Wahey! We’re in! But, oh, what a long and horrid slog it was in the end. Nothing to do with the house move itself. Just the sheer amount of stuff we were trying to squeeze into a teeny, tiny house. Oh yes, and the weather.
So, the weather gods, in their wisdom, decided to send the UK a heatwave. And not just any heatwave. Only the hottest temperatures since records began. And we’re really, really not equipped in the UK for extreme weather of any kind. Plus, it couldn’t be a heatwave for only one day. No, our heatwave had to last an entire week. There was no respite.
Anyway, I’m jumping ahead…We got the keys two weeks ago last Thursday and the first thing we did was meet the gas/plumbing engineer on site to discuss relocating the boiler, removing the hot water cylinder, and taking out a solid fuel fire and back boiler. He couldn’t fit us in for at least a week, but he did move one day of existing work so he could spend three days solid with us.
While we waited for him, we packed a gazillion bags and boxes and the poet removed some fitted wardrobes from the bedroom. We hired a skip. And we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. So far, so good. And then we noticed that the toilet in the new house was leaking… so the poet had to down tools to fix that.
The plumber came. He had his work, I had my work, and the poet had his work… but the fire was the first thing to be removed, and it was so heavy the plumber couldn’t manage it by himself. So the poet stopped what he was doing to help. We had mains running cold water, a kettle and rudimentary tea & coffee making provisions, so I kept everyone hydrated in between carrying on with my own tasks.
The plumber soon got used to the poet helping him though, and by the end of the three days, he gave the poet a medal for being a half-decent apprentice. He’d found the medal in the loft! He didn’t knock anything off the bill, though… By this time the temperatures were starting to creep up and we all wished we’d remembered there are two ceiling fans in the new house before the last day!
We did more cleaning and packing, and we transported what we could in the car for several trips. The poet also made a couple of dozen trips to the tip, *and* we filled the skip. By the second Monday, the carpets were going down in both bedrooms, a hall and the living room. We also emptied the new garage and the new shed of everything we didn’t want, into the skip.
On the second Tuesday, a cleaner was booked for the old house in the morning, and Sky TV was booked at the new house in the afternoon. The carpets were being cleaned in the old house, and the removals men were booked for Tuesday afternoon to take the furniture over. The skip at the new house was removed, as it had been dropped on the drive and was blocking any access to the garage and the side of the house.
The temperatures soared and we were soon using the two tower floor fans in the new living room as well as the ceiling fan in there. Blinds, curtains and windows were kept closed to keep the heat out.
Remember, we were losing a dining room, a conservatory and a breakfast kitchen, but as we didn’t know which of the furniture would fit in the new house, we took it all over. The removals men were very slow, but meticulous and careful, but they had to make two journeys, and they were already two hours late showing up. So we all worked until about 10pm just moving the furniture, with some smaller items left behind for the poet to bring over in a van on the Thursday of the same week, but our third Thursday in the new house.
By the time the removals men went, the garage was stuffed to the rafters, the spare bedroom/future office was now the junk room, and there was a line of furniture along the side of the house beneath a car port. We honestly looked like the Clamp-it family. And there were still a few van-loads left at the old house.
We spent our first night in the new house on that Tuesday. And the temperatures continued to climb. There were no curtains in the bedroom, only flimsy vertical blinds. So we had the ceiling fan running full blast in there and we had eye masks. The dog was afraid of the ceiling fans at first, but by now he was cautiously realising how much cooler it was beneath one of them.
Wednesday was spent trying to make everything fit and look as nice as we could, and the poet plumbed in the washing machine. More bags and boxes were transported, and a couple came to deep-clean the oven and extractor fan for us in the old house.
Then we were up early on Thursday to collect the van. We emptied the old shed and part of the garage into it and made our first journey. Because the new shed was empty, everything ‘shed’ went into there, plus a few things the removals men had brought over. The replacement skip arrived on Thursday morning too, before we were even awake. I’d asked for it to be left on the front lawn rather than the drive, and there it was, exactly where I asked for it to be dropped.
And the temperatures went up…
The van had to be back at either 5pm on Thursday, or 8am sharp on Friday. We kept it until Friday and worked until about 10pm again. We still hadn’t shifted everything. There were some things that would go in both cars on the Friday morning before we returned the keys for the old house, and even then we had to leave a few items outside. If they were gone by the time we made it back, so be it. It was all stuff we were reconciled to losing if it got nicked.
Friday was the hottest day. We were up with the larks to get the van back by 8am. Then it was back to the old house to get the dregs.
The poet’s car registered 37.5℃ (apx 103℉) at its height. The air-con ran out in my car, so the dog and I had a most unpleasant journey from the old house to the new house. I thought he was going to collapse on me more than once, and also more than once he looked at me as though to say ‘please help me…’ It was heartbreaking.
As soon as we got back to the new house, I ran him a cold bath in the kitchen sink (can’t reach the taps in the shower without getting in) and after only two attempts, he stayed still while he realised how much cooler he was. Meanwhile, the poet emptied his air-conditioned car and put the seats back up so we could take the keys back in that without the poor puppy dying of heat exhaustion.
We were meeting someone at the new house who was buying our old boiler off us. But on top of the weather, by the time we actually got back to the new house, the entire village was in the midst of a power failure. The hottest day of the year and we had no fans. We also couldn’t get into the garage as it has an electrically operated roller shutter door and no outside manual over-ride… The old boiler was in the garage, and our buyer was already on his way…
Fortunately, he was fairly local. In fact, we drove through his village several times over the preceding weeks and it’s also the same village where the poet’s mother lives. So we arranged for us to take the boiler to him once we could get into the garage again.
The rest of the country was battered by refreshing thunderstorms for much of the day. We had about ten minutes of a storm first thing in the morning, during which the poet got soaked through, and that was it. It was cooler for about twenty minutes, but soon ramped right up again. I’d negotiated a 3-hour extension on getting the keys back but I felt really sorry for the poor staff in the office having to work at desks without any air-con until 5:30pm.
When we got back, again, the power was still off, so the poet went around turning the fans on so we’d know the moment it came back. I checked online, although the signal wasn’t great as a mast must have gone down with the power, and I saw that the electric company expected to get our power back on by 11pm… give or take 30 minutes. Fortunately, the fans burst into life at around 4:30pm. Phew!
When it reached its hottest, our rooms with ceiling fans were like fan ovens. I hate the heat at the best of times, I can’t function in it at all, and the poet did the brunt of the heavy work as a result. But by the weekend we were relatively straight in the new house and I spent my productive time sifting through our mountain of curtains to see what we could utilise in the new house.
The thought of all that lovely fabric going into the skip was wrenching, but we have nowhere to store anything other than what we’re using all the time, such as bedding and towels. Having the hot water cylinder removed and the boiler putting up in the loft gave us a whole airing cupboard for the towels. The bedding goes in the drawers in the bed. The dog bedding goes where we can fit it. And the kitchen tea towels and cloths go in a kitchen drawer.
On the one hand I wonder if we might take a leaf out of the books of our US friends and hire storage units. But that still isn’t a thing in the UK, or not such a big thing. On the other hand, I think it’s quite refreshing to clear out the old and keep only the minimum until we’re ready to replace it with new.
We went back on Saturday afternoon, via the village where the poet’s mum lives to drop off the old boiler, to see if our stuff was still outside the old house. It was, and it all went into the boot of the poet’s car, apart from an industrial floor fan that went on the back seat next to the dog. We did some shopping and we came back to the new house, where we just carried on working.
When we bought this house back in January, we hoped for a two-month overlap during which to get the new house ready to move into and the old house ready to hand back. We had two weeks. And one of those weeks was in intense heat.
None of the garden came over, apart from the bird table and a bench. Most of what was left behind was what we inherited when we moved in four years ago, when we couldn’t actually move in for a week, despite paying a full week’s rent, because the shed and the garage were rammed with junk and we had nowhere to store anything. But we left it as clean and tidy as we could.
Our new house is so small we’ve nicknamed the back of the house the East Wing and the front of the house the West Wing. We’re also considering changing the name of the house to something like Wordsworth Heights. (It’s a bungalow.) We have joiners and decorators and roofers and window fitters lined up. And the poet is contacting the council to see if they’ll take our spare furniture away – three rooms’ worth of spare furniture.
We still have a lot to do, but at least we’re in. We have somewhere to sit, somewhere to eat, somewhere to cook, somewhere to sleep, and somewhere to ablute. I’m camping out on the dining table for work at the moment, using my laptop for writing and editing and my phone for a hotspot. And we have a secure garden for the dog, although we will be turning our attention to the outside as soon as the inside is how we want it.
We’re knackered, but happy. We’re in our own house where we can do whatever we want without asking for permission, or spending money on something that isn’t ours. And we haven’t borrowed a single penny in order to do any of it.
And then it dawned on us that we didn’t have to do so much of it ourselves either. We could have hired removals people for all of it…
Ah, well!
I’m so glad you’re in your new place.
When we moved here from the Cape 5 years ago, it was within a heatwave, and I had to go back to clean out the old house (this was in the 2nd year of the pandemic, when it was hard to hire help), and it was a nightmare. The Move from Hell.
I’d say get a storage unit at least for a few months, so you’re not making decisions you will regret. I regret many things I got rid of in the last move, and I still need to move the contents of the storage unit up here. I will probably then get rid of a good portion of stuff in there, but a lot of it is my library, books that can’t be replaced that I use for my work. It sounds like you’ve got storage for the moment in the garage and shed, so maybe that will do? And maybe you’d only need a small unit for seasonal stuff eventually, or you can go through things slowly and organize shelf/storage space in the garage/sheds and won’t need a unit?
I know how awful it is to have to do all that in the heat, and I’m sorry you had to go through it.
But I’m so happy you’re in YOUR new home!
Thank you!
I remember the nightmare that was your move too. Horrible times, but so worth it in the end.
All the stuff we need to store is furniture, and all of it is secondhand, bought from charity shops in the main. We have to replace it all with smaller more streamlined stuff, but we’re still using a lot of it where we can. It’s a good opportunity to both get rid and replace, but we’re having decorating and some structural work done first.
I still have ALL of my reference books here! Boxes and crates that have moved with us from house to house that haven’t seen the light of day for 10 years or more. But a load of writing books did make it to the tip as well. I kept the useful ones.
omg! I’m tired out just reading that! At least you are in, moving house is stressful enough when everything is straightforward never mind all other stuff as well!
Aww how is the dog now? our cats Millie and Kitt suffered coming home from the cattery, one of them had an abscess while there, cattery did an emergency vet visit and was panting and drooling in the car home and Kitt (white one) pooped herself so that was fun trying to confine her to the luckily downstairs bathroom next to the back door while I cleaned her up as best I could in a very undignified way! 🙁 Not sure how I could have bathed her lol
Yes its difficult trying to make furniture etc fit in, we downsized from a 3 bed to 2 bed and all my late parents stuff already in the house, ottomans, I bought 17, room to sit and and instantly tidy house lol, I was so fed up seeing cardboard boxes. Good luck in your new home 🙂
Thank you! I remember your move too!
Alfie wasn’t great in all that heat and with all that upheaval. He’s still only 10 months old and it’s all still very new to him, so he didn’t yet know he could go through all of that and still survive! It’s so easy to see how dogs left to overheat in cars die. He still wanted his walks too, not realising the pavements would be red hot on his poor paw pads. He’s okay now, though. Settled in well and, besides, he had lots of toys bought for him!
Hope the cats are okay now.
We had to skip our ottoman but I may replace it with two smaller ones, one each for our clothes overnight as we’ve both lost a chair-drobe! It will be nice to have all new for a change.