Tuesday October 28, 2008
The whole day at home so I waded into the pile of correspondence, making phone calls, web site visits, and writing letters to inform Tom, Dick and Harry that we’ve moved. By lunch time the pile was finished and filed away and I’d started on the job of working through the househole files one by one.
“How’re you doing?” Graham asked when he came down from the loft where he’d been fixing insulation.
“Fine. I’m almost done. When you hear me talking to the TV licence people you’ll know I’ve finished.”
And I am, too. Almost finished, that is. All the important changes done, and it’s less than a fortnight since we moved in. With luck and a following wind I’ll have finished the job tomorrow, though Graham tells me he may be ready to take another car load of flattened cardboard to the dump in the morning.
The house is becoming civilised, too, not least as the fabric of the place–thick brick, block and concrete–warms through after a long time with little or no heating. More and more stuff has disappeared into storage furniture and cupboards, and when the new living room Besta storage arrives next Tuesday the last of the cardboard boxes will be unpacked, their contents stowed, and pots and pictures fixed in place. It’ll not be long before bare walls are covered.
“And then you’ll rip it all down room by room so’s you can paint walls and woodwork, I suppose,” I said.
“Well of course. And new carpets. What would you expect?”
“Nothing more. Nothing less.”
