On Tuesday, 16th March, we finally moved into our new house. I’ve put some photos of the move online, but we’ll try to get some more of the new flat online in the next few days.

The move itself went fine, despite my worries about getting the van loaded (would it all fit? would we get it done on time?). We had loads of help from Damyanti’s sister, Ian and Martin to get the van loaded, and by around 10pm on Monday evening, we had loaded the majority of our stuff.

Since I was still worrying about the whole thing, I woke up early on Tuesday. I was aching all over, so the first thing I did was have a bath, before starting to throw out even more rubbish (unfortunately some of the stuff we intended to recycle went into the bin because we just needed to get rid of it).

We were all finished by about 10:30 on Tuesday, so we then took Damyanti’s sisters stuff over to her new flat (yes, not content with just one move in a day, we decided to do two), and then basically sat around waiting for the sale to go through.

Finally we got the call about 1:30 to say that money had gone through, and we could pick up the keys. However, the person we were buying from was still in the process of moving out, so we went over, and waited by the van until he had cleared out. So we finally got to put stuff into the house at about 2:30.

I can tell you that unpacking is a lot more rewarding than packing, and seemed easier. Again we had help, this time from Mark, and Nicky came over as well.

The place needs a good clean – I started sneezing almost as soon as we got there. I think it’s just dust (hope I’m not allergic to the flat!) I suspect once the dust has settled I’ll be OK again. Anyway, we need to give the place a good clean before unpacking all our things.

It also needs decorating. I have to say I thought it was in better condition than it is. It isn’t awful, but the sooner we can paint, the better really. We also need to fit lights into the living room and kitchen (he used standard lamps in both), and replace the curtains, and the blind in the bedroom (which was filthy, and broken)

Unfortunately, since I’m away now until Friday, and then we are going to Seattle a week on Monday, we won’t have much time to do this before Easter. I’m hoping we can clean, fit some lights, and unpack the majority of our stuff this weekend – we’ll see.

I know Damyanti cleaned one of the windows last night, and said the water was absolutely filthy.

I can’t wait to get home to start setting up home.