We're here!

Millpond-smooth water at Lodmoor, Weymouth, 8.30pm

As completion days go, yesterday was about as straightforward as it can get. Four of the previous day's lads reappeared with the two vans and they very swiftly packed up our remaining belongings. I set off ahead with a few bits in my car. There's not much you can fit into a Peugeot 107 but I made sure I had the kettle, mugs, tea and coffee and large quantities of bottled drinking water. On what was going to be the hottest day of the year so far we were all going to need lots of it. At 11.20, somewhere on the A31 near Ringwood, I pulled over to reply to a call from our solicitor and got the news we were hoping for: completion! At 11.30 there was another call so I pulled over again. It was the estate agents telling me I could pick up the keys. I arrived at their offices at about 12.30, picked up the keys and popped across to a beach-side café to get some lunch. Or so I thought. I imagined the two vans would be at least half an hour behind me but when I rang to check where they were they were only a few minutes behind. Back to the car, buying a sandwich from a corner shop first, then through Weymouth towards our house. At one of the junctions I could see the remvoals van approaching from the Dorchester direction.

At the house I opened up then popped across the road to borrow some buckets of water for the loo (The house had been completely drained down nearly a year ago so we didn't want to turn it back on without a plumber on hand) and made the first many introductions to neighbours to come.

The rest of the afternoon shot by and the lads were finished at around 5.30pm. Now we're here I can say thank you to Rainbow Removals from Wokingham who did an excellent job at very short notice. After they left Ian and I spent a while trying to find a few things we needed but we were virtual zombies by now, so we headed off to the Premier Inn near the beach at Lodmoor (see pic) where we'd booked to stay the night. When we got there we realised we'd left half the stuff we needed at the house so we booked in then turned around and went back. And then back again a few minutes later because I couldn't remember actually locking the door.

A quick five minutes looking at the sea and then into the Brewer's Fayre for dinner before collapsing into bed for what turned out to be a fairly good night's sleep, despite the heat. Still very tired this morning, but much more relaxed.