You'd expect a 2-3 week catchup to be long but most of the past month we've either been working, clearing up the old house, or asleep!! It's been a long month since moving in to our new house, however I'm glad we've finally done it (despite us being a week from Christmas now).

I thought that come Friday night things would be stress-free and relaxed however that wasn't to be the case after arranging to meet the landlady, who was working late and hadn't told us, then being told by her boyfriend (who is suddenly the landlord too) that he wouldn't be giving back the deposit, then seeing the landlady who started off arguing over god knows what, but finally ended with 'you'll get your deposit back'. Whether that happens remains to be seen but she has a week otherwise come the new year and court proceedings will be started to recover the money. So that started the weekend off with a bang!

However the new house is great, despite its teething problems. It's nice and quiet here. We're not on a main road but a little cul-de-sac type place where the only people driving past either live along this road or know someone who does. It's great! Space wise, well we've still got a lot of boxes to unpack and find a place for everywhere. We've just got my old Washer/Dryer from my parents however it's got a bit of a leak (probably through no use for several years) so that's one for my Dad to fix next week when he's here for Christmas!

We have however had a few teething problems, well right now it's a bit of a major problem. The boiler isn't working so we have no central heating or hot water (besides an electric shower). So typically, on some of the coldest days of the year we have no heating. It's a bit cold…! But, to be fair to the landlord he came out last night and spent about an hour here trying to fix it (used to deal with boilers in his job apparently). He managed to improve the problem we had as we couldn't keep the pilot light alight, however it goes out the minute you put the heating or hot water on. So we have to wait until Tuesday for the gas man to come and look at it. Luckily we have an oil radiator which heats the room it's in pretty well. Of course this is eating up electricity but I'd rather be warm than shivering!

This morning we finally took some time off from everything, work, unpacking, cleaning etc. and took a walk up the hill behind us to the Observatory and Windmill that's up there. From the top of this hill you can see right over to Liverpool. We both had our cameras and were taking shots. My first outing with my new camera, however it was so overcast and a bit of a breeze up the hill, most of my shots didn't turn out too great, however it's given me a chance to get used to the new camera which is good.

So there's a week before Christmas in which time we need to finish the current work we've got on, get the house cleared up, unpack as much as we can, do a bit of Christmas shopping for presents and food, oh and my car needs MOTing! The boiler working too would be nice…! So it's still a bit chaotic, but at least it only involves one house now and not two.

All we need to do now is work out what to buy everyone for Christmas!