No recipe this week, ’cause I’ve been packing boxes all day long and haven’t been very hungry.
There’s still a few areas of the house to pack, but today I really feel like I’ve broken the back of it. Just a couple of hours more packing after I’ve finished work tomorrow and I think I’ll be mainly done. There’s a few loose things that we’ll be carrying over to the new place ourselves after we get the keys on Friday, and then we’ll be all set for moving day on Saturday.
A few days ago, I was wondering how on earth we’d ever get it done on time, but between me and Geth we’ve done really well this week. I’m getting really excited about getting it all unpacked and finding places for it in the new house!
Six days till moving day! And we still have a lot to pack. And I have a lot of work getting in the way this week, grgh.
Geth did the bulk of the kitchen stuff today, and I was on track to get all of the living room ornaments done…until I ran out of bubble wrap. We have no time to go into town to get more, so we’ll be buying a lot of newspapers over the next few days.
It doesn’t feel real yet that in two weeks time we’ll have finished the move and will no longer be living here. We’ve been in this house for three years exactly – longer than any place since our flat in Edinburgh where we lived for nearly four years – and it’s been a lovely, spacious place to live, even if it’s never exactly felt finished. This is largely because I’ve been a terrible procrastinator in terms of a) putting stuff up on the walls and b) unpacking all the boxes of my stuff that I’ve had my parents bring down from Edinburgh in order to give them some more space. This is a habit I’m going to be very strict about changing when we’re in the new place, because we’re going to be there for the rest of however long we end up living in Newcastle (I hate moving. I may have mentioned this once or twice) and I want it to look nice. It’s probably going to be an ongoing project (an expensive ongoing project) but I’m fed up of living among boxes of stuff, so this year I at least want to find a place for everything I’m keeping and get rid of the stuff I’m not.
The last part will be easier said than done. Hoarding tendencies are a bitch.
Well, it feels like slow progress, but we are gradually getting the packing done for the move. The library is 95% done, the dining room about 50%, the bedroom maybe 20%. Actually, that doesn’t sound like much at all, thinking about it, and now I’m panicking slightly again. I’m hoping by the end of the weekend we’ll have broken the back of it. I’m also hoping the new tattoo I will have from Friday onwards won’t hinder me too much with the packing work. I didn’t really think about that when I booked the appointment in October.
I’m sort of regretting packing the DVDs first, because I keep coming across other stuff while packing that reminds me of a certain Doctor Who episode, and then I’m all like ‘ooh! Let me just grab that DVD to check that scene…oh.’ It’s probably for the best. I don’t need any more sources of procrastination right now.
I have far too many coats and jackets, because, like most things, I never throw them away. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve not yet thrown away the old winter coat that I wore to death in uni, the one that has a big rip in the front with stuffing coming out of it. It’s one of those collections that badly needs to be culled when we move into the new place, ’cause I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of hanging space for coats.
This didn’t stop me acquiring five new ones this winter, however. Three were gifts from my sister-in-law when she was clearing out her Edinburgh clothes stash, so I’m going to raise my hand and say ‘not responsible’ for those, but the other two were Etsy purchases. Having really got into vintage clothes shopping in the last couple of years, I’m developing a bit of an Etsy addiction.
My black ’80s trenchcoat, the slightly warmer of the two I own. The beige one will be out in full force for the spring.
Thing is, I love ’80s trenchcoats. They’re much longer than their modern-day equivalents, so you don’t get the awkward hem battle when you’re wearing a skirt, and like most clothing cuts from the ’80s, it’s a much more dramatic silhouette, with nice wide shoulders and a nipped-in waist. I find that in the depths of winter, when you’re always wearing a coat outdoors, a bit of dramatic dressing is refreshing, especially after the sparkly Christmas stuff has all had to be put away.
It’s probably for the best that there’s only one more month left of winter, ’cause Etsy keeps tempting me with more and more coats in all the colours of the rainbow (and in the ’80s, it was a very brightly coloured rainbow). If only I had the space!
This weekend, I finally got round to starting packing all our stuff up for the move, and immediately remembered that it’s a far bigger job than it seems. Guess I’m going to be spending tomorrow afternoon drawing up a minute-by-minute immovable schedule for the next few weeks, seeing as we’re on a strict timetable in terms of moving out. Geth has suggested getting it done bit by bit in the evenings (and is far more excited about it than I am), so it will get done – it just seems like an impossible mountain at the moment.
So far, I’ve packed about 80% of our books (which has reminded me exactly why I asked for a Kindle for Christmas – ideally I’d never buy another physical book again, but not everything is available in ebook format yet, and sometimes for a vintage/retro lover like me it’s nice to have the original physical versions of old books; still, for reasons of space I would need to have a serious book cull before I bought any more physical ones) and about 60% of my shoes. The shoes take up three holdalls so far and I’m not done yet:
Some of my shoes. In the holdalls, the amount looks a lot smaller than when they’re on the shelves, which is quite calming.
I currently have 87 pairs. I’d have a lot more if I hadn’t forced myself in recent years to be better about chucking them in the bin when they wear out. I’d also have a lot more if I hadn’t been so broke during my most shoe-obsessive years – much as I’m still magnetically drawn to The Shiny, with age has come (a small amount of) wisdom and nowadays I’m a lot stricter with myself about only buying stuff that I know I’ll definitely wear.
Hopefully, this time next week we’ll have got a lot more of the packing done and I won’t feel quite so stressed about it.
There are many things I am not going to miss about living in a Victorian build – draughts, damp and dust being the TLDR version. What I am going to miss, though, are the ceilings. I love ceilings in Victorian buildings.
First of all, they’re nice and high, and coupled with the larger rooms you tend to get in such houses, they give a real airy sense of space. I grew up in a Victorian building – my parents still live there – and so I often find more modern houses with their low ceilings to be a bit claustrophobic.
The main thing, though, is the pretty detailing you get on the ceilings. The house in which I grew up has absolutely beautiful cornices, at which I still find myself staring for ages whenever I visit home. The house in which we live at the moment doesn’t have cornices, sadly, but it does have this lovely arch detail in the downstairs hallway:
Intricate plaster arch in our current hallway.
…and this ceiling rose in the living room:
Ceiling rose with light fitting in the centre.
…both of which I absolutely love. I will miss these pretty embellishments when we move into a more modern building, but I am looking forward to better insulation and hoovering not being a largely pointless exercise!
My husband Geth and I are in the process of buying our first house at the moment, which, as with every move, is both exciting and stressful at the same time. We’re pretty close to completion now, and had a meeting with our solicitor in Whitley Bay today to sign stuff and finalise things.
Gratuitous phone box picture of the phone box near Whitley Bay metro station, probably my favourite phone box in the North East.
I was excited to find out today that the house we’re buying was built in 1988. I love the ’80s but have never lived in an ’80s build before! I’m really looking forward to moving in next month, getting settled, and starting to plan all my home improvement projects.
