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!

Yep, it's been a bit quiet here and on my other blogs. This week has been mad and I'm writing this over breakfast! We had the old house back today so we've been getting the last bits from there plus cleaning it. That coupled with a trip down to my parents on Monday and back Tuesday to get a washing machine (which started dripping when we tested it so need to get that fixed), plus a fridge and few other bits, and working like mad during any spare time we have at home. We're surrounded by boxes and I'm honestly wondering where it's all going to go.

I've not even started thinking about Christmas yet, despite my parents coming up here for it and there's those things called presents that need buying! And now I have to work all weekend to catch up with everything.

Roll on Christmas, if nothing else it should at least give us some peace and quiet!

So normal service will be resumed at some point, just bear with me eh

After the long running saga, we've finally moved house! It's been a long week and an even longer weekend, and we've still got a lot to do, but at least the roof over our heads is now the new house. I've moved house a lot of times (30+ in all now) however I've never had this much stress. It's been a while since I had so much stuff to move, so I guess that hasn't helped, however we've also had a few issues with arranging various things.

On monday we got the keys for the new house. We headed straight up to see what would need doing and we also had a couple of boxes already with us. Unfortunately since viewing the house, the landlord and his wife had decided to decorate, leaving a lot of mess in the bathroom. So we set to working cleaning the bathroom as well as the kitchen, which was already planned regardless of cleanliness. It wasn't what I'd hoped for, you usually expect to rent a house out in a clean state to begin with. Anyway, we unpacked the boxes we had and then went off to a friend's for the evening.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we didn't actually return to the new place. Dave suffered with a bad back all last week (perfect timing unfortunately!) and I had so much work to get done that I decided we'd just spend the week working and packing, getting ready for the weekend. We then spent Friday moving more boxes up to the house, met the landlord in the evening briefly, and then on Saturday we had a van to do a couple of trips with the bulk of the stuff.

On Monday we found a BT line (British Telecom, main provider of telephone lines in the UK) so assumed we could get that reconnected and keep our ADSL, just moved over to the new line. However a quick call to BT later and we were told it would cost £125 to reconnect the line, we would also have the cost of enabling ADSL which is £50, so £175 in total. This compared to free set up with NTL/Virgin Media, 2MB broadband, telephone and the basic cable TV package for £20 a month. No comparison really! So we had the equipment couriered out to us on Wednesday and we set it all up on Friday.

Annoyingly the house currently has prepay meters for both Electricity and Gas. This means that we need to ensure there is always money on the meter else it'll just cut out. So you have the choice of having to put a lot of money on the meter or risk running out of credit in the evening when the shops are closed. Plus not many shops let you buy credit which is also frustrating (not to mention it's a more expensive system). We've already asked the supplier to change the meters, I hope it's done soon.

Another rant this week (it's been a long week!) is over the Royal Mail. In this country, if you move home you can pay to have any mail going to your old address to be redirected to your new address. Handy, especially with Christmas coming. However 'for your security' you naturally have to prove who you are and that you live at the old address. Well, despite having a car registered there, car insurance and house insurance, because I cannot provide a utility bill (electricity, gas, water or telephone) as they're all in Dave's name, and my bank details are at my business address, I therefore cannot get my mail redirected. So for my security my mail will continue to go to the old address and could be opened by anyone (being against the law doesn't tend to deter people if they don't care). Okay, so it's for security, I can understand that. What I can't understand is that once the redirection is set up, a letter is sent to the old address stating that redirection has been set up for those who have requested it and of course, if this is incorrect please contact them. So, erm, why can I not have my redirection as their final security check is the cherry on the cake anyway?!

Still, rants aside, I'm glad to have finally got out the other house. It's so quiet and peaceful here for a start off. Plus we're a short walk (up a hill) from an Observatory that, once you're up there, gives you panoramic views over the area and hopefully a few good sunsets too (providing the clouds go away!). It's also so nice to know where the car is (2m from the front door) instead of wondering if it's still where you left it, whether it's been hit, broken into or had a wheel or two stolen!

So we're settling in slowly. Still got loads of boxes to unpack, the bed to put back together, and a few bits still to get from the old house, but we're getting there.

Bit late I know. Yesterday I was absolutely shattered and didn't have much energy to write anything! We went over to Huddersfield on Saturday for Dave's cousin's birthday party. It's not too far to drive, took us just over an hour to get to the hotel we stayed in. However we were out at the party until gone 2am (hours after my bedtime!) and didn't get to bed until 3am. Then we had to get out the room for 12 noon so drove back via Liverpool to drop Dave's sister off. Finally got home around 2.30pm and spent the rest of the day lying on the bed watching TV and half falling asleep!

Last week was a bit manic. I had to go to Cardiff on Monday for a meeting with my boss along with a few other meetings arranged too. I take a return train to Cardiff for these brief meetings so that means catching the 8am train and getting back for almost 8pm, giving me 3.5 hours in the office. It's a long day but at least I show my face and everyone seems happy with that! Plus we can get a lot more stuff sorted out quickly face to face. I now have 3 new sites to get done ASAP along with updates to existing sites, so I'm having to chase our many different designers for files and prices off them to get things done. This along with various other updates, just trying to fit it all in right now as we're finally moving house!! (Yes, got the keys today).

The rest of the week, well, work / packing / work / packing etc! You get the idea. We paid our first months rent and bond for the new house so our savings account is now looking a little sorry for itself (althought there's enough in there for a short break away I think).

Today we picked the keys up for the new house and have spent the afternoon cleaning. Unfortunately it's not been left in a very clean state, okay it's not bad but the whole bathroom needs a clean as it seems like decorating has been done since we looked around and no one cleaned up after them. I didn't intend to spend several hours on the first day cleaning. A brief once over in the kitchen and along the windowsills, but not this. However it's virtually done now so we'll be getting the desks up there tomorrow and set up, along with a few more boxes each evening, hopefully leaving just a couple of vans worth of stuff for Saturday.

So, posting will be slow around here this week besides one I wrote earlier (and just need to finish off!).

I missed last week's post as I didn't really have a great deal to say! This week things have gone up and down like a rollercoaster! We'd been holding out for the opportunity of renting this house, well priced, well located etc. The owner's manager had told us last week to call on Monday to arrange a viewing. We'd been discussing this house with them for well over a month, trying to get a viewing for the past few weeks. So Monday came and Dave gave the guy a call and was simply told 'oh that house has gone now'. I'm sure you can imagine how unhappy it made me. We'd spent so much time waiting on these people to just be told that the house had gone after we had done everything we'd been told to do! I don't understand why people can be like that to others.

After this low I spent the afternoon on the estate agent sites again, as our other contact hadn't bothered to phone us either, and figured that we'd just have to deal with losing £200-300 in fees. I found a couple of houses and Tuesday morning called up about viewing them. We saw a house on Tuesday afternoon, a 3 bedroom place, with a driveway, in a quiet area about 20 minutes north from here. Whilst it's not 100% perfect, we worked out how we could sort the furniture out and that it would be okay for a while. So we put in an application for it (Non refundable £220 fee) and we're just waiting to hear back about whether we've been successful or not. I have to say, I've never had this much hassle trying to rent somewhere before! It was easier than this in London! Not to mention fee free.

Monday also saw the release of my second plugin which I'd needed for client sites. It's not provoked as much interest as my first, however the comments I have seen have been good, often including 'why isn't this functionality already in WordPress?' Which is a good question, but with WP being a blogging platform, pages are not meant to take priority so I can understand it

On Thursday my parents turned up (12 hours early!) after a few days in West Wales. They'd been planning to stay in Bangor on the Thursday evening but with the bad weather, no train to take them up mount Snowdon, and lack of much else to do, they arrived up here in the late afternoon. This was a nice surprise, especially as I'd been alone all day as Dave was in Yorkshire at a funeral. On the Friday we showed them the house we're hoping to move into and then popped over to the beach to grab the best fish and chips around for lunch. Afterwards they headed home and left us catching up with work for the afternoon.

This weekend has been a fairly lazy one. Dave's been ill with potentially fatal man flu (that'd be a cold to us girls ) and besides going out for more Lemsips, I've just been catching up on a bit of work while trying to take it easy a little. I've got a day trip to Cardiff tomorrow for work, so I have about 7 hours on a train to put up with. Thrilling!