August 29th 2017: Franky and I take both Thompson grandchildren for a day out, heading for the Heights Of Abraham, Matlock:

After lunch, the main attraction was the playground (as usual) – but then, I wasn’t up for anything involving walking, such as the caves.

Then they were introduced to Punch and Judy – a new experience which they entered into with enthusiasm, as eight year olds do. Oh, yes …

The descent in the cable car gave a good view of the canoe slalom on the Derwent, though not in use just then:

Early September, and it was time to pack up the flat in Meltham – Chris did most of it over several days. Surprising how much I had accumulated in 21 months! – also how the big chair had deteriorated; BHF wouldn’t take it back … 

I / we tried to leave the flat as we found it. Good enough to get the full deposit back, anyway.

I’d mistimed the handing in of the notice to leave the flat, being too optimistic as to when completion of the purchase of 141 Hall Cross Road might happen. Trying to save myself a month’s rent didn’t work – I had to do a double move, hiring two men and a van twice (we weren’t going to try moving a frigde-freezer down the stairs ourselves!) and paying for an 11-day stay on a caravan park. Chris gave my stuff house room – basement room, really (more stairs, though the freezer stayed in his kitchen!) and Harry, Franky and I went to a little camping / caravaning site behind this pub above Marsden:

It wasn’t a bad place to be!: The view on opening Harry’s door each morning:

During that stay, there was a visit from Carol and Judi, who enjoyed a meal at the pub, and joined Chris and me for the G & S Society’s quiz evening. The timing meant I couldn’t offer accomodation, of course, but they found a suitable ‘Airbnb’ in Meltham. (No photos of any of that?!)

September 25th 2017: Completion! Chris came with me – and Harry – to get the keys to 141 and take possession. Armed with a borrowed sledge hammer, the first job was to knock out the gatepost between the double gates and the single one, to enable me to manoeuvre Harry onto the drive.

Later that day Rachel came over and drove me back to the Carriage House to collect Franky. A few days later Chris took this photo of the three of us (look carefully!), apparently at the rainbow’s end!

At first, I had only the camping furniture brought in Harry, and I slept on the inflatable matresses which had been in the guest room at Meltham. After two days the men with the van brought the things from Chris’s basement and I had a bed to sleep in, but it was another week before the big load came up from Sussex, where it had been since April. At least this gave Rachel and Sean the chance to come over and do a bit of painting to ‘refresh’ the living room before:

Tuesday 3rd October: The BIG one! Rachel took the day off to come and supervise, and we were hoping that BHF would take away quite a lot of the now ‘surplus to requirements’ furniture. That didn’t work! The driver declined to take most of it, including the big chair, which was no surprise, but we were surprised that he wouldn’t take the mattress of the bed which I’d bought from them and seemed to us to be in the same condition! It was good to see Simon again – he was one of the two who had loaded the goods at Sunejo – but Mark, who should have driven a second, smaller van up had been taken ill and to hospital! Waiting till the next day for the second load wasn’t really an option as I had an all-day hospital appointment myself (bone scan) and anyway, my bed was on the second van … so another driver was found and they arrived at 8pm.

Rachel had a plan to ensure that the living room was ‘habitable’ that evening, and that I had a bedroom to sleep in. Well, the living room looks OK …

–…  almost!

But there wasn’t going to be much use of the dining table for a day or two!

The plan for my bedroom came good:

I was expecting the first guest within three days, so the guest room was … accessible:

But bedroom 3 isn’t – and won’t be for some time!:

Experimenting with sitting round the dining table showed that – as some had suspected – putting the sideboard (bought in Mirepoix) in the kitchen-dining room was a mistake, so next time Rachel and Chris were both here, they moved it into the living room:

and on Tuesday 24th October we had the first four person meal round the table*.*This table has history! First, as far as I know, it was in my grandparents’ house in Sale – ‘Milton Cottage’, but no cottage in fact – a big town house, now no longer there. Then it went to my cousins’ (I think), in Wardle Road, also in Sale, and from there to my parents’ in Felsted, Essex. When Mum came to live in Cumbria, Philip and Christine gave the table houseroom, but when they left Sydenham, they no longer had room for it. I said ‘hold on to it’ and made having space for it a criterion in choosing the house in France… Those chairs have been part of my family longer than I have, too!

Rachel and Chris have been a great help in all this – Chris is here several days each week, just emptying boxes and repacking and taking away the ‘let it go’ items which I just don’t want or haven’t room for. In the middle of it all I had a urinary infection involving visits to A & E two evenings running (if you phone 111 that’s the advice you get!). Michelle took me the first time, and Rachel came the second evening; it cleared up after about three days. We haven’t touched the garage or the shed yet, nor the upstairs rooms, but it’s good to be able to scan and print documents for myself, and to relax on that sofa with its footboards – I’ve been without that for nearly two years!(The colours aren’t quite right – the walls are more pale yellow than pink!)

…. I’d better do some more washing up of the lastest ‘finds’ from the boxes …