A house! Well, a bungalow. Well, nearly bought. We exchanged contracts today and move on the 11th December. A huge sigh of relief, as we started this whole process way back in early March, just before the first lockdown. A series of ups and downs and long periods of nothing over the intervening months but finally things have come good.
Except that the removal company we originally chose couldn't do that date, they had other bookings. So last week we found another who had the date free, got a quote last Thursday, went back to them this morning to confirm to be told sorry, fully booked now. Aaaargh!!!
So there we are, committed to move in 11 days' time and nobody to shift our goods and chattels. I spent this afternoon phoning local removals firms, all of whom are fully booked, most into next year. The whole world must be moving house! Eventually got a company who do bookings over the phone - no personal visit, you have to tell them the entire list of what you want to move. Have you ever tried to list everything in your house? Fortunately the lass on the phone had clearly done all this lots of times and reassured me she didn't want a list of every screwdriver, book, etc., just an estimate of how many boxes all the stuff will fill. So we are fixed up, albeit at a price 30% higher than our first quote.
(One thing I am doing is to move all my boats in with a friend so they are spared the gentle caress of the movers. Some things can't be replaced on insurance!)
No wonder moving house is up there with family death and divorce as one of the most stressful things you can experience. Roll on Christmas. One exciting prospect though - the new residence has no suitable workshop space, but plenty of room in the garden to build one. So guess what my first project will be? I will probably come here in the new year to ask help with specifying the space - I am thinking at the moment of one of those log cabin things - easy to put up (so they say) and more attractive than some outbuildings I have seen. Looking forward to that!
Greg