Flat finished and occupied!

Well what a week and I am not sorry to see the end of it. I’m still living in India time, going to sleep at 8pm and waking anytime around 4am. We’ve only had odds and sods to do in the Oldbrook flat but it has taken forever and we’ve been working around the clock trying to get things finished ready for Harriet. She moved in yesterday and it was very stressful for everyone. Unfortunately Shane had to work so HH had to do the lion’s share of moving their stuff in. Shane brought their new TV to the flat in his lunch hour and Phil fitted the wall bracket. Once it was all set up Phil couldn’t get a signal so we’ve had to arrange for the TV aerial man to come and fit a digital free-view aerial with a socket into the lounge and the main bedroom.

Kevin the new corgi plumber is ignoring all of our calls and so we’ve still got to get the hole drilled out in the kitchen for the extractor fan. It makes me so cross when people don’t call you back; if Kevin doesn’t want the work why doesn’t he just say?? Trouble is, I do need to stalk him because I need to get copies of all the gas safety certificates which he carried out before we went away.

It seems that we can’t go away on holiday without having a flood in a flat. This time it was the toilet waste in the Two Mile Ash flat leaking into the flat below. We weren’t troubled with this whilst we were away because this flat is managed by Morgan’s but even so, it has cost us money to fix and the problem is a direct result of David’s crap plumbing. Lovely as he is, every job he has ever done for us has resulted in a subsequent leak somewhere along the line. It never rains but it pours.

Talking of flats, we have yet to sort out the subsidence problem in the one bed Giffard Park flat. It’s so easy when you’re away to forget all your problems but they sure do come back to bite you on the bum when you get home and somehow the problems seem even bigger.

We were worried when we returned from Goa at the beginning of the week because we hadn’t got anything in the post about the kebab flat sale. But follow up calls to the agent and our solicitor and it all seems to be on track. In fact, very on track; contracts have been drawn up and are ready to be signed and we are looking at completion at the end of the month. Phil spoke to Jimmy yesterday and he’s still okay with us borrowing Shirley’s house and we can get the keys in a couple of weeks. This is a godsend really because it means we can start moving our stuff gradually. Not that we will have a lot of stuff to move because we agreed to throw in a lot of our gear with the house sale. The biggest problem in moving is the post redirection. We still have a post redirection from Giffard Park so I guess I need to cancel this and get a redirection from GP to Neath Hill and then do a new post redirection from the kebab flat to Neath Hill? The PO Box is fine, nothing to do there but then I have to do a change of address for the company.
I think for this move I am going to try and direct most of our mail to go to the PO box, it makes life much easier, especially as Phil has planned for us to move another 3 times before the years out. Joy (not).

Harriet had her first night in the flat last night and I am wondering how she got on. We took her some wine, a box of beers and a card round and the last we heard she had sent Shane out for a takeaway. We have to go round later this morning to do the meter readings, sort out the aerial man and show HH how to work the oven. Phil also needs to set the timer on the boiler and show Harriet how to put gas on the meter downstairs. We should get away by 2’ish at the latest, then I guess its back to the kebab flat to start on the accounts which I am not looking forward to. Phil phoned Rashmi our accountant yesterday to make an appointment for next week so we really have to get the accounts done, no excuses.

Now that the flat is finally finished I wonder what we shall do with ourselves. Okay we have the accounts but maybe a couple of days rest inbetween? We don't have any plans for the bank holiday weekend. I guess that Phil will want to crack on with his OU and I suppose he will drag me along with him on his snail hunt along the canal. I don’t really have any problems with this, as long as I don't have to pick them up and he buys me a pub lunch and a glass of wine (or 2)!!