Finally, just over seven full months from receiving the keys, and ten months from putting in our offer, we are living in our house. From my last entry, it's been a big push to get things finished. Kitchen painted, new kitchen fitted, tiled, flooring, filling, carpets throughout the house, furniture shopping, furniture assembling (we are flat pack experts!), packing, unpacking, and we are here. Of course, there is still some work to do, but I really feel in no rush to get these things done. I now understand why en-suites go unfinished for eons and am glad that we got the major operations finished before we moved in. I am starting to even ignore the persnickety little lines that I want to touch up because they have been banged up during the moving process or weren't straight enough from the start. Once you are in, and working, and living a normal life, you simply haven't time to get around to these things.
What I am still looking forwards to doing is filling up our walls a bit. Time to break out the old albums and see what pictures are worthy to decorate the walls. And here are some pictures for you to look at to see where we are. If you want to see more, I have a full set of old vs. new on Facebook.
Other than the house (and work) filling my time, we did go on holiday the last week of July. We joined the Nowell party in South Devon for a spot of sea canoeing and mooching around the small towns. I really enjoyed Devon. The whole place seemed a bit more up-market than Dorset where we visited last year. Really nice atmosphere, rolling hills, calm seas, and small pebble beaches. The beaches were a bit strange at the start and most practical if you are wearing (shocking-pink) aqua socks :) but once you are sitting on the pebble beach, it was great. You could mould the rocks to however you comfortably wanted to sit and they were large enough that they didn't stick to you in places you hoped sand would never go, but always does.
We glamped at a site where you could see the sea when drinking your morning coffee, visited Agatha Christie's house and estate, fished off the pier in Torquay (but didn't find Faulty Towers, nor any fish), twice canoed in the sea off of a beach called Blackpool Sands, walked to a lighthouse (and learned that the British Government will always fund the lighthouses because the American Military owns GPS, thus who knows when they might "turn it off"), mooched around the shops in many of the small local villages, fished off of the beach, fished off the canoes (successfully), and ate the freshest mackerel sushi I have ever had. All in all a good week and a good past month and a half.
Oh yes, and with the recent events in England... we are all safe. I blame the rioting on bad parenting. People who have no morals or values or respect for anything. Life lesson: force manners and values down your kids throats, because eventually some of it is bound to sink in.
