Weekend...
Back in work after a slightly extended weekend and beginning the countdown to working in London… 9 days left at this desk!
P and I sorted out all the paperwork for our flat on Saturday morning, and pootled off there with our shiny new keys to see the place again. It was very exciting to let ourselves in through the front door for the first time, and laugh over being unable to find the light switches. A mini adventure as I realised the doors were not where I remembered them and for a second panicked that we’d been leased the wrong flat! We went in and out of each room quickly at first just to make sure it was the flat we’d loved, then again more slowly to take in all the little features we’d missed previously.
I’ll write a description of the place in another entry (maybe with a few pics), for now I’ll stick to what we were doing at the weekend.
We texted Cat as soon as we got the keys and she came over straight away to see the place - I really appreciated this, as it was lovely to have someone to squee at before the place gets moved about a bit with our furniture and things. (Though it was a bit odd once the initial excitement had passed, as because we haven’t actually moved in yet, there isn’t actually anything to do in there other than look at it!!) Cat was very nice about the place and to thank her for coming all the way up the Northern line to see the place, we took her for lunch at the bar on the corner of the development. We had some lovely food, accompanied by the (hopefully not resident) barfly, who took a particular liking to Cat (who shall hereafter be known as Miss Delicious) and decided to grace us with his presence for most of our meal…
When Cat headed back to Croydon, P’s mum came over a bit afterwards. She had a nosy about the place too, and when we’d all finished poking about, we walked her home and then went on to IKEA in Wembley. Despite the slight bus-woe a la P not being sure which busses to take nor where to get on or off them, we got there with little difficulty and I was rewarded with finding the biggest and most wonderful IKEA I have ever been to!! It was massive and filled with so many things - if it hadn’t been so close to closing time and the end of a long day I think I could have stayed in there for hours :) In the end, we didn’t buy much, because money is tight for now but I have plenty of ideas for when the pennies sort themselves out.
We had what was possibly our last curry from Bengal Bertie’s in Finchley (*weeps*) for the foreseeable future when we got home, then this was followed by a lazy Sunday, where all we did was pop to the flat to make an inventory and take measurements of some bits of furniture then have tea with P’s mum. In the evening we went back to the flat for an hour to stand on our balcony together and have a glass of wine and celebrate having an ‘our’ place.
There has been minor agent/landlord/flat woe in that a few things in the place weren’t left in great condition, particularly that the flooring in the hallway has been badly dirtied by the people who moved the furniture in and that one of the cupboard doors is broken. The other issues were admin-y, like we haven’t been left our parking permit card and the agent forgot to bill us for the water. We emailed it all to the agent though and it’s (allegedly) all being sorted.
Monday was spent on the telephone to utilities companies trying to sort out the electricity and the phone line and the council tax. This was made harder than it already is, by the fact that the postcode to the development is not being recognised by half of the companies we are dealing with. They say it’s because it’s a new build, but the postcode has been issued (for a few months according to Royal Mail) and many other companies are having no trouble - so it’s a bit hit and miss. BT were the worst, trying to tell us we were wrong about our postcode and we should go back and tell Royal Mail this, however on our second call to them, they found us almost immediately! So we should have an operational phone line by Friday…
Ah well anyway, I have a list of things to sort out which is as long as my arm and I feel like I’m adding to it quicker than I’m getting things sorted out! I’m trying to get as much of it sorted out over the next 2 weeks while I’m still in this job and my workload is significantly less so that I don’t have as much to do when I start the new job, which by all accounts will be fairly frantic. I kind of want to just ‘fast-forward’ through the bit that involves hiring a van and loading my stuff, driving down the M6/M1 and unloading at the other end. I’ll be glad when it’s all done and it’s just us and our boxes sat in our flat!