I'm Back!
...well, more or less. We haven't gotten the net connected up to my computer yet, so right now I'm on Nick's computer in his office (yes, we/he has an office now, not just the box room where we store all the stuff that we don't have room for anywhere else and Mac).
So, when last you heard from me, I was dropping off the face of the earth because our landlord (cursed be him and his decendents unto the nth generation!) had decided that two weeks was more than enough time for two people to find a new place to live, pack everything up and move out completely, and was coming down hard on us to get out. Patently illegal, of course (and I have the paperwork to prove it), but there was very little we could do - well, there was actually plenty I could do, but Nick sent me out of the room and then forbade me from ever speaking to the landlord (may he be stricken with genital boils!) ever again. He spoils all my fun.
So, we had to go racing around to try to find somewhere new to live that was (a) within our price range, (b) would take cats and (c) wasn't going to require credit, work, bank, blood and personality checks before even considering our application. Eventually Nick found a place that worked and didn't mind us moving in the very next day - only problem was that it was completely unfurnished. It didn't even have curtains. And here we are with just several bookcases, a desk and a deflated beanbag to our names (the DVDs, books and the like aren't really furniture). Still, it's a very nice house - big and roomy (although that may be because it has no furniture in it) and in a very nice area of town. A very nice area, in fact. Our direct next door neighbour has decking, and the one after that has a conservatory. Kerry says we're probably lowering the property values of the area just by breathing.
Actually moving all of our stuff wasn't exactly fun, but we managed. Perry managed to rope in a friend to help move some stuff (thanks again, Vraensr!) and Nick thought he'd managed to find an affordable removals company to shift the rest of the stuff. Of course, things always go wrong somewhere down the line, and as it turned out the removals company had some rather sneaky charges. Specifically, they charged by the hour, but the charging time started from the moment they left the yard, and they didn't tell us of this until it came to paying them at the end. Which meant that the two-hour job Nick had budgetted for became a three-hour job when he came to pay. Bastards. They'll thoroughly deserve it when the cheque bounces (Which it apparently just has, as they've just called. Well, it's their own fault for not being clear with their payment systems...).
Perry also came through for us by getting hold of a king-size mattress for us to sleep on, which was a Godssend, because before that we had been trying to sleep on cold hard floors that were doing no good whatsoever to our various knackered body parts. Of course, we're still going to need to get hold of a second mattress at some point, because Nick and I can't sleep in the same room (he claims that my snoring disturbs him, conveniently ignoring the fact that his scares the cats...), but at least we have somewhere to sleep.
I pulled every trick I could and applied for a Crisis Loan from the SS (Because if this isn't a crisis, then I don't know what is), in the hope of getting some money to get some extra furniture like a fridge-freezer and maybe a chair or two. They wrote back to me this morning saying that they would give me £300 for a bed and a sofa, but not for a fridge-freezer as apparently there's not a serious enough risk to our health if we don't have one... So it looks like we may have to go on the Never-Never to get a fridge-freezer, as even the cheapest ones I've seen are over £200. I'm also looking into Freecycle, but of course that all depends on what's on offer. I've also got to try to call the damn SS back this morning, as despite the fact that this is a Crisis loan, they seem determined to do everything by post, which will take another week that we really don't have. So I'm trying to find out if I can just drop into my local SS office, sit with the dregs of society for a few hours and get my money that way (and they really are the dregs - last time I passed by the office, there was a man with a can of lager sitting on the steps outside having a screaming row with his other half about money and revealing to the world that he owed £900 to drug dealers, and so some reason neither his other half nor the SS seemed willing to give him money for it). I never thought I'd be happy that the council messed up and made us pay Council Tax, because now I can say that I at least pay my taxes...
As for the cats... Well, they've taken the move surprisingly well. Mac was no problem at all - he thought it was just a big adventure and has been exploring non-stop ever since (one of the advantages of being a scatterbrained kitten - everything keeps seeming new and shiny). We thought Jelli would be a problem, especially since we had to put her in the cat carrier to get her there, but she wasn't. She didn't fight us (she actually cried all the way in the carrier, which just about broke my heart), and once at the new house also took the opportunity to explore - it took her 30 seconds to find the still-open flue in an old fireplace and try to climb through it. She hasn't even complained about the fact that we're not letting her outside at the moment - she still hasn't grasped how to use a litter box, but she does know how to use newspaper so we're not complaining. The only problem we have is the fact that we can no longer keep the two of them separated (no door at the bottom of the stairs), and as a result there's been quite a few cases of Kung Fu Kitties in the past week. We don't know if Mac is trying to play with Jelli or if he genuinely wants to fight for dominance, but he periodically leaps at her and the two of them turn into one of those rolling cat-balls you see in cartoons. Jelli wins every fight, of course, but then she goes and hides in the gas cupboard and refuses to come out for several hours. The only thing we're able to do at the moment is shut Mac in an upstairs room for a couple of hours whenever he does it, which doesn't seem to be the best detterent at the moment. If anyone has any suggestions, we'd be happy to hear them.
Off to try to get the SS office now. I'll be back when I remember more stuff that I wanted to say.
So, when last you heard from me, I was dropping off the face of the earth because our landlord (cursed be him and his decendents unto the nth generation!) had decided that two weeks was more than enough time for two people to find a new place to live, pack everything up and move out completely, and was coming down hard on us to get out. Patently illegal, of course (and I have the paperwork to prove it), but there was very little we could do - well, there was actually plenty I could do, but Nick sent me out of the room and then forbade me from ever speaking to the landlord (may he be stricken with genital boils!) ever again. He spoils all my fun.
So, we had to go racing around to try to find somewhere new to live that was (a) within our price range, (b) would take cats and (c) wasn't going to require credit, work, bank, blood and personality checks before even considering our application. Eventually Nick found a place that worked and didn't mind us moving in the very next day - only problem was that it was completely unfurnished. It didn't even have curtains. And here we are with just several bookcases, a desk and a deflated beanbag to our names (the DVDs, books and the like aren't really furniture). Still, it's a very nice house - big and roomy (although that may be because it has no furniture in it) and in a very nice area of town. A very nice area, in fact. Our direct next door neighbour has decking, and the one after that has a conservatory. Kerry says we're probably lowering the property values of the area just by breathing.
Actually moving all of our stuff wasn't exactly fun, but we managed. Perry managed to rope in a friend to help move some stuff (thanks again, Vraensr!) and Nick thought he'd managed to find an affordable removals company to shift the rest of the stuff. Of course, things always go wrong somewhere down the line, and as it turned out the removals company had some rather sneaky charges. Specifically, they charged by the hour, but the charging time started from the moment they left the yard, and they didn't tell us of this until it came to paying them at the end. Which meant that the two-hour job Nick had budgetted for became a three-hour job when he came to pay. Bastards. They'll thoroughly deserve it when the cheque bounces (Which it apparently just has, as they've just called. Well, it's their own fault for not being clear with their payment systems...).
Perry also came through for us by getting hold of a king-size mattress for us to sleep on, which was a Godssend, because before that we had been trying to sleep on cold hard floors that were doing no good whatsoever to our various knackered body parts. Of course, we're still going to need to get hold of a second mattress at some point, because Nick and I can't sleep in the same room (he claims that my snoring disturbs him, conveniently ignoring the fact that his scares the cats...), but at least we have somewhere to sleep.
I pulled every trick I could and applied for a Crisis Loan from the SS (Because if this isn't a crisis, then I don't know what is), in the hope of getting some money to get some extra furniture like a fridge-freezer and maybe a chair or two. They wrote back to me this morning saying that they would give me £300 for a bed and a sofa, but not for a fridge-freezer as apparently there's not a serious enough risk to our health if we don't have one... So it looks like we may have to go on the Never-Never to get a fridge-freezer, as even the cheapest ones I've seen are over £200. I'm also looking into Freecycle, but of course that all depends on what's on offer. I've also got to try to call the damn SS back this morning, as despite the fact that this is a Crisis loan, they seem determined to do everything by post, which will take another week that we really don't have. So I'm trying to find out if I can just drop into my local SS office, sit with the dregs of society for a few hours and get my money that way (and they really are the dregs - last time I passed by the office, there was a man with a can of lager sitting on the steps outside having a screaming row with his other half about money and revealing to the world that he owed £900 to drug dealers, and so some reason neither his other half nor the SS seemed willing to give him money for it). I never thought I'd be happy that the council messed up and made us pay Council Tax, because now I can say that I at least pay my taxes...
As for the cats... Well, they've taken the move surprisingly well. Mac was no problem at all - he thought it was just a big adventure and has been exploring non-stop ever since (one of the advantages of being a scatterbrained kitten - everything keeps seeming new and shiny). We thought Jelli would be a problem, especially since we had to put her in the cat carrier to get her there, but she wasn't. She didn't fight us (she actually cried all the way in the carrier, which just about broke my heart), and once at the new house also took the opportunity to explore - it took her 30 seconds to find the still-open flue in an old fireplace and try to climb through it. She hasn't even complained about the fact that we're not letting her outside at the moment - she still hasn't grasped how to use a litter box, but she does know how to use newspaper so we're not complaining. The only problem we have is the fact that we can no longer keep the two of them separated (no door at the bottom of the stairs), and as a result there's been quite a few cases of Kung Fu Kitties in the past week. We don't know if Mac is trying to play with Jelli or if he genuinely wants to fight for dominance, but he periodically leaps at her and the two of them turn into one of those rolling cat-balls you see in cartoons. Jelli wins every fight, of course, but then she goes and hides in the gas cupboard and refuses to come out for several hours. The only thing we're able to do at the moment is shut Mac in an upstairs room for a couple of hours whenever he does it, which doesn't seem to be the best detterent at the moment. If anyone has any suggestions, we'd be happy to hear them.
Off to try to get the SS office now. I'll be back when I remember more stuff that I wanted to say.