Are we nearly there yet?

I can't believe it's nearly over. The move, that is. After weeks of increasing angst suddenly it's the day before the move. At 8.30 this morning four strapping lads appeared with a large lorry to start packing up our belongings. Four hours later the foreman who'd recently finished another job appeared to help along with three more lads. In the meantime, Ian and I just kept well out of the way outside, moving our wooden bench around to follow the limited but welcome shade in our south-facing garden. It was so hot we only had one tea and coffee round to organise for the lads; the rest of the day they just kept helping themselves to tumblers of water. By 2.30pm the lorry was full and they left, with some of them due to come back on moving day with a smaller 7.5 ton truck to pack up the rest of the garage, garden plants, our clothes and the bed we'd slept in overnight. The rest of the afternoon was spent wiping down skirting boards, washing floors, vacuuming up dust and cobwebs from where our bookcases had been and generally making it as clean as possible for the house's new owner.

Outside, the goldfinches were making a lot of noise this morning, calling to each other with their distinctive high-pitched twitter, perhaps wondering where the food was that we normally leave out for them. But now in late afternoon it's quiet. I think they learn quickly and have found their free lunch elsewhere.

Despite weeks of rain, the garden that Ian and I spent years working on from scratch is looking lovely. Some plants have definitely suffered, some have even died, their roots suffocated in the wet soil, but others have flourished. There's a glorious yellow hybrid tea rose in the corner of the garden that catches the late afternoon sun, next to several sunflowers that are yet to flower but are already well over six feet tall.

But we have a new garden to tend from tomorrow: quite a different challenge, being very steep and terraced, with about four levels stepping up from the house. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

BACS: Bloomin' Awful Corporate Systems

Well! At the bottom of our relatively small chain the buyer of our buyer's house is moving to the UK from abroad and is being financed by his company, a large corporate organisation. We found out on Friday that they hadn't paid the deposit on Thursday, they'd paid the whole purchase price. By BACS! Three or possibly four days to wait until we knew the funds had definitely transferred. I even began to wonder if they might post-date the settlement date to be the completion date on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the thought of being stranded outside our old house surrounded by our belongings with no-one to move us forced us to commit to at least the deposit to book the removal company that we'd managed to find on Friday morning after about the fifth call around.

We spent a long weekend continuing to tidy up and sort out (mostly Ian) and tie up loose ends for work (me) in good faith that all would be well.

On Monday morning we had desperate calls and emails from our removal company for full commitment - and payment - so, by 9.30am, having not heard anything from the solicitors or estate agents we paid up the remaining £2000+ on the understanding that if it all went belly-up we'd lose it. Gulp. Well, at least we get 1% cashback on our credit card.

Finally, at around 12.30 we got the call we'd been hoping for. We have exchanged! At last.

Full steam ahead, then, for packing up tomorrow and moving on Wednesday. And we might even have decent weather for the it, too.

Oh @*&!$%!s!

My friends at Party Pieces

Thursday 19th July was, I believe, my last full working day actually at Party Pieces’ offices. From now on it will all be done remotely. It was an extremely long and busy day with two meetings (I don’t normally have any) and lots of farewell hugs at home time.

Just before the second meeting Ian rang. As we already knew, the deposit on the first property in our chain of three was being paid for, or lent to the purchaser by, his employers. For some inexplicable reason they were adamant that they wouldn’t pay it before this Thursday, just six days before the proposed completion date. By 2pm there was still no sign of the money and Ian rang with a proposal from down the chain that exchange of contracts went ahead on the basis of a promise that the deposit would be forthcoming. Reluctantly we agreed and Ian said he would then book the removals paying the extra £300 cancellation insurance just in case.

Several hours later when I got home, Ian said I might want to have a drink before he updated me further. My heart sank. After calling me earlier he’d decided not to go with the exchange without the deposits in place and told the solicitor to go ‘by the book’. Either way it makes no difference to the main issue… he couldn’t book anyone to do our removals. Oh dear. We really need a three-day move: one for (professional) packing, one for loading and moving and one contingency day. The three firms we’d had in to give quotes were now booked up to September! One company could possibly get personnel and transport from another depot but hadn’t called back. Another said they might be able to pack for us over the weekend or Monday and put everything in store until suitable transport is available to move it to Weymouth. It could be two or three weeks! In the meantime we would have to set aside the absolute minimum that we need to live with and I need to work, put it into a small storage unit before the completion date and then move it out again by car  in the days after completion. This was not how I envisaged using our deckchairs in our new home.

Stop press: On the phone this morning and have found someone who had a cancellation last night. We might, just might, be able to move in one go.

White-winged black tern

The Rodwell Trail, Weymouth.  Photo: Bob Ford

With unexpected extra time on our hands here in Berkshire we spent Saturday morning gazing at kitchen units in B&Q and fridge freezers in Comet, but there's not much more we can do until we're actually in our new house. In the afternoon it poured - again - so I spent several hours trying to work out how to add a cookie notice to my website that would disappear when someone clicked the 'agree and accept cookies' button. (I got there in the end).

On Sunday afternoon, after drinks and nibbles in the church hall after the morning service to say goodbye to our church friends, I browsed 'the net' looking variously for furniture shops, concert venues and outdoor activities in the Weymouth area. Running near to our intended new home is the Rodwell Trail  a former railway line, which ran from Weymouth Station to Portland and carried both passengers and the famous Portland stone (download a PDF of the walk route here from Visit Weymouth). I came across another website about north half of the trail - www.dorsetwalks.com/rodwelltrail/ - that includes lists of the wildlife that can be found on the trail and, for true enthusiasts, how many have been seen this year and whether they are earlier or later than last year's sightings. Currently online is a video of a white-winged black tern. Now I'm no bird expert, so I have to admit I hadn't heard of this one before. Perhaps it's a rare visitor, or maybe it's an unusual colour variant of a black tern. So I looked up the RSPB's website and found that the black tern has a black head and body and, depending on the time of year, grey wings on top and grey or white wings below. So I'm none the wiser, really. But Ian and I do like watching wildlife for its own sake, even if we don't always know what we're looking at so, with up to 60 species of birds and a similar number of plants and even more butterflies (though maybe not this year) and insects to keep an eye out for, I can see the Rodwell Trail becoming a regular haunt.

Patience is a virtue

The Olympic torch on its way to Weymouth (Facebook link)

Patience is a virtue, is it? Well, after the news on Tuesday I haven't been feeling at all virtuous. Apparently our buyer's buyer hadn't received their mortgage offer yet. Yesterday, though, we received a call from our estate agent with better news that was confirmed by our solicitor this morning: The mortgage offer had indeed been received; they'd only been waiting for written confirmation. Phew! We're off shortly to sign the Land Registry transfer deed ahead of exchange next Wednesday. This does mean, of course, that our planned completion date has been put back a week but we should, fingers crossed, still be in Weymouth just before the Olympics get underway.

That said, it's a strange feeling having had three leaving dos already with another one this Sunday, to remain here for week longer than anticipated. It doesn't feel right.

At the time of writing this it's not raining. If you're reading this in a year or more's time you might wonder why I should say that as 'not raining' isn't unusual for July. But April to June this year has been the wettest second quarter in the UK since records began in 1910 and half way through July the trend continues, or even worsens. The Olympic torch arrived in Weymouth yesterday and, quoting from the BBC torch relay page for 12th July "18:24 This is Peter Bryer who takes it in his stride as he battles the wind and rain. 18:40 The flame is now due to board a boat and go to Weymouth Beach. Katrina Hughes is the torchbearer here and is holding up despite the weather."

Oh no! What now?

When we received the offer on our house our buyer said that he needed to move by the end of July as his buyer was moving to the UK and the deadline was for visa reasons. Fine, we said, and proposed a completion date of Wednesday 25th July. (Tip: pick a mid-week date for completion so if you overrun you don't have weekends in the way). Later we discovered that the road we're moving to would have limited access from 26th July due to the Olympics so any delays might mean our removals van wouldn't be able to park on the road outside the house. We moved the proposed date to 18th July.

Days passed and various correspondence was sent and finally, on Tuesday 10th July we had an appointment with our solicitor for 9.30am to go and sign our sale and purchase contracts. We duly signed the contracts but that didn't mean that they we had now 'exchanged'. There were, apparently, some queries remaining on our purchaser's search. Our solicitor promised to make some calls and chase the other solicitor up. Straight after the meeting I had to zip off to PP for the rest of the day. I heard nothing from Ian so assumed that there was no further news.

'Any news?' I asked on my return home. 'Well,' replied Ian 'the solicitor rang and told us that our purchaser's purchaser hasn't had his mortgage offer yet.' Aaaaaargh. I am convinced my stomach dropped about three inches at that point.

Eight days to go. So near and yet so, so far.