Crikey, it’s ages since we last blogged but we have been pretty busy 
We had a massive push in the last 10 days or so before moving in to get the place habitable so lots of time getting floor boards back down, laying some off-cuts of carpet around the place, curtains up in the bedrooms at least, generally tidying up, cleaning, finishing off the last few bits of 2nd fix plumbing and electrics, getting the rubbish outside sorted out etc. A big thank you to everyone who lent a hand during this period to ensure we hit our ‘end of March’ deadline, especially to Richard, Helen and Beth who gave up a Saturday morning to help us! So, we finally moved in on March 30th and it feels so good to be here at last … let the dream begin to become a reality!
Big thanks to Margaret (Nigel’s mum) who was with us all day during the move helping to pack and then unpack, also to my parents Rick and Iris for looking after the kids for us so we didn’t have to worry about them, and also to Margit and Jill for providing sustenance in the form of sarnies and Bolognese sauce!
Since then we have slowed down a little bit (deservedly so I reckon), but have still be very busy getting stuff done, unpacked and generally settling into our new home. We will try and blog separately about some of these things, but some of the ‘highlights’ since moving in include:
- having the ‘paddock’ mowed, and all the excess grass gathered and dumped elsewhere leaving the grass looking less like a field and more like a garden
- planting 25 trees, again to make outside start to feel more like a garden
- getting all our outside ‘rubbish’ loaded into an enormous skip and taken away
- tiling and grouting the shower cubicle only to find the shower itself was not working, buying a new shower valve only to discover that was also faulty!! We continue to hose down in the bath …
- re-planting the baby oak trees plus a couple of extra ‘finds’ into larger pots
- using ‘freecycle’ to get rid of a lot of old appliances that we no longer need
Needless to say there is absolutely masses still left to do, but now we’re in we can take our time and, hopefully, enjoy the experience in a slightly more relaxed way! We will try and keep up with our blog a little better from now on too 
