Sunday 25 December 2011

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I have loved blogging this year and I have loved reading all of your blogs too. Sorry that my posts have been few and far between recently, but I think that you all understand why (still no internet by the way). 2012 is going to bring a lot of change for me and I think that I will have plenty to post about once I start sorting out my house and living on a more strict budget, I am all ready to start and log all the changes on here, so hope that you will continue to share my journey with me.

A big thank you to you all, it is amazing the sort of encouragement I feel from your comments.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Some Pictures.

I have taken a few photos on my phone of the empty rooms of my new house. This can be the starting point, the before pictures as it were. It may take me months, years even, to finish it how I want, but it will be a good reminder of where I started.



The lovely and sunny living room. The patio doors need replacing as they offer no security what so ever and the seal has gone.



The kitchen, pretty basic, don't know if the cookers work yet, but it will have to do for a good while.


The master bedroom


The spare bedroom


The bathroom, not my favourite, but again, perfectly alright to live with until I can afford to change it - never a great fan of a carpeted bathroom!


The garage. One day I hope to convert this to be a part of the house, probably will make it my kitchen, but a lot of saving up before that happens.

So now you have had a tour.

As I was out in the street on my hands and knees reading my water meter earlier today another of my new neighbours drove past waving and with huge smiles on their face. So nice to feel welcomed!

Friday 9 December 2011

Here we go!

Hello Everyone and welcome to my new followers, the number seems to have gone up significantly since I was last here.
Thank you too to those nominations I was given for a liebster award, I am not ignoring it, just haven't had time to follow it up and post about it yet, will do soon. I am very delighted that people think that my blog is worthy!

Today I got the keys to my new house!

It is a bit later than expected and has been a bit more complicated that you could believe, but I am going to focus now on the one main and important bit - I now own my house in the country!

I won't be moving in just yet for many reasons, but am going to take this opportunity to clean, maybe make a start on some of the (cheap) renovations that I can manage in the freezing cold and make it warm, safe and secure.

The amount of work is so huge and the shear quantity of paperwork that needs dealing with is so long that I can hardly bring myself to begin it, you know when you have so much to do that you can't take it in and it seems easier to just do none of it!

I don't have any internet in there right now, so I am using the internet here at my friends house a couple of miles away when I need to do stuff - the result being that my time on here is limited. Also I am working in Switzerland next week, (very poor timing) followed by Christmas and New Year, so everything is kind of on hold at the moment. I will however take some photos of it in its present empty condition soon as I can and get them up here - then you will all know from where I am starting this journey.
Today I cleaned the kitchen, had a boiler man around to service the boiler which now seems to be running happily and getting the place warm. Tomorrow I will clean the bathroom and change the loo seat (can't bring myself to use one when I don't know who had it before!)

The other delightful thing I did was to knock on the neighbours door and introduce myself (something that never happens in London) Not only was he delightful but he asked me in and gave me a tour of his house so that I could see the changes he made (his house is the same design exactly, but he has completely changed all the interior layout). The first time in my life that I have known been into my neighbours house! How different things are here.

Thank you to everyone for your sharing this with me over the last 8 months or so. Now the fun can really begin. I am very happy.