Settling
18 November
So, during this week the team of Ross and David has moved into action as we've sorted out our new residence.
Tuesday gave us various shopping expeditions - firstly to Aintree's retail park for Comet and a microwave and then Homebase for paper lanterns for the lights and coat hooks for the back of the doors. Then it was food (preferably microwaveable) from Tesco's.
Steve, our fitter from Magnet, turned up during the evening, sucked his teeth a bit and then pronounced everything OK. Then he retracted and worried about a gas hob in such a small room. There may be regulations. He'll let us know. He sounds very efficient but not very cheery. And why does everyone else get the stonkingly beautiful workmen?
Our first meal from the microwave was of frozen shepherd's pie and baked beans. Not the most wonderful of meals and far from cordon bleu. But it was our first prepared meal in our new home. We watched Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers and then had another early night after a long and tiring day - this time accompanied by a hot milky drink.
Wednesday morning I took my first bath and had my first shave in the new
home. These are all important firsts to be recorded.
. I'm enjoying the
fact that we have no TV and no phone. I like the focus and the solitude it gives.
Albert and Grace came for lunch. We did a salad. Albert gruffly asked for bread. "It's not a meal without bread". After food there were jobs. I set Albert to putting in draft excluders on the back door whilst Grace and Ross measured up the windows for curtains. I made an excuse and went out to sort out the tiles.
By the time they went, I was exhausted. Ross says my parents aren't too bad and certainly not as bad as his. I think it's every child's prerogative to have the most interfering parents. After all, I have been running my own home for over 25 years now. I don't need to be told how to do things. We went upstairs for an afternoon nap and ended up having our first sex in the new house. Now I know you'll have thought that we would have been at it as soon as the removal men left but no. We've sort of left it until the time felt right. I don't think we have anything to prove on the sexual front these days. After all, we've well taken out every penny and more that we put into that jar in the first year.
We'd been invited next door for drinks with our neighbours Spenser and Anne. There was a couple of hours spent. We learnt some local gossip and when the bin men call. I can't imagine us being bosom buddies but not at each other's throats either.
Well I'm afraid that having afternoon sex on Wednesday broke the log jam. We had sex all day on Thursday. Four times in the space of fourteen hours - once in the living room to break the monopoly of the bedroom. Somehow I also managed to find time to sort the music room out so that I can now listen to music in there and I think that that will become where I do my yoga as well. Just so's you know that it wasn't all fun, I hung the paper lanterns on all of the lights as well.
Evening time we headed off for our first cultural pursuit to the Liverpool Philharmonic for a concert of English music given by the RLPO under Vernon Handley. It was a really pleasant way to pass an evening. The Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending is an astonishing piece of music. No discernible form but it knows exactly where it is going. The Elgar Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and string orchestra was frightening in the intensity of its emotions. Discovery of the night was Bax's tone poem November Woods.
Friday and Ross and I make a trip over to Wigan to see Colin, collect some mail and buy curtains from the shop down the road. It all went well. In the afternoon, I made a final, last ditch and thank goodness successful attempt to ensure that someone can tile our back kitchen floor before the Magnet kitchen arrives. And I got to meet the tile shop owner's son. Think of a younger, leaner, cheekier Ryan Giggs. Phwoar.
We settled down in the evening to watch Errol Flynn in Robin Hood. Fab. I cooked fish and pasta with salad. I'm getting the hang of the microwave.
Saturday and Ross and I took a trip out and bought some curtain rail. This gave me ample opportunity to look butch so that we could hang the new curtains in the kitchen.
It's all going to be so worth it.