Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Sooooo, where to start? Well it's Wednesday (I think - I've rather lost track) and we have been in for 5 nights and I guess you could say on the one hand we have done quite well: the house is looking ship shape, we have pictures on the walls and clothes in the cupboards and we pretty much know where things are now in the kitchen. On the other though we are running off a generator which trips if you switch on the cooker and the hob at the same time (or in fact the cooker and anything at the same time) which is very frustrating and is testing our recipe skills - you can only have a meal from the oven or hob, not both! We have made it very clear that we can't continue like this and we are led to believe that our meter will turn up on Friday - not a moment too soon. Outside is a different story. We were promised that the workshop and office would be finished before we moved in but as it was they had hardly been started. 5 days on and with constant pressure from us they are taki...

Our lovely home as we pack up to leave So who would have thought it would come to this? For a family that generally has everything organised and under control, we are completely at the mercy of the house moving gods and it is very unsettling. In order to be in Somerset for the start of the girl's new term, we are moving out of our house before we have even exchange let alone completed, and moving into the barn, again with no legal right to be there (other than of course the part-owner's permission). It's not what anyone would recommend and the solicitors would have a field day if they knew, but of course we are all so far down the line that we are just head down, fingers crossed, hoping it will all come good. It's a gamble.   Watching the world go by As we speak I have one child (Izzy) and 2 guinea pigs in Somerset, one child here with us along with the dogs, the snakes are boarding in Oxford and Glenn is in the garage with a face like a wet weekend panicking that it...

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...