The House, The Move, The DIY

I’ll break this down a bit for those not interested in the minutiae of the past few days; you can skip to which bits interest you the most…

Friday: Exchange and Complete

The contracts were officially exchanged on the house Friday morning, we completed at the same time and had the keys for 11am. A thorough check of the house uncovered:

  • The previous owners had an unhealthy obsession with a nail gun
  • Someone had been in the garden and nicked the rotary line left by the owners!
  • Part of the central heating had died, which means every time you turn it on it blows a fuse
  • A broken window lock, a useless dimmer switch and a crack in the loo

But otherwise, no dramas.

Saturday: Moving Day

We had planned to drop Isabel off at my mum’s, getting back to the cottage (old place) in plenty of time for the men from Simply Removals to arrive with the van between 12 and 3pm. In reality, we ended up stacking task after task and we ended up dashing to the new place for 10am so that A.S.T. Floorcoverings could come measure up, on to my mum’s for 10:40 to drop Isabel off, a dash to Homebase (DIY/furniture store) to pick up a few bits (and ended up spending over £100!!!) and then a speedy drive back to the cottage to wait for my mates from work who were helping.

With the help of my work colleagues, we moved everything downstairs ready for 12, and waited. And waited. And waited. 2:45pm comes around and I phone Simply Removals to make sure they were definitely coming: “Oh, the guys were held up a little at a previous job, they’ll be there in half an hour“. So I wait 30 minutes, and nothing. At 3:30pm I rang again, and enquired as to the whereabouts of the men; “oh, they’re stuck in traffic, give it 15-30 minutes“. We waited some more. 4pm rolls around, by which point the removal company are an hour late, and so I rang again. I asked where they were, and was told they were stuck in traffic (again?) and they were 6-8 minutes away. I also asked as to how customers are compensated for lateness, and was told we get nothing until the guys are 2 hours late and then we’d get a 10% refund. The guys finally arrived at 4:10.

What pissed me off the most about the whole thing was not the fact that the Simply Removals guys were late; shit happens, people get held up. It’s the fact that I was lied to on all 3 occasions. It wasn’t until the new guys got here and said that they weren’t the ones supposed to be doing it that I realised what had happened. From what I made out, the original guys were held up for a lot longer than expected and instead of the company letting us know, we were fobbed off with bullshit about traffic while they got 2 other guys out to us. It’s a shame, because the men moved bloody fast and had the whole move complete in less than 2 hours in the end.

Unfortunately their delay had a knock on effect for the rest of the day, though. Food shopping that was to be delivered between 4 and 5 had to be fielded by Karl while I dealt with the move, and Isabel ended up spending more time at my mum’s. Boxes could not be sorted into rooms until later, we didn’t have time to put the bed up properly and we all ended up with a very late bedtime (and a very cranky toddler).

After That…

It’s all been a bit of a blur since then. A combination of crazy unpacking, getting the various rooms set up, and then on Monday we had to take everything out of the living room again ready for the flooring on Tuesday (which is done, and looks fab; see below).

We’re waiting for the gas people to get back to us re: heating, but the house is holding a nice steady 18+ degrees C, which makes a nice change (to put that into perspective … the cottage temperature dropped to 15 degrees within 24 hours of us moving out and it’s only held there now because that’s what we’ve left the heating on!) I am looking forward to lower bills :)

We’ve already started demolishing things. We removed a tall cupboard frame from the kitchen which had been used previously to hold the fridgefreezer. It had no door on and looked a mess so Karl and I ripped it out. We just have to touch up the paint behind where it was sat but it already looks loads better. We (well, my brother) also ripped out a mock hearth thing in the front room which had been constructed out of timber blocks and tongue n groove stuff. Yuk. Now to decide on paint colours…

Pictures

Original estate agent pics:

Front room before we ripped the carpet out (they were taken in the dark, hence the shit quality):

Front room with the new flooring in:

So there you go.

Posted on: June 9, 2011 · Category: Home & Garden, Updates

Shit You Don’t Need to Raise a Baby

When I was pregnant with Isabel, I used to devour little blog entries and articles on major parenting websites telling me everything I’d need for when my bundle of joy arrived. I even had Amanda write me a list of basics based on her experience working in maternity stores.

It’s all bollocks. Every article, every blog entry. Total and utter, mainstream, commercial bollocks.

Oh, we bought the cot bed with the lovely brand new super-expensive mattress. We bought the travel system with the removable car seat that allows you to pop baby in and out without waking them (it never works btw). We bought the bouncy chair, bought the muslins and the blankets, borrowed a moses basket, etc. We were given a steriliser, an activity mat and several months supply of nappies and wipes. I even considered buying the lovely little poopy nappy wrapper (you know, where you drop the nappy in and it automatically wraps it in yet more plastic so you don’t have to touch anything icky and dirty.)

Except … this stuff? This baby paraphernalia? I wouldn’t buy it if I were to start again. Babies don’t need plastic and brand names and parenting gurus. Babies don’t need harsh chemicals in their bath products or wipes. Babies don’t need special sleeping areas, expensive prams and buggies, ridiculous educational toys before they’ve hit 6 weeks old. Oh, and they definitely don’t need poopy nappy wrappers.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that not everyone is as big a fruit as I am. I know that not everyone will want to breastfeed and bedshare until their kid goes to college. Some people object to slings. Lots of mums don’t have the time or the stomach to wash a bunch of shitty nappies. Whatever. But where are the articles that say “If you want to co-sleep, here’s how to do it safely. Otherwise, you will need X crib for X years at X cost.” and “There are many makes and models of pram, or you can carry your baby in a variety of slings.” and “Breastfeeding is best for your baby. Here’s some tips, here’s some numbers to call if you’re having problems. If you can’t, or choose not to breastfeed, here’s how to make up a bottle safely.“?

Parenting is not black and white, you don’t NEED the material shit or thousands of pounds to make it work. Save your money for when your sproglet reaches 17 months old and discovers how to throw a tantrum, you can invest in an alcohol habit to get you through it. Ahem.

Posted on: April 30, 2011 · Category: Parenting

Why I Still Hate Mommy Bloggers

I hate mommy bloggers. There, I said it.

I think now I’m a mommy / mummy / mom / mum / mama (delete as appropriate) it’s probably inappropriate for me to comment on the phenomena that is ‘mommy blogging’ (and I use the American term because it’s what most people refer to it as, not because I’m suggesting the British equivalent — mummy blogging — is any way different). Still, I’ve never been one to hold back comment for fear of the backlash, so I’m not about to start now.

My distaste for this section of the blogosphere originally stems from PayPerPost and PPPers. It’s not an issue I come across as often these days, but rewind 2-3 years and blatant spamvertising was the bedrock of what seemed like the majority of mom bloggers. They were either in the game specifically to try and make money, or had overhauled otherwise mediocre (yet inoffensive) weblogs to reap the supposed rewards of paid-for-reviews and faux-articles.

Thankfully the whole “PPP” world is less prevalent these days (or I’m not reading the blogs still involved?) Still, it doesn’t stop those on the money-for-nothing bandwagon harping on at industry and retailers to give them free stuff to review. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to product reviews (or free things), but there’s only so many times I can read “I received PRODUCT-X! It was great! I would buy it!” Er, no you wouldn’t you jammy twat, that’s why you asked for free shit in the first place.

In the same vein (and normally the same people) are those who think that because they have received a few products or been paid for a few reviews, that they have some sort of power over either a) manufacturers or b) bloggers. Let’s face it, you’re not Dooce, love.

Am I over-generalising? Picking on a small minority? Pining for the days when blogs were more like journals and less like advertorials? Yes, probably. They’re still fucking annoying though.

Posted on: April 2, 2011 · Category: Interwebs

Burnout

I’ve been working night and day for some time … pre-Christmas anyway.

Today I just want to tell the whole world to fuck off.

Sigh.

Posted on: March 1, 2011 · Category: Misc

Thank you Google, you twat

So, if you’d not noticed already, I converted my blog to WordPress yesterday. I know, I know, I told WordPress to suck my balls. Apparently things change, not least because of a half-dead install of Habari thanks to me installing an unstable night-release (don’t ask why, I don’t know).

It was actually quicker to migrate Habari back to WordPress than it was trying to wrangle my back-up onto the server, replacing the changed files etc and as time is a precious commodity these days that’s what I did.

Unfortunately, in my haste to get a working blog running, I forgot to block off the test install at /wordpress/. Google, while both magnificent and impressive in its speed, has pissed me right off by indexing shitloads of content under /wordpress/ … I don’t even begin to understand how it FOUND it, given that it wasn’t linked from anywhere.

Anyway, point being my SERPs and feed will be all over the shop for a while until things settled down. I can only apologise.

(Note: this is not the end of my love affair with Habari … but more coming on that soon ;) )

Posted on: February 16, 2011 · Category: Geek, Interwebs, WTF