Turf's up!

Continuing the theme of getting my house ready to rent out, I decided to turf over my vegetable plot, so last weekend we had 12 m2 of turf delivered, and James and I set about laying, and cutting to fit. I let him do most of the heavy stuff, and I enjoyed cutting and fitting together the patchwork of grass. I must admit that I think the end result looks great (and maybe I should have done this sooner?) and although it was a good spot for growing vegetables as it's the sunniest part of the garden, that's what also makes it the best place to have a small lawn to sit and enjoy any good weather we may get.

I also got all my windows painted on the outside, which looks much smarter, although not sure if I will be able to open the sash windows now!

Easter fun!

Apart from Easter egg hunts, and eating lots of chocolate, do you know what the most popular thing to do at Easter is? Yes, it’s DIY !! (sorry, but no, it’s not going to church). I did join the masses who were worshiping at the shrine of B&Q this weekend, and took the opportunity of a few days extra off work, and a now empty house, to start work on the new kitchen at my house in Driffield.

On Friday, James and I went and took out all the existing units, tiles and fittings. It does seem weird to be left with just a shell of a room. Suddenly you are able to make all sorts of changes and improvements that would have been better in the old room. As it turns out, it’s a fairly compact (ie., small) kitchen and so the layout of the new one will be fairly much the same, just replacing a few old bits for new bits!

On Saturday, James took his kids off to his parents farm for a couple of days to help with lambing, and I emptied a few boxes more at Beverley, before heading off to B&Q to get an extra cupboard.

On Sunday, with James still away and Lydia busy on her art coursework, I spent 6 hours or so at Driffield mantling (isn’t that the opposite of dis-mantling?) kitchen cupboards. Of course, all the units had come flat packed and they all needed making up, so I set about with my screwdriver, drill and alan key until I had built 6 shiny new cupboards. How satisfying (and exhausting!).

On Monday, and with James back, we were once again at Driffield to fit new cupboards to walls, etc. With lots of careful (and time-consuming) measuring and adjusting, we finally got cupboard one on the wall. Then, starting on cupboard two, there was an unwelcome spark and a thud, and yes, you’ve guessed it – James had drilled through an electric cable. Luckily it only tripped all the electric off and didn’t electrocute him, but nevertheless, it was then a very slow process to get access to the damaged cable tucked into a conduit in the back of the wall, to repair it. This took several more hours!

So, we didn’t get quite as far on as we’d hoped, and there’s still several more hours work to put in before it can be called a kitchen, but it’s good to get more done on the house. Unfortunately, we are all back at work now, and being kept more busy than we would like to be, so I’ll keep you posted about the progress of the house!

Moving On

This week we have moved house. Well, actually, houses! James moved from his rented cottage in Barrow-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire, and to his pleasure has ventured back over the Humber Bridge into Yorkshire. Liddi and I have moved from our house in Driffield to share with James in Beverley. My house in Driffield still needs some more work (kitchen, decorating, flooring) which we reckon will be easier and quicker when it is empty of furniture and people living there! Once that is done, we plan to rent out my house to cover it’s costs (as now is not the time to sell a house!).

We have temporarily moved into mum’s house. Since she moved into her care home last year, the house has been rented out to help raise money for care home fees. However, the tenants proved completely unreliable, untrustworthy and unsuitable. I managed to get them to leave by mid-March, but there was a lot of work needed to make the house habitable after the mess, filth and damage left behind! After a whirlwind 2 weeks of new locks, replacing broken window and damaged frame, decoration, new carpets, new aerial, repairing boiler, cleaning, etc, besides packing and sorting both our own houses in Driffield and Barrow, we finally moved into the house in Beverley on Monday 30th March. We decided to save money by hiring a van and doing the move(s) ourselves. I would advise anyone (including ourselves for next time) NOT TO DO THIS! It’s completely knackering and bloody hard work. When you think you can’t lift anything more, you realise you are only half way through and have no choice.

We left Driffield at 7.30am on Monday to pick up the van in Beverley. Then to Barrow to clear the house completely and load everything into the van. This took until about 3pm, partly due to his lethal, stupidly narrow staircase! James had been lent some furniture and household items from his parents, and combining 2 households meant we had some duplicate/unnecessary items, so some stuff was going into storage at his parent’s farm near Malton in North Yorkshire. We drove the 20 miles to Beverley, arriving at nearly 4pm and unloaded everything that we needed, which took us to 7pm. In the meantime, Liddi came back from school (happy to now be able to walk and not waiting for unreliable buses) and then she came with us to Driffield to load up with the few items we also wanted put into storage. We were at Driffield from around 7.30 till 8.30, and then left for Malton, arriving about 9.30 to unload with the help of James’s dad. We stayed for some most welcome tea and cakes, then left around 10.30, to get back to Driffield by nearly 11.30pm. Despite having very little energy left by now, and feeling very tired, we were now loading large items of furniture (beds, tables, fridge/freezers, washing machines) as well as loads of packed boxes of kitchen things, clothes, and all the stuff we were taking to Beverley. By now it was very quiet in the neighbourhood and we were conscious of the noisy trolley and crashing and banging made by us getting things into the van. We would all have happily given up by now if it wasn’t for the fact that we only had the van for one day, and it had to be done. We tried to pretend we were out at a party and that staying up late was the sign of having fun!! (no, it didn’t work for us!). We eventually left Driffield with a fully laden van at about 1.30am. We got back to Beverley at around 2pm and really, really, couldn’t even attempt to unload the van. Besides, we thought it a bit late to be clattering and banging outside everyone’s houses. It was a mild night and several windows were open. What we needed was sleep. We scrabbled around to find 2 mattresses and a couple of bags of bedclothes, and then put them on the floors in the bedrooms and crashed into a deep slumber around 2.30am.

However, the van had to be taken back for 7.30am on Tuesday, and was still full of our furniture! So, James and I started unloading again at 6am (Liddi had set her alarm also – bless her for offering – but couldn’t manage to get up and help – not that I’m surprised). We did get everything out of the van, and took it back by 7.30 exactly. Yippee!

Next we were back over to Barrow to thoroughly clean James’s house. He had a very fussy landlady (like I’m going to be in future!), who would happy deduct money from his deposit at the slightest thing. She told him that she had deducted money from some other tenants as they hadn’t cleaned the windows properly. So, despite feeling completely exhausted, bruised, battered and with aching muscles we didn’t even know we had….we set about cleaning, washing windows, etc. She arrived at 1.30 to inspect, and said all was good but the garden should have been dug over. Despite being very gentle natured, I thought James was going to hit her! If he didn’t, I wanted to!! She left, we borrowed a fork from next door (as everything had been packed and removed) and James dug over the garden. We then needed to go back to Driffield to pick up all my clothes which we had not managed to load into the van the day before, and a couple more items. Luckily we did not have to clear the house in Driffield completely as there was going to be no-one moving in straight away, and no inspections! By the time we were back at Beverley, it was around 8pm and we only had the energy to ring up for a Chinese takeaway and collapse on the sofa. After a yummy meal, we all treated ourselves to an early night.

The next morning was 1st April. I woke up convinced that someone had stolen my body and replaced it with that of a 90-year old woman. I hoped it was an April fool joke!! When we move again, we are definitely getting professional help (and I don’t just mean the trauma counselling required after this stressful event).