Friday 3rd July

Gosh you've no idea how I've missed my internet connection! Even though I bought that wretched dongle, which was supposed to connect my little notebook thingy, I get here and what do I find? Of course it doesn't work. Turns out I'm in some kind of dip or something, a contactless hell, so bad that whilst I could receive text messages I couldn't even send them until Orange sorted out my server connection!!!

Anyhow, this is in the past, the hub thingy arrived this morning - early, points to BT, and was relatively easy to set up, and barring one or two little mishaps - cables in the wrong holes etc, here I am back with my online family!
Well the move - went suprisingly well. They turned up and were lovely, whipping all of my boxes into the back of this capacious van, drove off - so I basically followed I guess, only on the train of course, lugging this huge suitcase with me.
Here are the boxes going in to the van! What this doesn't show is the police at the bottom of the bus stop, pulling over everyone driving in the bus lane. I thought this was going to cause problems at first, but we were within the loading hours on the road signs, so it was fine.




I had to clean after I left, so I basically had the hoover and brush & dustpan, not to mention enough bottles of cleaning fluids to set up in business with me - my overnight clothes in one backpack, and of course my old leather handbag backpack on the other shoulder - it was a miricle that I got here without either loosing some of this, or breaking down under the weight of it all.



This is a blurry shot out of the train window of the lovely countryside around the lake district. And it's not a UFO, it's a reflection of the light in the carriage in the glass of the window - and there was me thinking I'd got the most marvellous sunset!

Rushed off to the agency to sign the lease the next morning, and now it's hard to think that all this was actually two weeks ago. The best thing of all was that on the day that I arrived, John & Patrick swept me off to theirs for supper, and I got given the most fabulous meal! And I really, really needed it as well.
So, what's been happening? Well, I've got myself unpacked, and not one single thing has been broken in the move. Really brilliant. The flat is huge, with these fabulous cupboards. Years ago when it was built these tennement flats housed quite large families, and they had beds tucked into cupboard niches in the walls, and now that these are no longer needed, the niches have been turned into cupboards - so I now have a walk in wardrobe, and in the one in the lounge I've been able to stash all of my book boxes. This is excellent, because alas, I'm having trouble with the bookcases. As I think I told some people there's very strange 'wall paper' in the living room - I got the impression it was that artex stuff, but turns out it's actually a decorative plaster effect. I don't really fancy drilling into this and bringing the whole lot down, so we tried to fix the bookcases in the bedroom - which my little drill didn't like one bit, as it has stone walls. Patrick bought his grown-ups drill, and we've got one up, but the other of my big bookcases has either warped, or the wall is curved. I can't make up my mind as to which of these has happened, and strongly suspect it's a combination of both.

Haven't got to go to the temp agencies yet - I did set off to do this on Tuesday, but needless to say I managed to leave my cv at home, so that was pretty pointless. Still I did get a bus pass, so it wasn't an entirely wasted trip. Then BT said that the broadband could either come on the Weds or Thurs, and a letter turned up on Weds which said Friday, so I've been trapped in the house waiting for this. Which has actually given me a chance to rest my knee - I bruised it really badly falling on Sunday when I was taking the rubbish out to the bin shed. It was very dark in the corridor leading outside and I didn't see a step, and went down hard on my knees. Luckily no serious damage was done, but I now have a spectacularly purple and yellow left knee!


This is a photo of the view from my flat bay windown at dusk - you can see the pitch between me and the road opposite. This turns out not to be attached to the school, but to be a public football pitch, so we get lots of kids playing, and people throwing sticks and balls for their dogs, and occasionally running those remote control cars. Now I'm up and running, I'll take more photo's and you can see all of the area around me! Oh I'm so happy to be online again!!!