Moving Story

Originally posted 14th March 2007 on MySpace

Well… we are finally in our house. Moving weekend as you know was 3^rd and 4^th March. We had a lorry for 2 days and they were manic!

We started off in Hull picking stuff up from my parents and grandparents before going to Chesterfield to finish emptying the flat. After off-loading in Rotherham we then had a 6-hour drive to South London to Phil's parents finally arriving about 2am on the Sunday. Spent Sunday packing up before getting back on the road about 4pm only to be stuck on the M25 for an hour!

Finally arrived back in Rotherham at 10pm. We had to unload that night because the lorry had to be back in Hull at 8.30 on the Monday morning so by the time we had done that we finally got to sleep – in the lorry as the house wasn't officially ours until the Monday – about 1am! We made it back to Hull about 15 minutes late which considering was a minor miracle!

Finally got the phone call from the solicitor about 10am to say the money was on its way to the vendors and the house would be all hours about 1pm when we could contact the estate agents for the keys. All a bit irrelevant as we had become good friends with the vendors so we already had the keys but still nice to know. 

So… we have been in the house 10 days and it looks like home. I had all last week off sorting and emptying boxes. There are still a fair few boxes to empty and the garage is a mess, but we are getting there.

We get connected to the Internet on Friday so until then my access is limited as I can only use it during my breaks at work. In the meantime, thank you to you all for your kind words, messages and support and I'll be replying properly as soon as I can.

It may have only taken us 7 weeks to move but it felt like 7 years and we are so glad it's all over. Here's to never moving again lol…

P.S. Most annoying moment of the last 2 weeks – the phone call to BT asking how much it would cost to get reconnected so we had telephone and internet access. I was told I could have a quote but had to pay £25 first before they could continue! It's ok though – I would have got it back with my first bill. Grrrrrr! Unsurprisingly we are going with cable instead (Virgin Media in fact), avoiding BT completely!

Big News

Originally posted 2nd February 2007 on MySpace

As you all know I have been out of touch recently – far more than is forgivable. There is a reason for this though and as promised here it is…

Phil and I have been house hunting. After 2 years together we decided the time was right to set down proper roots together. Well that and the fact our flat mates are scarily reminiscent of Gary and Tony from Men Behaving Badly and have friends who have voices like fog horns. Great at 3am when you have a 12 hours day at work the next day!!!

So about a month ago we starting checking out the internet for houses to go and look at. We had already decided we were moving to Rotherham – Phil works in Rotherham and my job in Sheffield is only a couple of miles away, so it would be great for us both. We chose about 7 to look at initially over one weekend. We promised each other at the outset that if ones of us wasn't happy then the house was a no… we both had to be happy. So on the Saturday we set off to Rotherham (where all the houses were)….

The 1st 2 houses were nice, but definite no's. They were either 2 small or needed just too much work doing on them. The 3rd and 4th houses were gorgeous. I loved them both but Phil just wasn't sure. Bearing in mind what we agreed in the first place I was disappointed, but we still had 3 more houses to see that weekend and we weren't expecting to find the right house on the first day of looking anyway.Then…. House number 5… Didn't look much from the outside. It ticked some boxes – garage and a good drive, plus it was in a nice, quiet area. Then we were taken into the 1st room of the house… the kitchen. All Phil and I both said was "wow". The kitchen alone would have sold it to us but every room just got better and better after that. I had had the beautiful kitchen I wanted so I was happy. There was just one more question mark – Phil had his heart set on a big garage. This was the last thing we saw and if there were any doubts about the house they were blown away at this point. The garage was HUGE!!!! A big double garage with a basement… Phil couldn't have dreamt such a perfect garage.

So we found our dream home… we said thank you to the vendors and walked back to the car. We managed to drive 5 minutes down the street before Phil stopped. We both looked at each other and said yes, that was the one. We tried the estate agents but they were shut. We didn't want to lose the house so drove straight back to it and offered the vendors the selling price there and then. We were accepted immediately!

The best part is we are first time buyers so we don't have to worry about selling a property before we move. The couple who currently own the house are emigrating to Australia and the sooner they can go the better, which brings me to today.

We saw the house 3 weeks ago tomorrow and we have been waiting this long for our mortgage advisor to secure a mortgage for us. Thanks to interest rate rises in the UK, plus a few other issues, this has been nothing short of hard work and has taken a lot of work by our mortgage advisor and a lot of money and patience on our part. However… the call finally came at 4.50pm this evening – we got the mortgage and the offer is in the post to us. All that is left now is for the solicitor to sort out the legal stuff. Completion date is hopefully going to be 1st March 2007, with Phil and I moving in that weekend.

It feels so good to finally tell you all… My superstitious nature meant I couldn't bring myself to say too much in case I jinx it all which is one of the biggest reasons both myself and Phil have been in hiding. Things can still go wrong, but the hardest part – actually getting the money for the house – is done. Hopefully it's all plain sailing from here…

Fate

Originally posted 29th November 2006 on MySpace

Well I thought it well overdue for another blog post. Today's subject, children, is fate…

It's a funny thing fate. Some people live their lives by it… others think it's a load of old twaddle. I am sort of in the first camp – I am a firm believer in fate BUT I also feel that we do make our own choices in life too. I believe we all have a path to follow, but at times there are diversions off that path or a different way of getting to our next stage in life and that's where our choices come in.

For example… On day nearly 2 years ago I had an absolutely horrendous journey to work. I was still reeling from the death of my granddad and splitting up with my boyfriend, both happening some 6 months beforehand. In short I was a physical and emotional wreck.

I got to work and something snapped… I was fed up of my life and decided for once I would stop being a wallflower and do something about it. At the time I was chatting to one of our building maintenance engineers about the air conditioning (the importance of that will become clear later) and as the conversation progressed, for a laugh he suggested I sign up to a dating website. Had he not dared me to I doubt very much I would have entertained the idea (at that time I was very shy and retiring… no really I was lol! The confidence thing is a recent occurrence). I spent all of about 5 minutes writing my profile then just got on with the rest of my day. On that very same day a nice young man called Phil decided to send me a message. Over the next couple of weeks we talked online and on the phone daily and 16 days later we met for the first time in a Pizza Hut in the middle of Hull. It was one of the best nights of my life and we have been together ever since!

Would that still have happened had I not had such a bad journey to work? I was in a bad way that day and a harmless challenge from a colleague set in motion a chain of events that I will be forever thankful for. What made Phil contact me – he has said there were things in my profile that would usually put him off, but in this case he just had to contact me. Was it fate giving him a shove??? I have spoken to people since and the average time to find someone on a dating website seems to be within 18 months and 2 years, yet I found my soulmate 8 hours after I joined the site.

The really spooky bit is that in the last 2 years, we have found so many times when our paths should have crossed before we finally did meet. We have followed each other around the country – living only a few miles away from each other as kids and even visiting the same places on weekends. How weird would that have been if we did meet each other as kids? We have had holidays in the same place at the same time, I have had job interviews in places he has worked, while he was working there and finally, a couple of months before we actually met, he delivered a parcel to my best friend's place of work!

So you see, it was fated that we should meet… it was just a question of timing and choices. If I had split up with my boyfriend 2 years earlier as I fully intended to, or he had left his partner a year before when things started to get bad, we would not have met. There are so many times in the last 20 years where we could have met but didn't because either fate didn't allow or because of choices we each made. This is so true of so many things that have happened to both of us in our lives… but this is the strongest proof I have.

What do you guys think? What are your experiences of fate or do you think that your life is fully decided by you?

By the way… The significance of the air conditioning comment is that this is Phil's former profession… something he gave up only a couple of months before we met to re-train as a lorry driver.

Let Me Introduce Myself...

This was originally posted on 13th September 2006 on MySpace

This is my first attempt at blogging so bear with me...

It all began approximately 28 years ago in the small, but growing "new town" of Hemel Hempstead. A baby girl was born (in a hospital that has since been knocked down - that sort of thing could really give you a complex!!!). That child spent the first 6 years of its life in this town before her parents finally took pity on her and moved her to the beautiful countryside and rolling hills of Yorkshire. Shortly after, they decided she needed company in the form of a baby brother. Oh how foolish they were!!! It was a further 20 years before sibling rivaly would finally develop into a mutual appreciation of each other as such that they no longer feel the daily urge to kill each other in a variety of ways as per Itchy & Scratchy off the Simpsons!

In those 20 years, that child grew (and oh my how she grew lol). She did well at school and went onto university in the city of Hull where on a sunny day in July 1999 her parents stood proudly as she achieved what no-one else in the family to that date had acheived... a full university degree (we won't mention the essay writing at 2am tanked up on vodka or the partying until 6am the night before a big exam though!)

Now she is plying her trade as a "Payroll Specialist" for a large company in the North of England. She has escaped those proud parents and has met a nice boy with which she wants to spend her future. In short she is finally embarking on that great adventure called life...
Stay tuned for the next episode.....