The Tale of the Marvelous Journey: Part 7 – The Easiest Move We Ever Made – Except Not

Wednesday dawns as ridiculously early as Tuesday did, but we have a mission today: move into the house. We had been trying to gather stuff up for 24 hours. We had a stuff explosion after we unpacked the van and there was no way we were going to fit everything in for the trip to the new house in just one load. We were supposed to be out of the cottage by 10 a.m., but had not heard yet from the letting agent. Not only had we not heard from them, we couldn’t track down our agent. Finally out of frustration, we called the Estate office and asked if we could stay past 10 a.m. Thankfully the cottage wasn’t to be cleaned until Thursday, so we could stay well into the afternoon if we needed to. Turns out we needed to.

Finally got the letting agency to call us with an appointment. We had to have an appointment to go pay them our rent. Irritating. Anyway, they gave me directions to the backside of their office to their “car park” (parking lot). Highly convoluted. We wound around and went this way and that way and miraculously made it to the right place with no wrong turns. I drove, Mom navigated. Good job Mom!

The car park was nothing more than a glorified dead end alley. We would think of it as an alley, but to the Brits, this is a car park. Maybe it was 2 car widths wide with cars parked at an angle nose-in on the right side. Somebody hadn’t pulled their Beamer all the way into the slot, so I knew the van wouldn’t make it in there. Plus I wasn’t sure how I would get out. So I parked illegally across the street in 2 residential spots. Mom and the kids stayed in the van with the cell phone poised to call us in the letting agent’s office should someone come along to ticket and/or tow the van.

Mom was creeped out, but was a trooper. Thanks, Mom!

We signed the papers, paid the rent, got the keys and were off to the house! Yippee!

Turns out it was the house I was hoping it was. HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF when we saw it. Modern, nice, updated. The kitchen totally rocks! We don’t have a TV as of yet, but Steve’s working on that. Apparently we have to pay a TV license just to buy a TV. We’re not sure how much it is, but you have to pay the government to own the TV. After I get y’all up to date on our goings-on, I’ll post pictures of the house.

It’s 10 p.m., Sunday, July 2. The sky is still light, but the sun has gone down. We are outside in the back garden and can still see the books on the table out here with us.

Next installment: Moving In and ASDA.