Jason and I are almost settled in our new place, with the exception of a few boxes still needing to be unpacked...I didn't realise we had so much stuff!
Our move went pretty smoothly. We were up early to pick up the van, poor Jason having to learn to drive it with me in there, not an easy job....we only nearly applied for a divorce a couple of times ...well I do get a bit stressed! When we got back, our lovely friends were there waiting to help us move all our stuff, with their help, we were done loading the van in a couple hours!
We grabbed a quick coffee and a cake and then Jason, Mark and I said goodbye to everyone and set off on our way. It was a bit of a journey as we were in a big van piled up with our stuff, but we eventually got there. It was about 3pm when we finally had unloaded the van, then Mark had to shoot off, so Jase and I were just left with the horrible task of unpacking everything. We got a fair bit done on Saturday evening, then we just had to sit down and chill as we were so tired.
The next day it was a 6.30am start to drop off the van back and clean our old flat. Now, in hindsight, I would have hired someone to do this, I did think about it, but I wanted to save the money, so decided against it. It ended up taking us 6 hours!!! We were exhausted, my poor back and shoulders were killing me. I said to Jason that I didn't think it would have taken that long, but he said he knew it would cos he knows how fussy I am about cleaning...cheeky! He seems to think I enjoy it...well I guess I do, as long as it's my own place and it's just maintenance cleaning...I find it really rewarding to sit back afterwards and see how lovely it looks!
We got back to our new home in time for dinner which consisted of the left-over pizza from the previous night. I must say, I love our new place, it's sooo nice, I don't miss our old flat one bit, this is in a different league, we have so much more space, and of course it's newly renovated which is lovely. I love having a shower there, for a start the bathroom is huge, but the best thing is we have a really big water heater here, so no more 3 minute showers trying to rush washng the conditioner out of your hair before the water turns cold! Plus no more fighting with the shower curtain which had a habit of sticking to your body, we have a proper cubicle...big enough for about 10 people!! probably not so great when it comes to cleaning, but I haven't crossed that bridge just yet.
I had the day off last Monday, so it gave me a chance to get things more sorted. I had a bit of a walk around our new neighbourhood to find some food, and I got such a nice feeling about the place, it's actually a fair bit bigger than I originally thought, and everyone seems so friendly, which is good.

So getting to work takes a fair bit longer, but with a newspaper or book, it does fly by, it just means getting up a bit earlier and getting home a bit later, but it's not so bad. Talking of work, can't remember if I mentioned before that I've got to apply for my own job, because of the Bupa takeover, there is a whole new restructure, so because I'm a contractor, I have to apply which is a pain. I put my application in on Friday, and if I'm the only applicant, then my boss has said I don't need to interview for it, which is great, because they've an external consulting company doing the interviews, so fingers crossed!

So back to our new place, we had a busy day yesterday buying lots of things. We bought a couple of bar stools for our breakfast bar, so we've got somewhere to sit while we eat. We want to get a couple of bedside tables too, but then we thought we may as well wait and buy a bedroom set, inc bed so it all matches. We have also seen a dining table which we just need to measure our room to see if it will fit, it's great, we've got that much room to have a dining room table!

Last night, Jason and I went out for our first meal out in the area, we went to a small Thai restaurant, was funny, there was only 3 other groups of people in there! After that we thought we'd check out our new local pub. There was a live band on, who were actually quite good, all the locals were dancing and having fun, it was very different to your city bars, was very funny to watch! I said to Jason I keep getting paranoid when I walk around here, I think everyone is looking at me and saying, "she's new to the area!" as it is such a small community. I was half expecting for the music to stop when we walked into the pub last night and everyone stop what they were doing and start staring! But of course they didn't.

Anyway, must get on, we've got some more domestic stuff to do today.