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We Moved House!

The Boathouse in  Birkenhead Park, April 2015.
Moving house for the ninth time in my life was organised like a military operation, and the task was completed smoothly with the help of Greens Removals of Chester, who I am very happy to recommend.  All they wanted us to do was keep out of the way while their team of five men loaded their two vans and then, once at the new place, tell them where to put things - which we did, and yet still felt exhausted by the end of the day.

Starving, we stood in the unfamiliar kitchen and stared alternately at the ultra-modern computerised oven and its instruction booklet.  The oven did not react as the instructions said it would.  To anyone even remotely familiar with instruction booklets this will come as no surprise.  Richard managed to get the thing going by accidentally pressing the 'wrong' button, which is actually the right button.  The instruction booklet has errors, which effectively undermines its whole purpose for existence - but, again, what's new?

Anyway, we ate - eventually - surrounded by boxes marked 'kitchen'.  The same helpfully-labelled boxes proved a minor stumbling block the next morning when we tried, and failed, to remember exactly which of the identical boxes contained breakfast bowls.  Richard looked sidewards at the dog's bowl but I said, "Don't you dare...!"  We ended up eating breakfast out of plastic sandwich boxes, which proved functional rather than aesthetically pleasing.  Cornflakes get stuck in the square corners.

We both love the house.  It was built in 1879 for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and while the interior has been thoroughly modernised the Victorian character has been carefully preserved.  Architecturally it is a much more interesting building than our last place, and it felt like home immediately whereas our last place never did, despite having been there for fifteen years.

The dogs have settled well into their new home. They like the new garden, and they have been exploring Birkenhead Park which is quite extensive, with two serpentine lakes, two cricket clubs, tennis courts, a rugby club, large open grassy areas, old trees and newer ones, a cafe/information/conference centre, a childrens' play area, and a joggers' route which has gym equipment spaced around the circuit which anyone can make use of.

We're still waiting for a telephone and internet connection.  After three no-show appointments with an engineer, I fired the provider we originally planned to go with - and who still hasn't replied to my letter of complaint -  and now we're awaiting another engineer to arrive later this month.  Here's hoping this one shows up.  If she/he doesn't, the advantage is that I can easily go into the service provider's high street shop to sort things out, rather than have to try and communicate via a call centre via a public phone box.

Meanwhile, I'm using a £1 disposable mobile phone which does not operate like the instruction booklet says it should.  The menu button remains inaccessible.  Poke it, and nothing happens.  The little yellow icon says I have messages but, short of psychometry, I can't access them.

The serpentine lake in Birkenhead Park, April 2015.
Just before we moved, my old PC died.  Two and half chapters of Fabian were stored on there so now I've got the task of recreating them again.  I also lost around 20,000 words of a novella which I hadn't stored elsewhere, plus a bunch of photos.  But now I have a new PC, an Asus Viper, which seems a perky little thing.  I've been entertaining myself by playing mah jong, solitaire and spider solitaire on it.  Yes, I know I should be working.  Catch you all later, then.
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Comments

Daniel Rodriguez said…
Congratulations on your new home! I hope you feel as happy as you do now for years and years to come.
14 April 2015 at 13:16
Daniel Rodriguez said…
Congratulations on your new home! May you and your family be happy and blessed there always.
14 April 2015 at 13:17
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