Our new Pad

For photos of the new house check out Facebook; in the meantime
check out this cool dude! (and the fabulous roses behind which overhang our pond ... complete with frogs - large and small!)

Week One @ Fletchings House

well here we are. We've officially been here just over a week and so far everything seems to be going okay. There is some serious re-decorating that needs doing (why do you never notice these things until you move in??) and some emerging peculiar features that might need altering - a door at the bottom of the stairs; great we thought one less stairgate needed when the time comes; actually its a pain!

Not everything is quite where we want it to be; the guest room doesn't really exist at the moment and the box full of the "kitchen drawer" hasn't been sorted yet. Oh and we need to decide what Dan's toy storage is going to be. But other than that we seem to be in and have a working house.

The garden is amazing: though slightly overwhelming and there's even a pond with frogs and newts in.

Our removal guys were fabulous and didn't leave until they had everything the way we wanted it. They re-built furniture, moved things around and were generally 110% helpful. There is one picture missing which I wonder whether has been left on a van somewhere but we'll deal with that when they come to pick up the boxes!

And we've given the house a name - well it needs one really. Fletchings House refers to the fact that we're living on The Butts .... does that make sense? It may if you know your military history. If not, ask and I might tell you ;-)

Moving day approaches

Well here I sit at 6.55pm on Wednesday in a house stripped of pretty much everything except the kitchen, the sofa and our beds (we won't mention the front room being full of boxes and the piano). The movers worried us slightly by not turning up til 9.15 when they said they'd be here around 8 - (apparently an accident on the ring road held them up so all was forgiven) but since then they have been a tour de force. Rik and I have almost felt in the way at times!

Though despite our best efforts we have had conversations this evening along the lines of "have we a story for Dan?" "erm, they're in the van". Whoops! But that's okay cos we can look in the big bookcases; oh they've been packed too; hang on what about the books kept downstairs: nope! There's nothing left! Lucky Dan took two muslins to nursery this morning or he wouldn't have any of those either!! I can't even upload photos of the "pack in progress" from my camera as the photo-card reader has gone too .......

But we're feeling a bit more optimistic. It finally feels like it's happening and we can be excited about the new house. Plus Dan has been walking round all day at Orchard Lea telling everyone it's his last day - so maybe he does know what's going on. Apparently this has upset one of his friends though - and more surprisingly her mum!

not sure how long I'll have the laptop in the morning so this may be the last entry until we're in: but hopefully we'll be able to get back on line fairly quickly since we have the wireless dongles (suddenly they make sense!)

"M" minus 2

Actually it's less than 2. At 8am in the morning the packers are turning up to pack and part load and on Thursday we will be leaving our lovely familiar house in Bristol to start a home in our lovely totally unknown house in Frome. I have given up trying to sort out and organise ahead of this!.

And this is exciting but it's also scary and more than a little bit sad. Whilst we know, rationally, that the move is what we want, and the house we've found is lovely, we don't know it; we don't know how it works or behaves (spare us from badly behaved houses!). We've been in this house in Fishponds for 10 1/2 years - can you believe - and it will be very sad to leave it. We've also been in Bristol for nearly 13 years and whilst we're looking forward to being in a smaller town, Bristol has been fab.

But perhaps saddest of all, Dan has to leave the fabulous Orchard Lea Nursery. And again I know I've found him a fantastic nursery in Frome where he will be very happy but Orchard Lea is all he - and we've - known since he was six months old and they've been brilliant (apart from the slight bankruptcy hiccup last year!). And whilst rationally I know that he'll adjust to the new one in time, the emotional side of me feels very guilty for taking him away from the environment he knows: but then we're doing that to ourselves too aren't we?

Maybe this is all just 3am talk .....why am I up at 3am on a Wednesday morning? Ah well that will be my fabulous cold which has decreed that unless I'm sat bolt upright, a cough will start which will end in my throwing up. You try sitting bolt upright when you're falling asleep. Plus Dan's had a bad dream and is now crying on the landing ......

AAARGGHHH!!!

Here we are; potentially days from exchange of contracts - and what happens?? The blinkin boiler breaks!! That's what!

We awoke on Thursday morning to find water dripping out the bottom of the damn thing. Rik was all for simply concluding that it was defunct, buy another one. I thought we ought to at least check so an engineer is called out. He comes along, twiddles with it a bit; finds water in something called the "air pressure switch" drains it and goes away saying "it should be fine now" or words to that effect.

Except that it isn't. Thursday evening it becomes apparent that it is NOT fine. We go back to Boiler Repair Man company. Oi what you said was fixed isn't; what you gonna do about it? Well say company if you want us to do something now (it being after 6pm) we'll have to charge you an extra fee. Hang on; you want us to pay more for you to come out and fix what you should have fixed first time round???? YES. Are you taking the Michael?

Well we can live with a cold house and no hot water until Friday morning thank you very much. Okay YOU will need to phone us again on Friday morning and explain the situation; we're only the out of hours service. How's that for customer care???

So Friday morning, 9am I phone company again. We'll need to phone you back - can you wait 25 mins. Well I can. We have nothing planned for the am, only a loose idea to take Dan swimming. Of course the reality is I have to phone them 50 minutes later to ask where their " call back" is. Still I do manage to actually speak to someone. Ah yes she says, it seems your air pressure switch needs replacing. Engineer thought it might be okay but if what he did didn't fix it it means it's on the blink; you need a new one. I'm getting you a quote will call back when I have one.

Well to spare you the angst it caused me, Dan's swimming trip goes out the window whilst we are waiting to get some concrete information. Quote comes back acceptable; can engineer come today? I have hair appointment at 3pm; should I cancel it? Maybe wait and see ....... more waiting ....... finally at 1.50pm I phone them AGAIN and say engineer obviously can't make today and I can't cancel my hair appointment so let's not bother. But wait says operator, engineer can come today: at 6pm. Great! Lovely! Except that it's actually 5pm (this is another phone call about 10 mins later!) - which means I have to phone Rik in Reading and ask very nicely if he wouldn't mind coming home since I might not be in time. Rik agrees. I get home at 5.20pm

Guess what?? NO BLIMPING ENGINEER!!!!!!????? At 5.50pm I phone company AGAIN; they know nothing about it. Ring off to try and find him - phone back about 20 minutes later; very apologetic engineer had family emergency and rushed off to deal with it without telling his employers. Well I can understand that. Plus engineer offers to come over and fix problem on Saturday between 12 and 2; no extra cost. Great I think. We can cope with that.

So here we are: at 5.44pm. Do we have a fixed boiler? NO. Has the engineer come to see us? NO. Has anyone at this STUPID COMPANY phoned us??? NO. Are they even answering their phones. NOOOOO. And of course it now being the bank holiday if we want to go elsewhere we're going to have to pay premium rates to get someone. Unless we leave it til next Tuesday when I have to be at work for a training course I don't want to go on and on Wednesday we're going away. Maybe we should just leave it........! Do we need hot water that much?

I don't expect anyone to have any great solutions: just wanted a rant!

AND finally

it occurred to me you haven't seen a picture of our new house ..... have you?

If you want to look in more detail check out Rightmove.co.uk under properties for sale at BA11 4AA (you'll need to include properties Sold STC). If you find a 5 bedroom house you've found our new home - though the pictures don't really do it justice.

And someone was asking me what I would like for my birthday - which it seems is only a couple of weeks away. Well I'm afraid I'm going to be REALLY boring and say vouchers I can spend on stuff for the new house. We're acquiring two extra bedrooms and one extra reception room plus a large garden so anything I can spend at Ikea, Homebase, John Lewis or Laura Ashley Home will be welcomed. As will general "gardening" vouchers. Sorry to be so uninspiring. If you want to be a bit more personal, I have absolutely NO summer maternity wear - it having been autumn/winter last time I was doing this. You know the sort of thing I like; size 18 generally.
a xx

PS.....

oh yes, and everything's fine with the expectant baby. Though it's due date is now 02 October!!!!!

I think it's a boy by the way - don't ask me why ......

In case you were interested .....

No we still haven't moved: but we MAY be about to exchange. Word came through yesterday that our buyer's solicitor had applied to their Housing Association (which is Sovereign if that means anything 2 U) for authority to exchange. Apparently this takes about 10-14 days so hopefully we should have an exchange date soon.

Which means we might even be moving by the end of May - how scary is that???

Meanwhile the great clear-out of 2009 continues. I've taken a bootload to the tip today; 15 bags of various bits n pieces went to a charity shop a few weeks ago. Another load of clothes will be going over the weekend and we haven't even started on the videos!

And we've booked the small family company for our removals. They do seem like they want to give us a good service, they'll do absolutely EVERYTHING from disconnecting the cooker to dismantling furniture, and even with full pack they've come in about £200 cheaper than everyone else!

And my new Audi A3 - "Allie" - is lovely by the way. (well I had to give her a name!)

A general update

For those of you who might be wondering where on earth we've been; for some reason actually been able to blog without full broadband access has been problematical - as has Facebook. We still don't have broadband although the wireless dongle is working well enough (if you let it "rest" every now and again) to tide us over until we move house and get to start again. So here's an update on where we are:-

1. THE HOUSE
Offer on this house accepted end of January; offer accepted on place we wanted to buy in Frome middle of February. We're still waiting to exchange. Had hoped we'd be able to do this next Friday but apparently our buyers aren't going to be able to comply with that because they're buying with government assistance through the Key Worker Scheme and the housing association who is assisting needs 10 working days to authorise exchange. They will only do that when the solicitor acting for them confirms that everything has been settled - and he hasn't exactly been speedy. This is no doubt causing alarm to our sellers who want to exchange next Friday so that they can go on holiday for two weeks, come back and complete and move around the 22nd. Seems that's not likely either. But not much we can do about it and at least it gives us more time to carry on de-cluttering! But it's annoying to be kept in this kind of limbo for even longer..... ah well.

Though I think we've chosen a removal company - though we haven't informed them yet. Going on valuable advice my instincts tell me that the small husband & wife team with 4 vans who can do ABSOLUTELY everything for us (dismantling furniture, packing, even disconnecting the cooker) at a price £200 less than the best next quote is the right thing. But there's a small part of me thinking, why are they coming in cheaper: they've only been in business for themselves for a year: they're not A1 professional in terms of presentation- though to be fair when they came to visit they were more smartly dressed than some of the bigger companies! - but I've asked a few questions and they seem to be coming across as it being very important to them to give us a good service: so they don't sound like cowboys. So maybe it's worth giving them a try - and saving us some money and hassle of having to dismantle our own bed and find someone to disconnect the cooker!

2. THE FAMILY
I think most of you know this by now anyway but we're at the point where it can be "official" and, in case anyone drops in on the blog who a) knows me and b) doesn't know, there will be an addition to the junior section of the Kershaw-Moore clan at the end of September. FINALLY!!!
And it IS real - we had our first scan on Tuesday and yep there's definitely a baby in there which moves and everything. I didn't realise how concerned I was about that actually; much more so than with Dan. Though I guess with Dan it never occurred to us at all that there could be any problems. We are, by force of experience, now wiser and I think - though both of us totally failed to mention it, or maybe even to notice it - that we were quite concerned that this one could be "not real" as well.

but hopefully everything is proceeding as it should. I certainly feel pregnant though I know I get off lightly compared to some people (I'm thinking of my lovely sis here who suffers sooo much it's not fair). I just get aches n pains and exhaustion and my god, never mind about eating for two; I'm going for six!! Though this is a very meat based pregnancy which is a bit different - ham, sausages, bacon I can't get enough of .... if only i could have Pate!!!

3. THE CAR
As if we didn't have enough to contend with - and trying to arrange house moves/conveyancing (though, no I'm not doing my own!) whilst pregnant is definitely hard work - at the beginning of March some complete nonce pulled out right in front of my little Mikki (the MX-5) and smashed into it. The insurance company hurridly wrote her off even though the damage to her was cosmetic only and only to her front driver's side wing. After much discussion when we considered the possiblity of taking her back and fixing her ourselves we came to the conclusion that a) I was going to need a bigger car soon anyway and b) money isn't exaclty flowing at the moment with the impending move and therefore we would let her go. Mind you the insurance company gave me £1400 for her which I was not expecting at all. And in her place I have a very nice Audi A3 5-door hatchback from 2006 which is a not totally dis-similiar style car to drive and I get things like 4 seats, a petrol warning light; boot space. All these things are new!! I would put some photos up but that will result in the dongle completely freezing up.

So that's us. generally speaking. And I've just realised that the sun is still shining when it was supposed to be raining. Maybe I should have hung the washing out? Ah well, Dan getting desperate for lunch (me too actually) so I should probably stop now.

Happy Easter! Well it's not far off you know.......

Teckernowlergy Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Kershaw-Moore clan have limited technology resources at present: no e-mail and some internet access when our 3 Mobile wireless dongle allows.

Apparently this is all due to the fact that the company who provides our broadband service doesn't actually provide broadband but buys it off Tiscali. They have fallen out with Tiscali and Tiscali have disconnected the supply (suddenly I'm thinking this sounds like Russia and gas!!). Anyway various rants to Tiscali, Off-Com and attempts to change our supplier have all failed so for now if you've been trying to contact us by e-mail please either us my work account (alex.kershaw-moore@mendip.gov.uk) or revert to phone/text.

Should I mention that the company who we have been buying broadband off, no-one has ever heard of?? But that we "had" to use that company??? Probably not ........

ps: hopefully I will be able to upload some Daniel birthday information shortly :-)

What a Week!

Okay this is how the past week in the KM Clan household has gone:-

last Saturday evening: boiler goes out just as I am putting Dan to bed. No idea how to restart or if there is actual problem (Rik does not get back from course until Sunday afternoon).

As a consequence of above, spend over an hour on Sunday morning trying to find "boiler-repair man". Contact various companies all of whom advertise 24/7 call-out service. No-one can get an engineer to me before Monday morning! Not even British Gas - who are more interested in trying to get me to sign up to their homecare service plan .....GRRRRR!!! I can't book an engineer for Monday morning because that's the only day I'm in work this week (so I need to be there) and I dont know what Rik's plans are - nor can I contact him as he's in an exam.

So we go Sunday and Monday without heating. Rik comes home and we book an engineer for Tuesday morning and boiler is fixed - fan had seized. Hurray!! £300. hurroo

Monday afternoon an ongoing crisis at work kicks off again: particularly difficult since I'm out Tuesday and Wednesday; and boss is about to go off sick with vomiting bug. Crisis made worse by the knowledge that it's been brought about by officers not doing things they should have in the first place - what's new there?!

Wednesday: I'm supposed to be taking a flexi day although have already agreed to attend a court hearing in Frome which shouldn't take too long. Plan to do some Crimble shopping.

Reality: Kept waiting at court for over 2 hours then told that actually we don't need to be in court at all. Including traveling that's 4 hours taken up. A further two hours spent fire-fighting by remote e-mail of this crisis and other problems. Not much of a flexi day; no shopping got to.

Wednesday evening: call from Rik to say that he's lost his rail season ticket. Had it when he got off the train this morning but now doesn't. He'll have to buy full price tickets until First Great Western decide to give him a replacement or a refund. [full season ticket - £3500] Rik himself is having to deal with his own work crisis which means he's late leaving work and called to emergency meetings on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday: I'm working again - have to go to West Somerset to staff a planning committee. Fine except that my period's started (by the by this was totally expected so not a problem in itself) and brought with it a not-so-nice headache. So I have 3 hours travelling and a 3.5hour meeting whilst really wanting to collapse in a corner. As a result of that headache, Dan misses Music with Mummy in the morning and is quite sad. Rik, meanwhile spends most of the day on conference calls (when he's not on Dan duty)

And we've saved the best for last. Friday
Rik's in Swindon at his emergency meetings. Because he's lost his travelcard, he's taken the car. On the way back he leaves the M4 at J18 to avoid fog and, whilst on the A46 someone crashes into the back of his Saab (details as to what happened still scarce). Saab is apparently pushed into a field and may well be a write-off. Rik, I hasten to add, apart from a couple of bruises, is fine - he's been checked out by paramedics and rapid response teams! Though traumatic in itself, recovery people say they can't move the car in the dark (too difficult) and then won't bring him home. The AA say it will cost £300 if he wants to be brought home because the car's not coming with him.

Eventually the recovery service take pity on him and drop him about 3 miles away in Warmley. I then plead with a local taxi company to bring him home which eventually happens just after 7pm (he was due home around 3!). £10

On the upside the insurance company have given us a very nice silver BMW 3 series Coupe to tide us over whilst the fate of our poor Saab is decided. If it is a write off, well that's enough £8-10k added to our "bill" for this week.

Oh and Dan has a cold - but bless him he's being very good about it really.

I know it's only life and things and generally we're all well off but for heaven's sake!
Well Rik and I are going out tonite with Mums n Dads from my Friday group - just hope THAT goes smoothly!!!! please .........

Christmas is a-coming

How's this for organised!! From the KM Clan!!!!

People have been asking what the Clan KM might like for Crimble. I've given a few ideas and here's some more in case you needed them:-

Mummy KM
Cranford on DVD
Sex in The City - the Movie
Bravissimo Vouchers (I working on having their entire range in my wardrobe!!)
Dawn French - Dear Fatty
Large hair straighteners (my little ones are great but sometimes quite time consuming)
Plants to brighten up my winter borders - or windowsill! - possibly portable ones!
A machine to convert my audio tapes into Mp3 files (Check with Rik first)

Daddy KM
Royal Lochnagar Whisky
Richard Hammond's autobiography

Young KM
Clothes (tops 2-3 yrs; trews 18-24 mths)
Jigsaws (he's got a few with just two pieces; needs something a bit more challenging)
A real guitar small enough for him to play
Toys he can construct - he's very into putting things together at the moment (nb he already has lego and isn't too fussed about that)
A big clock we can teach him the time on

As usual further advice can be sought. I would say for Mummy KM's gifts speak to Daddy KM but I understand that completely failed to work last year so maybe you should confab amongst yourselves until Young KM is old enough to take this on!!

A xx

Who's House is this?

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-19948423.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

Not quite sure if this will work but try putting this address into your internet browser and see what comes up .......

Yes it's true - there's even a board in the front garden
EEEK how scary is that!

For those of you that wish to know, we're looking to move to Frome (which is pronounced as in "room") on the edge of the Mendips in Somerset; rail links (sort of) through to Reading and London and about 15 miles south of Bath. This will mean that I'm about 20 minutes from work in Shepton Mallet (ooh I wonder if I'm eligible for relocation expenses?!) and Rik is hopefully not too far away from Reading and any other contract work.

If you're interested in the types of houses we want to buy ..... well we like this one at the moment
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-21373835.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

Scary, and a bit sad but also exciting!

watch this space.........

Mummy's ps

Having wrestled the laptop (a new one btw!) back from Danny and thanked him profusely for updating the blog, I just thought I'd add a couple of things:-

I won my public inquiry - whoo hooo!
Rik has acquired a bicycle and now intends to cycle to the train station; there's even a little seat for Dan soe he can be taken to nursery.
We're wondering where summer has gone (the heating has gone back on and we lit a fire last night!)..... but enjoyed the Olympics; swimming, rowing, gymnastics, equestrianism and tennis is now over so we'll probably stop! The running and jumping bits are always more boring.

And now that the floor is done and the back room is done, it's bite the bullet time and get some estate agents in to see what they say. Mind you, we need to finish putting everything back in the spare bedroom first!

Also trying to see if we can arrange a couple of days holiday in September ..... our hols in Suffolk seem an awful long time ago!

nothing really exciting going on as you can see so I'll stop and go and have some dinner.

Dan's Doins - August 2008

the final instalment: white boys can jump!

Well I can anyway. And Mummy assures me that by "jump" I do mean bend the knee, spring up, both feet leave the ground at the same time - sometimes I move forward too. It's great fun! I like doing it a lot.

Mummy wants me to say that the new kitchen floor is finally in - HURRAY!! - and the spare bedroom has gone from the general allsorts to an almond and biscuit colour. Unfortunately Mummy's camera battery is dead so no photos can be displayed yet ..... and this particular battery seems to be difficult to replace. Daddy does have a camera of his own but he hides it so it cannot be used unless he decides to use it.... oh dear

The kitchen floor is great for running on, driving on and pushing cars and trains along.

Dan's Doins - July 2008

In July Mummy n Daddy n me went to a lovely hotel in Warwickshire for cousin Pippa's wedding.
I wore my first suit (sorry the photos aren't very clear!)

And we thought Pippa and Damian looked great - Mummy's has this picture on her laptop ever since .....


Bella and I had a lovely time playing together and she looked great too

Dan's Doins - way way overdue!

Hiya Dan here. Have wrestled the computer from Mummy in order to update the blog; cos she NEVER DOES .... and we can't even claim lack of technology! So, this was June. Mummy and Daddy and I went to a lovely cottage in Suffolk where there were lots of interesting corners to explore, and a garden and some stairs
This is the cottage

. Here is Daddy and me flying a kite - the kite's the smudge in the sky!



We visited a castle where I showed Saffron the nursery bear how cannons worked...... and tried taking it for a walk.


If Mummy ever gets the hang of it, I shall suggest she puts some more photos on Facebook.

Dan's Doins Vol 12

[I think: ive lost count!]

Goodness me is it really May already and I've not been very good at this blogging thing have I? I thought the idea was to share your thoughts, musing a few times a week; not twice a year (mind you I'm not quite as behind as some people ....mentioning no names)

So what's been happening with us? Dan and I had lousy colds in March; Dan's nursery went bust at the beginning of April - but then started up again two weeks later; just to coincide with Dan getting chicken pox. Rik's company is getting quite rich - it's so nice to have money again! Rik is very happy with his latest toy - the "Fruitberry": it's a Blackberry but not made by Blackberry and has been named the "Fruitberry" because I kept calling it a Blackberry (which is wrong); Rik kept calling it a "PDA" (which is dull) and "thing like a Blackberry but isn't" is just ridiculous!!

so now we're thinking about summer and the future: no news yet but hopefully matters are now set up to have the house "ready" to put on the market with a view to moving in the New Year (housing market permitting). And we might even have some expanding family news by then ....
In the meantime the recent Bank holiday gave us the chance for a day trip. Here's my wee man pretending to be a statue at Montacute House near Yeovil. (please note the phone which is never too far from his ear! What a little entrepeneur we have created .....?)

Here's to 2008

Happy New Year to all my readers - well all four of you! Hopefully 2008 will bring some bigger and better things for the Kershaw-Moore clan but in the meantime let's remind ourselves of the fab festive season that's just gone ......

Announcing .....

The Kershaw-Moore's new sofa! (bear ensconsed - sp?) Old sofa taking up lots of space in front room. And there's a chair too!