Thursday

Another lovely sunny day. To Wath upon Dearne to pick up some chairs we bought on e-bay, then to Jayne's for lunch and a cross-country trip home.

And my first pension pay-slip. I was a bit shocked at how little I was getting but the pay-slip shows I am over-paying tax to the tune of over £130 a month, which is quite a relief; once it's sorted it will be much nearer to what I was expecting.

Lunch in the garden yesterday, enjoying the view. There are frogs stirring in the pond, which is promising.  And new worms arrived by mail-order, for the compost wormery.  We'll put them into their new home tomorrow. I wonder if the courier knew what was in the parcel?

A visit from Donna and her dogs tomorrow.  I'll try to post some pictures.  And maybe give a bit more detail about the inside of the house.

I hear the PM and Boris are distressed that bankers' bonuses are to be limited to a year's pay.  How things change - clearly we're back to thinking that we need greedy scumbags who don't actually create or provide anything worthwhile to keep the country afloat. We haven't actually learnt anything from the 2008/2009 debacle.

Today's walk (with help from Android).

Generated by My Tracks app for android: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=217262733884307224050.0004d67c53af055ad068e
Created by Google My Tracks on Android. Name: 24/02/2013 09:45 Whatstandwell to High Peak Junction
 Activity type: - Walking: - Total distance: 4.62 km (2.9 mi) (halfway only)
 Total time: 1:12:54
Moving time: 1:04:19 (stopped for coffee)
Average speed: 3.80 km/h (2.4 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 4.31 km/h (2.7 mi/h) (Would have been much quicker if Sue had been with us)
Max speed: 9.91 km/h (6.2 mi/h)
Average pace: 15.79 min/km (25.4 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 13.93 min/km (22.4 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 6.06 min/km (9.7 min/mile) Max elevation: 225 m (738 ft) (Home)
Min elevation: 128 m (421 ft)
Elevation gain: 84 m (276 ft)

(Basically we walked there, had a coffee at High Peak Junction, and walked back)

This delightful (if a bit public) residence is currently for sale

The other side

We took a walk over on the other side of the Derwent Valley, the bit we see from the house.  You go through the village of Alderwasley (where Rosie and Fergus got married) then down through Shining Cliff woods, through a disused factory complex to Ambergate and back along the canal. Took two and a half hours so was probably about 7 miles.

And then later we found this, less than two miles away as the crow flies. Sloppily addressed post is likely to cause problems I think.

 

Not a very clear day but this is us from over there.

 

Under the Weather

Woke with a cracking head and feeling a bit sick, so having a couple of extra hours in bed.  Who else has a view like this from their sickbed?

Ikea - again!

For the third time since Friday. And B&Q.  To buy a cutlery tray labelled '300 mm wide' and measuring  just over 230mm. Very odd.  We've spent a lot of time buying stuff to do the jobs which need doing, but not much time actually doing them. At least we now have lights under the wall units in the kitchen, to light the worktop.

Sue spent 30 minutes explaining to MoreThan that she wouldn't pay their admin fee for changing her address off-line, because their website hadn't let her do it online during the last two days.  A car kept here is cheaper to insure by the way - we'll get a rebate!

Buzz and Cookie arrived on Sunday, thanks to Jane. So yesterday we took our first proper dog walks - we met a dog-walker called Clare, who was very friendly and gave us some good gen on Crich.  In the afternoon as it was getting dark we did perhaps the most obvious circuit, down to the Cromford Canal, along to the station and back up the road. The latter is a bit of a slog, and the pavement is narrow for one person walking two dogs (Sue stayed home making tea), but it's a good walk, taking about 40 minutes.

Took a second trip in three days to Ikea yesterday, so it's as well it's only about 20 minutes away.  Consequently there's quite a few jobs to do. Jayne and Chris are coming today, so I'm not sure much will be done jobs-wise, but there's no rush for any of them really.

Tonight will be the first trip back to Leicester to watch City - I think it'll be 11pm at the earliest by the time I'm back.

One issue I've got to tackle it the cooker hood - the bearings in the motor have gone and it sounds terrible: unusable. I think maybe I'm going to have to replace the whole thing, which is bad news. They've tiled round it so it'll have to be the same model, and we'd better get it quick before they discontinue it.  It's a job and an expense we hadn't reckoned on.

Another bright, frosty morning today. Just off out.

The Derwent Hotel

Just heard that the local pub has ceased trading just a few months after re-opening. Shame; we never even got to try it (although we did attempt to - it was closed both times. Perhaps that should have been a clue....).

Today's 'take your breath away' photo.

 

I took this with my phone (on the way back from the tip, as it happens), only to discover that the view from the house was, if anything, even better. 

Robin and Jane this morning were our first visitors (assuming you don't count the Sky engineer) and whilst showing them the garden and experimenting with the complicated and bodged electrics supplying power to the garden, the shed and the greenhouse, I managed to trip half the sockets in the house, and the circuit-breaker wouldn't reset.  I eventually worked out the the defunct water feature and a socket in the greenhouse (to be used for...?) all ran off a plug socket in the shed.  Once I unplugged it all, we were back in business.

Thanks for all the 'house-warming' cards and presents. Our friend Phillipa gave us a custom-made 1:25000 OS map with our house right at the centre. A brilliant and thoughtful present which will get a lot of use. We couldn't have wished for better weather for our first few days, but of course we've been really too busy for walking, and anyway the dogs don't arrive until later today.  Fingers crossed for similar weather for the next few days.

8.30

12.30

The sofa going in picture, missing from earlier.

7.30. Sue's completely bushed and gone to bed without supper.

Surrounded by boxes, it seem we still have far too much stuff for such a small house, despite the massive amount we got rid of.  I think once we get organised though, and can utilise the considerable loft space, we should be OK. (For the first time ever, I might have to have a winter and summer wardrobe, with the unused clothes going into the loft).

Anyway, we're here.  And it may be small but we own all of it - the bank doesn't have a share for once.  We've got a bit more downsizing to do and we'll be fine.

For Peak Practice fans, my tea came from the Cardale Fish Bar. No sign of that actress who always seems to have a nasty smell under her nose though, Amanda Burton, that's her.

Sky man (or woman) at 8am tomorrow, Sainsbury's delivery at 9.

One disaster - Sue produced a fistful of keys and said 'are you sure we were supposed to bring these?'. We most certainly weren't - garage, shed and back-gate keys to PHD, so it looks like a trip back to Leicester tomorrow and and a grovelling apology.

Sofa goes in.

Number 1

Homeless!

Caught between houses. PHD is sold, but Shaws Hill not yet bought. Sitting waiting for the money to go through so we can move in.

All our worldly goods.

Actually just a fraction!

All set for the hills.

So far weather's fine. Starting to cloud over a bit though. 45 mins until the truck arrives.

Thursday: zero minus 1

Many, many thanks to Jayne and Chris who came to help with the final mad dash towards something like organisation.  5.50pm now and we're spent.  But also pretty much organised.  There seems to be more stuff going from the garden than from the house.  Two big lads and a lorry will arrive at 9.30am tomorrow.  And this probably breaks all the rules, but our buyer has a key already, so we don't have to deliver one - that'll save some time.

I don't have much experience of this, and I'm having trouble getting my head round the fact that tomorrow we will walk away from this house and never be in it again.  Just feels weird.

The dogs went off at lunchtime with Jane A, who has generously offered  to look after them for the duration - they'll be back, in their new den as Sue keeps telling them, on Sunday.

Anyone have a secret formula for getting transit bolts back into a washing machine, or is it a forlorn hope?  (Reminds me of when Donna bought a new washing m/c and had a friend plumb it in. Couldn't understand why the machine kept trying to escape from the kitchen everytime she switched it on - transit bolts, of course).

Wednesday - zero minus 2

Somehow I know that order will be created out of chaos and on Friday every last thing we possess (which is considerably less than a month ago - thank goodness for e-bay and charity shops) will pass through the front door, the back gate or the garage door onto the lorry and away. Presently, though, that seems hard to believe.

 The dogs are a bit spooked; definitely know that something's up.

Tomorrow is the last full day for creating order out of the chaos.