Wednesday 14 November 2018

We Are IN!!! Westcliff is HOME

Here I am, back again after the frenzy of moving house last week.  The Move Out went smoothly on Wednesday. We spent the night at an hotel and then Moved In on Thursday morning with the HUMUNGUS removals van pulling in just half and hour after us.  The rest of that day is a bit of a blur.  It comes back to me as one of those old fashioned cartoons with someone running across the screen in a puff of smoke.  As our three removals guys brought in box after box after box, that is all I can recall; them running up and down the stairs and in and out of the rooms in puffs of smoke as the new house - now Home - got fuller and fuller and fuller.  Eldest daughter Lorraine turned up midday with three year old Oscar in tow and even he seemed somewhat bemused by the all the activity.

By around 4pm, everyone had gone and a while later we popped along to this rather brilliant Fish and Chip retaurant we'd discovered a couple of weeks before, had dinner, went home, unpacked until midnight then fell into bed with every muscle throbbing!  We have now been here for almost a week and it is already starting to look like Home.  The kitchen/diner, living room, bedroom and bathroom are all but finished.  The spare room and the room we have designated the Office will take much longer and could yet be box-bound for several weeks to come.  The good thing is that the place is livable, even if I am writing this post at the table in our gorgeous kitchen diner!

Every day this week, we have been out either shopping for essentials (like bread and milk) or for Useful Household Implements (like mug trees and coat hooks), so we are getting to know the area of Westcliff , Leigh and Prittlewell, which is lovely.  Ironically however, even though we have moved near to the sea, we haven't had time yet to actually take romantic walks along the sea front; never mind, I am sure that will come in time.

All in all it has not been nearly so stressful as we expected (although in all honesty, we have had our moments - mostly brought by exhaustion I suspect) and the really great thing is that we have seen lots of our grandchildren, which was, after all, one of the main reasons we picked the area.

It is a nice place to be.  The neighbours seem very friendly; everyone has time to chat to you in the shops and we feel very comfortable here, so here's to many more days. And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to properly get back to my beloved writing by the next millennium!!!😌