The Sound of Musical Appliances

Last night the four of us sat around our lounge discussing our new place. I say discussing, but actually we were having a right old bitch. We've wanted to be south west for so long now, but when you're really comfortable somewhere and the new place doesn't quite measure up... well, let's just say we're having teething problems!

Here are our issues - abbreviated for your reading pleasure, as we were on such a roll, the rant lasted a good half hour.

1. It's cold. Not just cool, but cold to the point of needing extra blankets at night, and putting on tracksuits and slippers in the mornings when we come through for breakfast. In Woolwich, our apartment was so warm all year round that we never used our central heating, and jerseys were never worn inside the house. Ever.

2. The washing machine leaks.

3. The geyser takes too long to heat up and barely lasts for 3 showers.

4. The extractor fans for both the bathrooms and the kitchen are located in the storage cupboard (???????????). When you turn them on, they make the most annoying rumbling noises but don't actually extract anything.

5. Flushing the toilets requires both hands with some serious weight behind them. No, really. Unless you have puppies like the Incredible Hulk, the strength of one arm is not enough to get your shit down the pipe. And speaking of that, the suction is pretty bad in said pipes. We get floaters. I'll say no more.

6. The freezer was made for little people who eat miniature food. Perhaps it would be ok for a couple, provided they're not shopping for a whole month. For 4 people who shop weekly and freeze just about everything they buy, there are three words. Taking the piss.

7. The noise. While we have thankfully moved far away from the chavs who haunted our nights, we have a new issue. This is the noisiest house we have ever been in. You can hear the traffic outside 24/7. The washing machine sounds like a cement mixer. The toaster, microwave and dishwasher all beep when they've finished doing their thing, and not just in a normal way, but 5 times louder and more often that your average appliance. The useless extractor fan rumbles like thunder in the storage cupboard. When we're sitting in the lounge watching tv, we have to turn it way up just to hear while the washing machine roars its way through its cycle. Then of course we try and talk, and end up shouting at each other from 2 feet away over the combined cacophony. Peaceful it is not.

I'm sure these kinks will work themselves out, and eventually it will become totally normal and we'll all start to feel at home. In the meantime, we're just doing everything at maximum volume to drown out the background noise. I pity our poor neighbours....

Moving On Up

I took yesterday off work to try and get over a particularly stubborn cold. It hasn't really helped me much, except that I managed to watch a few episodes of Sex And The City which I otherwise wouldn't have had time for (I'm starting from Season 1 and going all the way through again... I miss The Girls and their 'fuck men' attitudes, both figuratively and literally). So I'm at work today, but I'm tired and feeling lethargic and rather useless.

Good news on the new place front though - we have found our absolute dream place and are THIS CLOSE to sealing the deal! It's in Collierswood, which is South London, and just a 5 minute drive (or 20 minute walk) from Wimbledon Central. It's very similar to our current place - very spacious with huge open plan lounge and kitchen, a balcony 3 times the size of what we have at the moment and best of all, Shoes and I get the fabulous master bedroom with the en suite. Eyes and Scarf have the master bed in our place now, and they've had two years of space and privacy with their en suited monster of a room. Shoes and I, by comparison, have had to cram our belongings into the much smaller second room, and put up with the masses using our bathroom every time they come and stay over. Also, our bedroom is closest to the lounge, and some of our friends could win gold in the Snoring Olympics. Being a light sleeper, I often have to sleep with ear plugs in when our mates stay over, because I can actually hear them through the wall. The new place is completely the opposite, and Shoes and I have felt for a while now that it is high time our patience with the short end of the stick is rewarded. We are all terribly excited about the move. We plan on moving in on 12 April, so exactly a month away. We gave our landlord notice this morning. Of course, we're not quite home free yet... we still have to pass a credit check. While I can't think of any reason why we should fail, England has rather stringent checks, and apparently you can fail even if you have no record of bad credit. It works on a points system, and includes aspects like how long you've lived at your previous address and been at your current job. I think I might have trouble on the job front, as I've only been in my new job for 2 and a half months, and prior to that I was temping, so I was all over the place. Hmmm, anyway, we'll see. At least our landlord loves us, so he can always put in a good word.

The only downside of this whole move is that we are pretty much going to be solidly broke for the next 2 months, starting today. Moving house is going to cost us £3000... I still feel my stomach wrench when I write that! It's not as bad as it looks... more than half of that is deposit on the new place, and of course first month's rent before we move in. Plus there are standard admin costs as well. It's split between 4 of us, so it's not impossible, but I'm sure you can see that there'll be no spare change lying around for a while, even for the odd night out.

Anyway, we're starting the belt tightening as of this moment, to make sure we have every penny of cash available to funnel into the move. So I foresee plenty of weekends spent at home in front of the tv and drinking cheap wine while we recover. Maybe we can make our own wine... I should look into that. If you know of any good indoor games to play, let me know!