Good grief, how time flies! Especially when you have the fun of unpacking and re-packing. We will only be in this flat a short time, though it is hard to tell how short at present. We are due down in London over the Jubilee weekend, to attend some friends' 40th wedding anniversary party on the Saturday and also a street party on the following Monday. I though of going to see the Jubilee procession on the Thames on the Sunday, but by all accounts it will be hard to see anything, so I am a bit ambivalent about that. On June 6th, after the holidays are over, I have to go in to work to talk about the possibility of my doing some, so I am not sure if and when I'll be back in Manchester. If the work turns out not to be every day, I will be up and down a bit so I can give some help with the new house as well as helping the final move out of the flat. My son is hoping the flat can be let for a while after July as it is in negative equity, so we need to make sure it starts out clean and fit to let. While I am not working in London, I need to be sorting out, cleaning and tidying in up in Manchester. Heaven knows when I can do the same in my own house.
Our days have passed in unpacking and deciding what we need here, then re-packing what we don't need. The boxes need to be carefully labelled, so we know where to look to find things. I daresay there will be lots of things we find we don't need at all - after all, we lived out of one suitcase each from August last year until now - 9 months - so we really don't need all the stuff we keep in boxes. It is just hard to throw out things with sentimental value. The bedroom is more or less organised
but downstairs is still a disaster area, full of boxes.
Our time has also partly been spent visiting shops that sell sofa beds, as we need a new one. Paul wants a comfy sofa in his study, and it seems sensible to make it a sofa bed as we hope to have visiting grandchildren as well as their parents. But the room isn't huge, so we need a compact one, and we need to be able to sit on it before we buy it. This seems impossible in many places, where they seem to expect you to buy from a catalogue or on the Internet, but it must be a bit difficult if you find it uncomfortable when it arrives in your home. I hated the sofa in the flat we rented last March in Manchester, because it was so deep if I sat with my back against the back of it, my legs didn't reach the floor, and if I slumped on it, I got a sore back. And we have sat on sofas which were far too firm, and others which were too soft. So we need to try before we buy. We have made several long expeditions to shops all over the place, without finding anything we like - or in some cases, anything at all.
We have also passed time at the new house looking after my grandson as well as doing odd jobs. Yesterday, Paul put up a washing line in the garden (must make use of the beautiful weather), mended the garage side door (the lock had come right out of the door jamb) and tried to stop the washing machine dancing about in the basement. In the end, sitting on it proved to be the only possibility yesterday; it will have to be screwed down in some way or it will dance away from its waste pipe and water connections. And our grandson makes such a mess while eating that the kitchen floor need cleaning after every meal, not to mention the mess everybody makes while trekking in from the garden. Our grandson is fascinated by any little item he finds on the floor and immediately puts it in his mouth, so we have to keep sweeping the floor - I think I did it 3 or 4 times yesterday, and we were only there a few hours. He adores the fact he can just go out to the garden, and goes in and out all the time. There are big wooden steps down onto paving stones, so we have to be behind him constantly, to ensure he doesn't fall down backwards. It certainly keeps us busy!
We still take him to the park near the flat, as it is very big and there is a babies' playground. He is very happy running about on the grass though
and found the daisies quite fascinating today - he hasn't seen those before.
Tomorrow we hope to take him to Chester Zoo - we are taking advantage of the good weather, as apparently it won't last!
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