spice-the-cat

The house move weekend comes to a close, everything went fairly smoothly, there were no major disasters and now we’re just at the start of the long haul needed to get all of our worldly goods into some kind of organised system in the new home.

It has been a long and tiring process and even with professional movers transferring the major portion of the household goods there have still been numerous car trips between the two locations for all the things we didn’t want to hand over to any third parties. It’s not that I don’t have confidence in the movers, just that there are many personal possessions that, even though they may not have any great financial value, are completely irreplaceable should anything untoward happen.

However, the first real full day in the new house has been an absolute pleasure. There’s almost no noise around, other than an occasional train whistle in the distance. No noise, anyway, that doesn’t make me think of the soundtrack to something from the TV nature channel. And even the (lonesome) train whistle blowing only makes me want to sing a terrible rendition of a Hank Williams song. Terrible because that’s the way I sing and not because there is anything wrong with Hank Williams, by the way.

I haven’t really had too much time to get into the garden since there’s just too much to be done in the house. I did take five minutes on the deck this evening, though, just to grab a couple of pictures. I was hoping for deer, but only managed to spot a couple of mad March hares having a dance contest. They can just be seen in the bottom left of the picture below.

Ok, so at ten in the morning the phone rings, the keys for the new house are available because the transfer of the property has officially been registered and, as of now, it’s ours. Yay, cheers all round the old house for that little ray of sunshine. So off we go to the lawyer to pick up the keys, but not before filling the car with a load items that are the first things transferred from old to new, you know, all the important stuff like the kettle & tea bags and cups. We get the keys, speed off to the new house, unload the boxes, wander round for a few minutes then head off back to collect my new car. While I do the walk through of the new car with the sales guy, mrs spice heads off to grab sandwiches for lunch and we arrange to meet back at the old house (cue Smiths tune of the same name).

By the way, the transfer of the old house doesn’t happen until Monday, giving us three and a half days overlap – a great de-stresser if there ever was one. Anyway, now we have two cars to load to help to transfer more stuff over between homes and, once loaded, away we go once again. We do a little sorting out at the new house, organising and putting things in places that will almost certainly change again once we’ve been in a few weeks and then – since it’s now going on seven in the evening, we decide to head back to the old house, where we’re staying until we have some of the furniture delivered to the new place. Still with me? Excellent. Well, mrs spice sets off first while I finish of moving a few boxes and about ten or so minutes later I reverse out of the garage. As I’m waiting to check that the garage door has fully closed before I drive off, I glance up and see some blurred movement in the bushes near the back of the house. Before I can do anything else there are five deer galloping out of the trees. They stop, look over in my direction for a few seconds and then carry on charging past me to where ever it is that deer go in the evenings in that neck of the woods. I have to say it was quite a surprise seeing the deer up close running through our garden and, as mrs spice said, when I told her what she had missed, we should take that as a great welcome, a good omen and a lesson to always have the camera ready – which, of course, I hadn’t.

But next time…

A long hiatus will soon be coming to an end and there will be regular updates again. Yeah, I can hear the boos, the hisses and the groans already – you cheeky monkeys. Lots to report, new house, lots of new projects, new pictures, new music and… drum roll… a new car. Yup, I’ve gone and bought myself a Toyota FJ Cruiser.

I’ve been lusting after one since last August when mrs spice and I went test driving new cars. I didn’t get one at the time simply because our garage has a curved brickwork lintel that cuts into the clearance at both sides of the overhead door – meaning that the car will barely go through and I’d probably have to reduce the tire pressure to make sure I don’t scrape the top. Anyway – the garage at the new house is a good few inches higher and has a straight lintel across the opening – and since we have the new house in two days time it seemed like a good idea to get the car at the same time. Of course, doesn’t life predictably throw a curve ball at you when you don’t need it. I have to pick up the car at exactly the same time we’re supposed to pick up the keys for the house. Grrr!

I can’t make up my mind which to do first.