from the floor

the house is emtpy. i have nothing to sit on but broadband and phone still works.

one more tip run is needed as some more junk appeared from behind doors.

the house is tidyish, not superclean but passable.

a neighbour turned up asking if we had any electronics we needed to give away, that phase being completed the answer was now. he then moved on to talking about his import / export business and could i help him from the us. no. and what star sign was i? he a pisces so therefore blabla blablabla. got rid of him in the end.

two more conference calls to do from the floor, then i am off. bye bye house.

White giants

The house is spooky tonight. Every room is filled with giant white boxes, everything is wrapped up except the bed and the stuff we need for the coming week. 

I hadn't realised they would go through each drawer and take out the items and put in boxes. The man who did our bedroom kept coming in asking if this or that should be packed, luckily all he found was wallets and glasses. I think.

Tomorrow its all shipped. Fingers crossed BT leaves the internet and phone on til Friday as I need to work all day. Sitting on the floor with the laptop and phone. I can pretend I am a hippy office worker.

They have also packed my vacuum cleaner so there is limited amounts of tidying I can do. Am collaring the largest dust dogs and releasing them into the wild.

Tick

Visa - tick!

Maybe I should...: eat more veg.
I love...: JD, sleeping, reading, eating and being with friends.
People would say that I'm...: sociable but I often am just the opposite.
I don't understand...: why this move is taking so long
When I wake up in the morning...: I am normally up and atom.
Life is full of...: friends
My past is...: what made me who I am
I wish...: I was naturally sporty
Tomorrow...: we spend the day in London, fingers crossed the Septics like us.
I have low tolerance...: for time wasting, unorganised events and queueing.
I am totally terrified of...: spiders and the dark.
If I had a million dollars...: I would buy the summer house and do it up with mum and dad. And pay of our mortgage. Tell Halifax to go stuff it.
I am...: tired.
My home is...: only mine for another 4 nights.
My best friend...: will be far away when I move.
My parents taught me...: most things I know.
Every day...: I read.
My life...: is good.
If I found out my ex was gay...: I would laugh. 
Boys are...: nice but strange.
Girls are...: nice but can also be strange.
I hate people who...: annoy me. Although I quite like being righteously annoyed so maybe I dont hate them that much.
Last November...: JD lived in Sweden and I was over to visit for a week.
Hickory Dickory Dock...: no idea.
The best invention ever...: books
I love it when...: its raining so I have to stay in and read.
Sometimes I...: read Barbara Cartland.
I work...: quite hard, sometimes, but not too hard. Its just work.
GO...: HOME
God...: knows
Jesus...: glows
Buddha...: throws

My dream last night...: was drunken
My first thought waking up...: need water
Today I ate...: Double cheese burger, small fries, coke zero, pringles. One of those days.
Sometimes I swear...: quite often.
As a child, I...: used to share room with my sister.
The world could do with less...: religion

Done. Now you do.

Packing angst

We are not quite there yet. Tomorrow morning the spare bed should go into the loft, golf clubs get cleaned, packing of stuff for coming 6 weeks happen, sign tenancy agreement, confirm all papers in order for visa interview Monday, pack off plants to Hils, bottles to Just, last box of CDs into garage.

I am starting to get that worried feeling in my tummy, both for visa and packing. Oh and Halifax are messing us around on the mortgage side, keep changing their mind on what we need to do. Not what I need right now. Am going to leave Halifax as soon as I can. Useless.

Offski!

Am fine. Turns out I was feeling iffy probably because the air con on Mondays is useless, after being off all weekend its always strange on Mondays so the whole office went around feeling on the verge of illness.

Am off home today! Whohoo! Leaving bags here, just bringing home my new laptop (looove) and what I am wearing. Nice travelling light.

Feeling iffy

I am not feeling great all of a sudden and now I feeling worse. It could be because I have spent 15 min reading up on swineflu. Or because I just ate a bag of M&Ms (I thought the sugar might perk me up). Or it could be to give me a reason to go straight to the hotel after work to read. Which I doubt cause I was going to do that anyway.

I wish I had my lemsip stash here though. I normally have some of the lemon lemsip pulver you mix with hot water and drink, in my office drawer, but that is in the UK and not here. Oh and how should I have written that sentence to not make it sound like I drink hot water from my office drawer?

soppy

HBO showed Mama Mia tonight. I do like that film. Meryl Streep is always good and somehow makes the songs a bit more alive than the two A's. This is my favorite: Slipping through my fingers. Makes me all weepy. In a good way.

Sales pitch

I got a mac book today. I love it. I brought it back to the hotel, opened it up and voila I was on line.

Its what should happen whenever you buy anything but normally you end up spending at least a couple of hours charging, setting up, loading software etc etc. Then possibly you can actually use the thing.

Am now sitting here, listening to Terry and loading my photos while waiting for someone to log onto Skype so I can chat to them. 

Tired

I work and sleep. Dont do a lot more. Hoping for nice weather over weekend so I can try and find the beach (again).

Am reading The End of Mr Y as I loved her PopCo book. This one is a bit hard to get into but I shall persist. Am also reading High Fidelity as its just a nice book. And listening to a CJ Sansom book which is a great background book to listen to I am finding. That is all my brain can take after working all day.

No books

I have run out of books. My own fault for reading all I had and not going to book club for a while. So this morning I was thinking about going to Waterstones for a top up when I saw my favorite actor (well second favorite after Jim Broadbent) Bill Nighy on tv promoting Oxfams book stores. So I popped in on the way back from lunching with Bard (oh so civilized, will miss our Fridays) and got myself four books:

The Sex Life of my Aunt by Mavis Cheeks (well it looked like an easy read for a plane journey)
The End of Mister Y by Scarlett Thomas (I have just finished Pop Co by her and loved it)
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (as I need a comfort read for Stamford)
All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman (just loved both title and cover)

Now just need to not read all over the weekend...

House work

I am slowly trying to empty our house. Certain items have disappeared. The upstairs tv and digi box. Two bags of booze handed over to my boss. A paitning, some material and wine waiting in the back of my car for my friend Louise to come back from holiday. Today our shoe cupboard was handed over to some man sent by his wife to pick up to store his smelly shoes in. Tomorrow I hope someone will come and pick up a bed side table and a sack of cables (all of course in a mess as cables have a life of their own and expertly intertwine as if by magic).

I am thinking microwave to go next. And some more clothes. Then B has promised to take dining table and chairs, and washing machine. And the main tv will go to the same family who picked up nr 1 (they have four kids who all want to watch tv / play computer games.) By end of month we should have a more compact home to move. But we still have absolute tons of stuff. I want to have a Muji house in white and no stuff. That is never going to happen.

5 hrs

til episode 3. Am looking forward to it. In the mean time I try and focus on the conference calls I have back to back all evening. Whohoo...

Episode 2 tomorrow at 9

cant wait

Torchwood

Bliss. A whole week of Torchwood.
Captain Jack Harkness. Yum.






Picture from www.bbc.co.uk/torchwood

Planning

4-10th July - sorting, packing stuff into piles for Air / Ship freight
11th July - leaving do, Hove Lawns / The Sussex (if it rains)
12th July - be hungover
13th July - fly to US for a week and a bit
14-22nd July - work in Stamford
23rd-26th July - pack the last stuff (in a panic I suspect)
27th July - Visa interview with Embassy, am already nervous
29-30th July - moving men arriving, packing our stuff and taking it all away
31st July - we hand over our keys to the tennants and drive to Jo and Chris with the car
1st-15th?? Aug - working here while waiting for news on visa, living at Heidi's first and then moving to Abby's where JD will be a tennant for a few months.

Somewhere in the middle of that we need to freecycle two tv's, a washing machine, a tumble dryer and get a table, some chairs and gardening furniture over to B & S. I get tired just thinking about it. At least the garden is tidy thanks to mum and dad working hard in the heat earlier this week.

Stuff

We are trying to sort through all our stuff to identify what to bring, charity shop or store. Going through the rooms we live in has been fine, we have weeded out some books and clothes and shoes and given to charity but overall didnt find anything surprising.
Going through the loft we discovered a few things we "lost" in the last move but going through the garage has been the most intreresting. So so much stuff is now being taken to the tip / charity shops that really should never have been moved here in the first place 3 years ago.

Moving is hard work, but on a positive we will have somewhat less stuff by the time we arrice in the US. But I am sure I can rectify that with some shopping once there.

Tanned and relaxed

After a weeks holiday driving around Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Wiltshire, Somerset etc I am thoroughly relaxed and quite tanned. Love swimming in the salty sea. Not so keen on the pebble beaches round here, preferred the long sandy beaches of Devon and Corwall. But hey ho just being off has been lovely.

Photos on flickr.