Okay, when I said more tomorrow, what I really meant was more at some point okay.
Anyway.
Where were we?
Monday 23rd October. Our fifth day in the house and our first house guests arrived. Del, Caleb and Amy came up from Nottingham, bringing much needed normality and airbeds for the empty spare room. It was great for all three of us to have some other people to talk to and nice for Lou & I to bask in Del telling us how lovely the house was.
Then came the Ikea trip from hell, where I decided to leave Del, Lou and the kids alone and head off to Ikea Leeds (our new local) for some essential stuff and hopefully a new desk for me more in keeping with the smaller room.
I jokingly told them at 3pm that it was open till 10 so I'd be back sometime after that.
In the end I arrived back at half 9.
On the way there I took the wrong motorway not once but twice. On the way back I missed the motorway altogether at first and headed off into Leeds before realising I was on the wrong road and turning round.
The actual Ikea trip itself was relatively stress free. Although it did take all of my new found stress free attitude to not freak out once I got to the collection bit and it became obvious that their was a slight difference of opinion about the need for a proper alphanumeric system.
Am I so wrong in thinking that a bookcase meant to be in aisle 34 location 21 shouldn't end up being found in aisle 1 location 10? Or is that just me?
After this we spent a couple of lovely days with them and felt altogether more "at home" in the new place after it.
We also got a lovely night time visit from my dear friend James. He moved up to Leeds years ago and loves it. We now reckon we're all slowly moving up here. Over the course of the next 50 years we reckon most of our friends will have migrated northwards.
Which means we're nearly up to date.
Overall it's been relatively stress free.
Which is not to say I'd actually recommend moving. Relatively stress free for me is probably more stress than most people have in a lifetime. I'm just used to operating at such a ridiculous stressed up level most of the time that a little extra didn't make much difference.
Of course, now we're starting to notice the little problems.
It's called snagging I believe.
Google it - it's very scary - snagging
It's the problems you traditionally get in new builds when you leave complicated stuff like plumbing and electrics and building work to the 16 year old apprentice.
Chimps could frankly do a better job.
So far we've had leaks from the hot and cold bath taps.
There are cracks across the ceiling / wall joins, lots of warping and gaps developed on door frames and a few other hopefully minor things.
At least we're in a better position than most. Our new build is a year old and the previous occupants have sorted some of the teething problems.
But we look forward to all the lovely teething trouble to come.
In theory, the NHBC guarantee means the builders should come out and fix the problems, but to be honest the cracks and shrinkage, as long as it's shown to be normal in our new house, we're not that worried about. And some of the superficial aesthetic stuff isn't that big an issue either. (Remember the last house was a 100 years old - we're used to living with quirky imperfection)At least we're secure in the knowledge that we've transferred our existing plumbing, drainage and electrical cover over to the new house.
Anyone who doesn't have this, get it as soon as you can. It's so worth the money you pay for it.
So now we're up to date - sort of.
we're sort of settled in, although we're still in a weird kind of holiday mode really.
It's going to be a while before it actually fully sinks in and we feel that we've really moved in.
But the physical process of moving in and getting the house sorted is pretty much complete.
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