Head Shrinking Last Couple Of Days
Well what can I say about the last couple of days, I feel like my head has been shrunk to the size of a generous walnut and tonight I have slept quite solidly for an hour rendered weakened and exhausted as a result of everything that has happened.
This afternoon all the kids were out at their favourite beach in Tynemouth together so I found myself alone with my laptop in a nice quite house, hubby was moving the cooker where he found a large moth nest of some kind. He hoovered up the paper like substance but as he was doing it masses of tiny moth like things were flying out from the bottom of the wall along where the cooker was installed, he kept shouting out at the sheer volume of them as he was so shocked it took so long to get rid of it all, it must have been there for absolutely ages given how much there was, still its gone now.
So where was I, oh yes, at my laptop alone in the lounge, boxes piled floor to ceiling around me only space for a little leg room whilst sitting on the sofa. I decided to look up a few local things that I had been meaning to research and do down in and around the new area for when we move.
I ordered the sports cards for free swimming and athletics facilities, went on to the council's website to find out about getting a large wheelie bin. I started typing up an email once I found the relevant refuse collection department when the phone rang next to me.
I picked it up and said "hello?" expecting it to be one of the kids wanting to be picked up from the beach but nope, it was the local housing officer from down at the new house. She sounded all official like for about four minutes into the conversation then when I asked about her accent and whether she was black the conversation went off on a tangent. Turns out she is from the same area of south London as me having grown up there at the same time as me as well. She loosened up a bit and was talking with me quite differently after I told her about the racism problems our children have experienced up here in the north east and the reasons for us wanting to take them to the south instead. We spoke about the recent riots in London, reminisced about a few of the places we both remembered fondly severely damaged during the riots and then we got on to talking about the house, the levels of repair jobs needed to bring it up to standard and finally we got around to the awful smell and the rubbish everywhere.
It was when I said that we had been buying up cleaning products in preparation and she said "and you'll need them" was when the conversation really got started. She told me that the living room flooring of wooden boards has been removed and the family wouldn't let her in to inspect the floor underneath, that when she did the inspection on the 1st September a matter of days ago, she was blown away by the smell and the state of the place, mentioning the bathrooms and kitchen as being particularly bad with mess, dirt and lime scale.
We addressed the matter of signing the tenancy agreements with the other couple, they are due to arrive on Monday around 6pm, our housing office doesnt close until 8pm here, we are now planning on arriving at our new house just after 9pm on Monday so obviously as their office closes at 5pm our contracts can not be signed until Tuesday. Only problem is this lady who is our point of contact within that housing office is away until Friday and she didnt want to leave things unsigned until then so I suggested someone else bring it to me on Tuesday morning, I sign it and show my ID then she comes when she returns back to work on the Friday or Monday the following week to meet us.
I got a very good feeling from her, she said she was very worried about the rubbish because legally with a house exchange we just inherit the house as is including any rubbish left behind by the previous family and as they are on holiday in Spain right now arriving home the day before moving, I seriously doubt they will remove all of it before they set off for their long drive here.
After the long conversation I spoke with my husband, he has gone into flat, dull overdrive ever since throwing himself into wiring work needed here and fixing floorboards in the upstairs hallway. We just spoke for a while when he brought me up a nice cup of tea, he said he does feel flat at the thought of having to dump their rubbish using our car, but I think its going to be ok as long as we can get rid of the smell first, cleaning everywhere completely thoroughly then again just to be sure every inch of dirt is gone.
The most important thing for me is that the tenancy agreement is correct and has all the same clauses as the one I currently have does. It is our intention to be working hard towards buying this house under the right to buy scheme within five years so everything has to be just right, after speaking with the housing officer today and her going through the contract I will be signing on Tuesday step by step on the telephone, I am satisfied its on the level, I still insisted on seeing it though so she is faxing it to our housing manager in the morning for him to bring around and show me, our solicitor Linda will be here for that so I am at ease with this situation for now.
Lionel is going to be staying with us for a week prior to staying at his student flat, he moved his stuff in yesterday, not another item could fit in to the car he took so much stuff. Joseph and him are going down there on Wednesday to organise it all and unpack everything, I must remember to remind them to plug in the fridge and freezer in the shared kitchen when they get there otherwise when he arrives ready to move in it will take a whole day until those things can be used. I think the other flat members are arriving just at the weekend that week so Lionel will be there alone for the first four days.
I have had to really lay down the law with Imogen and Lionel two days ago, I was completely embarrassed and ashamed of them both when friends of ours came for a visit on Saturday. Lionel had Dom here and Imogen had Lauren her friend from up the road, both of them behaved so horribly that when our friend with her children left I lectured them non stop and insisted they come down before 8pm and apologise properly and explain their actions otherwise Imogen would not be seeing Lauren again until the day we are moving and Lionel's girlfriend, I would phone her mother and explain she isnt welcome here any more and then she would be dropped home if her parents didnt come to collect her. I was so angry it wasnt funny. I had to really go into detail insisting that I was mad as hell, I guess I look the same and speak the same when shouting is not involved as both Lionel and Imogen were just looking at me like I was just blowing hot air and that I wasnt "really angry" with them or that I didnt mean it or something. I flaming well did mean every word I said, I couldnt believe how they were behaving totally ignoring our guests, Lionel and Dom had some sort of heated discussion which resulted in her locking herself in the toilet again crying, they are insisting they were not arguing but all the other kids who were upstairs at the time say they were. Imogen was doing the same thing with Lauren, they asked me if they could do baking, I was cooking a large meal of curry rice and dal at the time so said they would have to wait, after cleaning up the kitchen I wanted to sit with my friend for a bit who was in the living room with Pat who was helping her sort out her laptop issues, so I was in and out of the kitchen for the first half of her visit. Once clean I didnt want the kitchen messed up again so asked both girls if they could do the baking today instead after the cooker was moved and I even offered to buy them double the ingredients so that they could make two batches of cookies, but nope they kept on and on and on and on with Lauren giving me at least twenty reasons why it simply had to be NOW so I asked her to leave, Imogen sat on the stairs sulking then locked herself in the bathroom crying.
Anyway, with all that having been dealt with on Saturday just before 8pm, things have just been up in the air sort of ever since. I am so tired at the moment but cant sleep for too long and we are just packing like crazy. Yesterday I did the bedroom, only stuff left out still is what we are using this week. The house is all echoing at the moment because the boxes have all been moved downstairs now into the lounge in preparation for the van arriving on Monday morning. Its looking good though, very organised and well prepared.
I am just dreading getting there, not knowing where anything is, this horrible mess, dirtiness and awful stench to deal with at night. At least with Lionel staying for the week there will be no problems airing off every room and opening every outside door, previously I was worried because the house is so long someone could be standing near the door and if I was at the back of the living room I'd never see them, they hust wouldnt be in my visual picture of the room as they would be too far away. There are five outside doors, two lead on to the yard at the back, one opens on to the balcony, one on to the side street and the other one at the front so at least now we know we can have everything opened up to give the place a thorough through breeze and with it being night time their will be more breeze than if we started this in the day because the temperature drops considerably along the river there after 8pm, no matter what though, it never drops to the depths of chill you get from the north east breezes which can be quite cutting if you are not prepared with layers and quite a shock to the system if you are not used to it all, that's how it was for us when we first moved in here we used to really feel the cold but now we are accustomed to it moving south shouldnt be a problem temperature wise, if anything we are going to be too warm most of the time at first.
There has been a heap of other things going on but those are the main ones, I've tried to remain calm, loom knitting my way through with the mitred squares, only a few left to go now so that is all looking great as well. My art supplies for Angelica's portfolio all arrived in plenty of time for the weekend packing session so are now all safely tucked away in two boxes downstairs and the crystals I bought are so pretty I just love them.
Getting ever so excited now about moving but bracing myself because of the smell. I was thinking today I would ask my husband to buy some of those disposable masks that workmen use for when drilling or working with power tools then dot them with eucalyptus essential oil and wear the around the house at first so that we dont become ill from the smell and the cleaning products. Must make a mental note to add it to my to-do list for tomorrow after posting this entry. For now though its quickly approaching 3am and I really need to get some rest, even if I dont sleep I still will put my head down for a bit my body needs to be laying down again I think as it is all painfully swollen in places especially my feet which I can feel throbbing as I type. More to follow in the next few days I am sure, the kids have their presentation on Thursday with the St Johns Ambulance and I'm told a surprise for Angelica Imogen and Ivan will be taking place so I am excited about that for them as well even though I dont know what it is all about :)
This afternoon all the kids were out at their favourite beach in Tynemouth together so I found myself alone with my laptop in a nice quite house, hubby was moving the cooker where he found a large moth nest of some kind. He hoovered up the paper like substance but as he was doing it masses of tiny moth like things were flying out from the bottom of the wall along where the cooker was installed, he kept shouting out at the sheer volume of them as he was so shocked it took so long to get rid of it all, it must have been there for absolutely ages given how much there was, still its gone now.
So where was I, oh yes, at my laptop alone in the lounge, boxes piled floor to ceiling around me only space for a little leg room whilst sitting on the sofa. I decided to look up a few local things that I had been meaning to research and do down in and around the new area for when we move.
I ordered the sports cards for free swimming and athletics facilities, went on to the council's website to find out about getting a large wheelie bin. I started typing up an email once I found the relevant refuse collection department when the phone rang next to me.
I picked it up and said "hello?" expecting it to be one of the kids wanting to be picked up from the beach but nope, it was the local housing officer from down at the new house. She sounded all official like for about four minutes into the conversation then when I asked about her accent and whether she was black the conversation went off on a tangent. Turns out she is from the same area of south London as me having grown up there at the same time as me as well. She loosened up a bit and was talking with me quite differently after I told her about the racism problems our children have experienced up here in the north east and the reasons for us wanting to take them to the south instead. We spoke about the recent riots in London, reminisced about a few of the places we both remembered fondly severely damaged during the riots and then we got on to talking about the house, the levels of repair jobs needed to bring it up to standard and finally we got around to the awful smell and the rubbish everywhere.
It was when I said that we had been buying up cleaning products in preparation and she said "and you'll need them" was when the conversation really got started. She told me that the living room flooring of wooden boards has been removed and the family wouldn't let her in to inspect the floor underneath, that when she did the inspection on the 1st September a matter of days ago, she was blown away by the smell and the state of the place, mentioning the bathrooms and kitchen as being particularly bad with mess, dirt and lime scale.
We addressed the matter of signing the tenancy agreements with the other couple, they are due to arrive on Monday around 6pm, our housing office doesnt close until 8pm here, we are now planning on arriving at our new house just after 9pm on Monday so obviously as their office closes at 5pm our contracts can not be signed until Tuesday. Only problem is this lady who is our point of contact within that housing office is away until Friday and she didnt want to leave things unsigned until then so I suggested someone else bring it to me on Tuesday morning, I sign it and show my ID then she comes when she returns back to work on the Friday or Monday the following week to meet us.
I got a very good feeling from her, she said she was very worried about the rubbish because legally with a house exchange we just inherit the house as is including any rubbish left behind by the previous family and as they are on holiday in Spain right now arriving home the day before moving, I seriously doubt they will remove all of it before they set off for their long drive here.
After the long conversation I spoke with my husband, he has gone into flat, dull overdrive ever since throwing himself into wiring work needed here and fixing floorboards in the upstairs hallway. We just spoke for a while when he brought me up a nice cup of tea, he said he does feel flat at the thought of having to dump their rubbish using our car, but I think its going to be ok as long as we can get rid of the smell first, cleaning everywhere completely thoroughly then again just to be sure every inch of dirt is gone.
The most important thing for me is that the tenancy agreement is correct and has all the same clauses as the one I currently have does. It is our intention to be working hard towards buying this house under the right to buy scheme within five years so everything has to be just right, after speaking with the housing officer today and her going through the contract I will be signing on Tuesday step by step on the telephone, I am satisfied its on the level, I still insisted on seeing it though so she is faxing it to our housing manager in the morning for him to bring around and show me, our solicitor Linda will be here for that so I am at ease with this situation for now.
Lionel is going to be staying with us for a week prior to staying at his student flat, he moved his stuff in yesterday, not another item could fit in to the car he took so much stuff. Joseph and him are going down there on Wednesday to organise it all and unpack everything, I must remember to remind them to plug in the fridge and freezer in the shared kitchen when they get there otherwise when he arrives ready to move in it will take a whole day until those things can be used. I think the other flat members are arriving just at the weekend that week so Lionel will be there alone for the first four days.
I have had to really lay down the law with Imogen and Lionel two days ago, I was completely embarrassed and ashamed of them both when friends of ours came for a visit on Saturday. Lionel had Dom here and Imogen had Lauren her friend from up the road, both of them behaved so horribly that when our friend with her children left I lectured them non stop and insisted they come down before 8pm and apologise properly and explain their actions otherwise Imogen would not be seeing Lauren again until the day we are moving and Lionel's girlfriend, I would phone her mother and explain she isnt welcome here any more and then she would be dropped home if her parents didnt come to collect her. I was so angry it wasnt funny. I had to really go into detail insisting that I was mad as hell, I guess I look the same and speak the same when shouting is not involved as both Lionel and Imogen were just looking at me like I was just blowing hot air and that I wasnt "really angry" with them or that I didnt mean it or something. I flaming well did mean every word I said, I couldnt believe how they were behaving totally ignoring our guests, Lionel and Dom had some sort of heated discussion which resulted in her locking herself in the toilet again crying, they are insisting they were not arguing but all the other kids who were upstairs at the time say they were. Imogen was doing the same thing with Lauren, they asked me if they could do baking, I was cooking a large meal of curry rice and dal at the time so said they would have to wait, after cleaning up the kitchen I wanted to sit with my friend for a bit who was in the living room with Pat who was helping her sort out her laptop issues, so I was in and out of the kitchen for the first half of her visit. Once clean I didnt want the kitchen messed up again so asked both girls if they could do the baking today instead after the cooker was moved and I even offered to buy them double the ingredients so that they could make two batches of cookies, but nope they kept on and on and on and on with Lauren giving me at least twenty reasons why it simply had to be NOW so I asked her to leave, Imogen sat on the stairs sulking then locked herself in the bathroom crying.
Anyway, with all that having been dealt with on Saturday just before 8pm, things have just been up in the air sort of ever since. I am so tired at the moment but cant sleep for too long and we are just packing like crazy. Yesterday I did the bedroom, only stuff left out still is what we are using this week. The house is all echoing at the moment because the boxes have all been moved downstairs now into the lounge in preparation for the van arriving on Monday morning. Its looking good though, very organised and well prepared.
I am just dreading getting there, not knowing where anything is, this horrible mess, dirtiness and awful stench to deal with at night. At least with Lionel staying for the week there will be no problems airing off every room and opening every outside door, previously I was worried because the house is so long someone could be standing near the door and if I was at the back of the living room I'd never see them, they hust wouldnt be in my visual picture of the room as they would be too far away. There are five outside doors, two lead on to the yard at the back, one opens on to the balcony, one on to the side street and the other one at the front so at least now we know we can have everything opened up to give the place a thorough through breeze and with it being night time their will be more breeze than if we started this in the day because the temperature drops considerably along the river there after 8pm, no matter what though, it never drops to the depths of chill you get from the north east breezes which can be quite cutting if you are not prepared with layers and quite a shock to the system if you are not used to it all, that's how it was for us when we first moved in here we used to really feel the cold but now we are accustomed to it moving south shouldnt be a problem temperature wise, if anything we are going to be too warm most of the time at first.
There has been a heap of other things going on but those are the main ones, I've tried to remain calm, loom knitting my way through with the mitred squares, only a few left to go now so that is all looking great as well. My art supplies for Angelica's portfolio all arrived in plenty of time for the weekend packing session so are now all safely tucked away in two boxes downstairs and the crystals I bought are so pretty I just love them.
Getting ever so excited now about moving but bracing myself because of the smell. I was thinking today I would ask my husband to buy some of those disposable masks that workmen use for when drilling or working with power tools then dot them with eucalyptus essential oil and wear the around the house at first so that we dont become ill from the smell and the cleaning products. Must make a mental note to add it to my to-do list for tomorrow after posting this entry. For now though its quickly approaching 3am and I really need to get some rest, even if I dont sleep I still will put my head down for a bit my body needs to be laying down again I think as it is all painfully swollen in places especially my feet which I can feel throbbing as I type. More to follow in the next few days I am sure, the kids have their presentation on Thursday with the St Johns Ambulance and I'm told a surprise for Angelica Imogen and Ivan will be taking place so I am excited about that for them as well even though I dont know what it is all about :)