Yes Boys and Girls, we're finally here in Church Stretton. The movers packed up our Stanmore house yesterday and they loaded the truck and brought us here today. It was a good run .... just about 3 hours door to door .... but as we came north and west the skies clouded over and it started to rain just as we started to unload the truck. It has been raining on and off ever since, but that's ok.
We've seen a few birds already, but the big thrill of the evening was the BADGER!!!!! It ran across the lawn at about 7:45 this evening. I think it had been to the stream for a drink.
We've set up our bed, bought a few staples in the local supermarket, had dinner in the local Indian restaurant (quite yummy), and now we're sitting in the room which is to be John's study. That's because we found a co-ax connector in here and can pick up 3 channels on TV.
Our next door neighbours came over while we were out and left a card. I called and had a chat - things are really looking up now.
Time for a cup of tea ..... it's so good to be back here and in a real house at last.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Stage 1 Complete!
Hooray! We've finally made it to the U.K.
The movers did a great job of packing up our U.S. flat and we waved goodbye to our stuff on Tuesday. In the end, I only found one thing the movers had missed - a pewter tankard that was a present from my college room mates when I turned 21! Fortunately, there was plenty of room for it in my suitcase, and it is now with my Dad's old tankards waiting for the next set of movers.
Spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights in a hotel at Columbus airport. Wednesday we tied up the last of our loose ends, sold the car, finished cleaning the flat and generally raced around like mad things! In the evening we drank champagne and dined on Big Macs!!!!! Thursday we flew out at 6:55 am!
Our trip over was uneventfull. Everything went very smoothly and we arrived here, in Stanmore, soon after midnight on Thursday. We had to get up early yesterday (Friday) to get to the bank and take care of the final transfer of money for the house. That is now all done and, hopefully, the movers will show up on Tuesday to pack us up.
Wednesday is the actual moving day. Jill will move out of Peel Wyke in the morning as we are moving out of Ladycroft Walk. In the afternoon she will take up residence in Devon and we will move into Peel Wyke. It's a stupid system. Too easy to hit a snag and foul the whole thing up. I wonder if there's a movement to change the house buying and selling process over here. If there is, I want to support it. In some ways this move has been more stressful than the breast cancer was.
Still, never mind. It's almost over. Let's talk about nicer things. The weather here is glorious. Temps in the high 60s and crystal clear blue skies. Very unusual, but extremely pleasant. This weekend is a long bank-holiday weekend, so we are going to do a few things and take it easy the rest of the time. A little break will be welcome before we tackle the next move. After that, there's only one more upheaval when the american stuff arrives in 6 to 8 weeks. Then we can really start to settle in.
For the moment we will be living in a gorgeous house with some very grotty old furniture. We reckon it will take at least a year to get organized and probably longer to really get all the furniture and decoration done the way we want it.
Well, stay in touch - we now have our laptop set up and are ready to continue with e-mails, and ..... stay tuned for the next installment of the Arnfield Moving Adventures ...
The movers did a great job of packing up our U.S. flat and we waved goodbye to our stuff on Tuesday. In the end, I only found one thing the movers had missed - a pewter tankard that was a present from my college room mates when I turned 21! Fortunately, there was plenty of room for it in my suitcase, and it is now with my Dad's old tankards waiting for the next set of movers.
Spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights in a hotel at Columbus airport. Wednesday we tied up the last of our loose ends, sold the car, finished cleaning the flat and generally raced around like mad things! In the evening we drank champagne and dined on Big Macs!!!!! Thursday we flew out at 6:55 am!
Our trip over was uneventfull. Everything went very smoothly and we arrived here, in Stanmore, soon after midnight on Thursday. We had to get up early yesterday (Friday) to get to the bank and take care of the final transfer of money for the house. That is now all done and, hopefully, the movers will show up on Tuesday to pack us up.
Wednesday is the actual moving day. Jill will move out of Peel Wyke in the morning as we are moving out of Ladycroft Walk. In the afternoon she will take up residence in Devon and we will move into Peel Wyke. It's a stupid system. Too easy to hit a snag and foul the whole thing up. I wonder if there's a movement to change the house buying and selling process over here. If there is, I want to support it. In some ways this move has been more stressful than the breast cancer was.
Still, never mind. It's almost over. Let's talk about nicer things. The weather here is glorious. Temps in the high 60s and crystal clear blue skies. Very unusual, but extremely pleasant. This weekend is a long bank-holiday weekend, so we are going to do a few things and take it easy the rest of the time. A little break will be welcome before we tackle the next move. After that, there's only one more upheaval when the american stuff arrives in 6 to 8 weeks. Then we can really start to settle in.
For the moment we will be living in a gorgeous house with some very grotty old furniture. We reckon it will take at least a year to get organized and probably longer to really get all the furniture and decoration done the way we want it.
Well, stay in touch - we now have our laptop set up and are ready to continue with e-mails, and ..... stay tuned for the next installment of the Arnfield Moving Adventures ...
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Our New House
Here's our new house in Church Stretton. This is a view of the east end of the house, taken by the estate agent early this year. The French windows that you can see open from the living and dining rooms onto the patio. Bodbury Hill lies behind - it's the location of the highest golf course in England!
At Last!!!!!
We've just received the e-mail from our solicitor that contracts have been exchanged! That means the sale/purchase will more than likely go through. Our English move is booked to take place on August 31st, so with a bit of luck we will become residents of Church Stretton on that day.
We haven't booked our flights yet ... still waiting to find out the exact day when we will move out of our Columbus flat. That should take place sometime next week and then we'll hightail it out of here for a few months.
We're planning to get a return ticket and come back in February (brrrrrr!) for the Columbus/Dayton Polymer Clay Guild's Buckeye Bash followed by the AAG in Chicago.
We've been building a mailing list of all our e-mail contacts (over 290 so far) and will send out our address change information within the next week.
Stay tuned .... and keep in touch, please.
We haven't booked our flights yet ... still waiting to find out the exact day when we will move out of our Columbus flat. That should take place sometime next week and then we'll hightail it out of here for a few months.
We're planning to get a return ticket and come back in February (brrrrrr!) for the Columbus/Dayton Polymer Clay Guild's Buckeye Bash followed by the AAG in Chicago.
We've been building a mailing list of all our e-mail contacts (over 290 so far) and will send out our address change information within the next week.
Stay tuned .... and keep in touch, please.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
No more real news
I'm soooooo frustrated!
It's now almost a month since my last post and we STILL don't know when we'll be moving. We have heard that the contracts will be signed shortly, but until that happens we can't be sure that the whole thing won't fall apart on us.
I can't believe how long this is taking. Our U.K. friends warned us that it is a long, slow, stressful process, but this is even worse than they predicted.
We now have estimates from moving firms on both sides of the Atlantic, but we can't confirm with them until we have a fixed date for leaving here and moving my Mum's stuff from Stanmore to Church Stretton.
Stay tuned .... we'll be posting here as soon as we know anything, and we'll be sending out a change of address e-mail at about the same time.
It's now almost a month since my last post and we STILL don't know when we'll be moving. We have heard that the contracts will be signed shortly, but until that happens we can't be sure that the whole thing won't fall apart on us.
I can't believe how long this is taking. Our U.K. friends warned us that it is a long, slow, stressful process, but this is even worse than they predicted.
We now have estimates from moving firms on both sides of the Atlantic, but we can't confirm with them until we have a fixed date for leaving here and moving my Mum's stuff from Stanmore to Church Stretton.
Stay tuned .... we'll be posting here as soon as we know anything, and we'll be sending out a change of address e-mail at about the same time.
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