire, Keith and me. Many long discussions were had on the various advantages or disadvantages of each house discovered and I began to wonder if we would ever find what we were looking for.

Keith, of course, would be happy with a hole in the ground as long as it had a large garage or potential workshop attached. Claire was more interested in somewhere fairly near to her and I was beginning to see the advantages of a desert island somewhere warm and peaceful!

There were, of course, lightning trips up to Claire's area and quite a few viewings of houses that looked hopeful but were sometimes quite disappointing. Also, for most of the time, the regulations on mask wearing and other Covid safeguards differed between Wales and England. Keith and I took the decision to continue to follow the Welsh ones and wear masks for house viewings or other times when we were indoors with strangers. One day, we found a little pub for a much needed lunch break during our house viewings. As we were going in, having just put our masks on, another couple were on their way out.

"Ha! You'll be the only ones in there wearing one of those!" cackled the man.

But Keith was ready for him.

"Well, we'll be the only ones without Covid then," he said.

As it happened, we mostly got by unscathed, except for one moment when a woman who was waiting for us stuck her head through the car window to speak to us.

If I were to lay bets, she's the one I would put my money on as the unwitting source of our dose of  Covid when we got home.

Still, at least we got off lightly with a mild dose and after not too long a time, we found another house!

A house!

And just like that, we're back to March. We had secured our buyers, insofar as one can 'secure' people, filled in enough paperwork to account for a small wood at least,  and arranged for gas and electric safety checks, which we knew would be required by the buyers' solicitor.

Now, all we had to do was find ourselves a house and hey presto! after many hours of searching, we found one, for which we duly submitted an offer and after surprisingly little arm wrestling, a mutually acceptable offer was agreed upon and we proceeded to shell out a wad of the folding stuff for our  survey, officially known as a RICS level two homebuyer's report.

On the positive side, although it's pretty expensive, the homebuyer's report is also pretty extensive and in these modern days of email, sees the light of day quite quickly.

That's the positive aspect and it was certainly very clear, should we ever have doubted it, that it is an essential requirement for anyone serious about buying a property. There is a more expensive alternative available which is usually recommended for old houses, but the one we were interested in was only built in the eighties (No, that's not old!) so we went for the level two.

Well, I can't argue that it was indeed money well spent, but not in a good way. 

Unfortunately, the surveyor had found several problems with the property, some of which seemed to be as a result of DIY done by the wrong people with the wrong materials and which would be expensive, time consuming and inconvenient to put right. 

As we had promised ourselves that we did not want a house which needed work, beyond the usual cosmetic and decorating jobs, this was not going to work for us.

I rang the estate agent and explained.

"Oh yes, of course, I quite understand," was the response, followed by "Do you think you could send us a copy of your report so that we can see what we're dealing with?"

The answer to that, I'm afraid, was a resounding no, unless they were willing to reimburse us for the approximately £500 we had spent on it. 

And no, I didn't actually say that. I did email a few of the summary points to give an idea of the problem and didn't even get an acknowledgement.

From trawling through the internet, it seems that once a problematic report has been produced, the sellers/estate agents are obliged to come clean about it, if asked. So maybe that's something to be aware of when house hunting.

However, although we had avoided a pothole in the house hunting road, we were now back to searching again and hoping that our buyers were willing to be patient.