Tuesday 8 July 2008

Abandoned, upheaval ahead!

I was just getting ready to blog again and catch up with the weeks events when my mam phoned to drop a bombshell. She and my dad have decided to relocate back oooppp north. Gulp .. i've been abandoned. It is all happening in the next 2 months too. Eeekkk, even gulpier! The good news is that the new house is on the sea front, the bad news is that it is a couple of hundred miles away.

It is a strange feeling knowing that mam and dad won't be just around the corner anymore. Even when we leave town for extended periods in the motorhome, their house is still home. Now it won't be ... sob!

Logistically it is now going to be a busy 2 months for us. A lot of our belongings are stored in mam & dad's loft and shed, our vehicles are registered to their address, our washing is done in their laundry room ... wow, it is going to be like moving home ourselves all over again, a huge task ahead. I don't want to think about it tonight, I don't think i'll sleep!

What else do I have to report?

Well, shower's not fixed. We set aside sunday to do it and it hammered it down with rain on a regular basis. Not conducive to having a body half in and half out of the thetford opening trying to dismantle drain hoses. This is now on the urgent list ... our interim shower is also moving north. :(

I know I said it would be fixed at the weekend come rain or shine - well I lied!

We ran out of gas a few days ago, just after the MOT on the motorhome ran out. As we have Gaslow refillable cylinders we have to drive to a pump to refill which is really handy if you are on the road, not so if you van hasn't left the same property in a while and the MOT has expired. It is now booked in for MOT on friday with the gas refill to occur immediately afterwards.

So far we have managed with an electric oven, camping gas burner, deep fat fryer, toaster, electric steamer and disposable bbq's so believe me we haven't starved. It is a good job the shower is not working, no hot water needed there then! We have been boiling the electric kettle to wash up - but we also have a gas one too to use on the camping stove in case of power cuts! Do we sound prepared? ha ha.

Our portable satellite also stopped working at some point about 3 weeks ago. We also have an indoor digital TV ariel so it there was no urgency to get it fixed. (- are you seeing a pattern here?) But with the TV ariel you have to move it around for different channels which really became boring especially if one of the dogs knocked it when you were watching TV. Luckily my brother is an ex satellite engineer and came round to take a look. Turns out the LNB had slipped and was upside down - don't know how that happened. All works now and it was repaired for free too! :)

My London exploring is going well. Last week I walked from Kings Cross to a meeting at Pall Mall and only had 1blister. When will I learn not to wear heels for hiking? I saw lots of places that I had heard of but never seen and am beginning to get a better idea of how London is laid out. I only made one wrong turn on the whole walk and that I only went a couple of minutes past my turning. Christopher Columbus eat your heart out :)

One of the unusual (to me anyway) things I saw was a scientology centre - I didn't know they actually existed. I just thought they were a fad for the rich and famous!

We have spent some more time photographing all our bits and pieces that we have for sale. The motorbike is in one magazine and will be in another this week, the surfboard and psp will hit ebay this week. I suppose there will be lots more on soon when we get in the loft to empty it out. Watch this space.

Finally, we have been spending a bit of time on the computer lately what with looking for a new car and selling what we have. I think Reef got a bit bored!

Tuesday 1 July 2008

98 miles a week

Today I worked out that I drive 98 miles a week to have a shower!!!! WOW! That is a third of a tank of petrol, no wonder our petrol bill is so high.

There is nothing else for it, this weekend, fixing our shower is the priority task. Come rain or shine it is going to get some tender loving care and it WILL be working by sunday.