Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

greenbee

If you were nearer you could have the vast pile of flattened boxes from my garage and all the boxes of paper…

Don’t forget to book a locksmith for day 1 or 2. And if you know how many doors/what locks, it’s worth asking them to order all locks of the same type with the same key to reduce confusion/number of keys needed.

Suffolk_lass

lucielle said:

I always find writing on the box which room it needs to go in helpful. 

L

Ooh yes, although it does presuppose the removal chaps read them, our last but one move they just piled them all up in the hall, despite them being labelled. At least we and our friends, drafted in last minute to assist, put most in the right destination rooms!

Well done @EssexHebridean for rising above the poisoner in your festival midst. It can erode pleaseure as well as confidence over time. The fact that you have heard some of these things suggests you have supporters who have your backs!

Nice bit of prepping on the move too. Fingers crossed all goes smoothly for you

EssexHebridean

Morning all - and thanks for the great tips too! 

Lucielle we're planning on a room labelling system - using an arrow (up or down) for the ground or first floor, followed by a number which will designate the room or area. the numbers will be written on a copy of the floor plan which will be given to the removal team, as well as on labels which will be stuck to the relevant doorways for avoidance of doubt. Should hopefully be easier to see at a glance what goes where. We're also planning to label a particular large heavy item as "load first" as it will need to be the very last thing to come into the new house - it will be going into the hallway and will just get in the way if it's taken off the truck sooner.  I'm also writing on boxes a personal note for us for the rough contents so we can prioritise when it comes to the unpacking. Bedding to  make up our bed on the first night will go into a grab bag along with our travel toiletries bags, a change of clothes for the following day, our microfibre bath towels, and comfies for the first evening. 

Greenbee we should be able to do the lock changes ourselves we think, although for ease we may just ask our lovely "Brian the Door Man" to come and see us a few days in so we can get him to price the new door for the office too at the same time - the one that is there isn't as sturdy as we feel we'd like so that will be a replacement we'll sort fairly fast. 

Pennies - I was keeping you company with tackling a niggly job that needed perseverance yesterday as I contacted the booking site about my upcoming planned trip to Eastbourne Airshow. I've come to the conclusion as a result of a few things that I don't plan to go for as long now, and just possibly not at all - so wanted to shorten the accommodation booking - initially they said "oh yes, you can, but it will  mean you have to change room and it will cost X amount - nearly as much for 2 nights as the 4 I had originally  booked! I politely said no thank you - as I already had the room booked all that was needed was to just cancel the first two booked nights from the stay, and that as my booking clearly said I was able to make changes, that was what I'd like to do.... 5 minutes later and a call from then direct to the hotel, it was done, and I should be getting a refund for 50% of what I originally paid. 

Jellytotts I'm hoping we'll be able to find someone to take our boxes afterwards, although some will be flattened and used for week suppression on the garden over winter I think - we used to do that on the allotment and it always worked pretty well. we're getting 80 delivered which sounds a lot - but I bet it's not! 

SL - we definitely have more friends in the ranks than the troublesome person - and they seem determined to make more enemies as time goes on. I think they have mistaken having more "power" as meaning they can behave as they like, and it will get them what they want - but they've thoroughly misread the situation if that is their thinking. I've been involved in the organisation for a good many years now and have seen a lot of that type of person come and go - they either realise the error of their ways and evolve into a far nicer person, or they simply fall by the wayside! 

EssexHebridean

Right then - where are we at?

MSE Stuff:
- The accommodation refund as mentioned above. My gut feeling is currently that I think I will end up cancelling the two nights I still have booked, but this gives me flexibility anyway, I have a few more days to make that decision, I have £148 winging its way back to me and realistically in the circumstances going down for the full run I'd intended isn't an option, so all good. I might even consider suggesting to MrEH that we both drive down for a day, he can go off and do RSPB reserve type things, or a nearby steam railway, or whatever, I can go to the airshow, then we can meet up later to head home. We'll see. 
- CC is in hand - I'm waiting for MrEH to transfer me a chunk for his spends on it but mine were transferred and have cleared through onto the account this morning. There are a few straggly odds and ends but everything on the account is correct so I will just transfer those from my own spends to clear them once I have an otherwise zero balance. 
- MrEH fed his Oyster yesterday, my car is fine for fuel at the moment and we will probably put some into his over the weekend. 
- I have started a "longlist" of meal options using some of the stuff from the freezer. I'm still intending that some stuff will be solidly packed into the coldbox with the icepacks, so we're not planning to use everything from it ahead of moving, but I would like to get the most "vulnerable to defrosting" bits taken care of ahead of time. 
- I also have a shopping list on the go for this week already, which makes a nice change! 

Spendiness:
Nothing other than the Big River spend declared yesterday. I'll transfer the money for my part of that from spends, and the tissue paper will just come from the joint account. I've come to the conclusion that any further small-ish move related expenses might as well do that now. 

Move related stuff:
- we'll definitely get a box of glasses packed over the weekend - we have empty boxes and inserts that we claimed at the end of the beer festival so that's a logical one to do. Another of those boxes will probably replace some of the more random packaging of empty jars - those are all in the garage and that is another area we should be able to make a start on getting packed too. (we have a lot of beer festival glasses from an event I was involved in years ago - I effectively have the "archive" of the first 20 years of glasses from that one, so no intention of getting rid of those)
- I'm also after finding another box worth of books that can be dealt with quickly and easily - and also perhaps some DVDs. 
- Once the tissue paper has arrived I should be able to make a start on packing up ornaments - notably my "pocket dragons" of which there are a lot! 
- I've chased the removal company to try to see if they can deliver their boxes tomorrow - it would be handy if they could. 

Other than that - plans for the weekend are fairly fluid at the moment. We're struggling a bit to remember what we used to do with free time as the past few months any spare time has been taken up with beer festival stuff! I'm still open minded about the gym tomorrow - I'm not quite feeling it at the moment, and frankly not willing to push the point. Might head out on the bike instead though as it's easily accessible at the moment with the car not being in the garage. 

lucielle

It still sounds like you’ve got a lot planned. Hope you manage a bit of downtime. Can’t remember if you’ve got a date for moving. 

L

milann

The beer festival sounded hard work and fun. Hope the one with poisonous ideas sees sense and gets on track.
The house move is getting close - exciting.
Hoep you get a good balance of chilling and productiveness over the weekend.

Jellytotts

Oh I used to have a lot of pocket dragons too! Got rid of them when we downsized and regret it deeply. Their little faces!!!

savingholmes

I used to have some of the little dragons but let them go in the divorce. They are cute.

Well done on the compensation money. You are very good at chasing down refunds.

Boodedoo

De-lurking temprarily

We have moved a LOT in the last 51 years (18 addresses spanning not only the UK but other continents too.) 
I would strongly recommend a box that goes with you that contains bedding, duvet, pillows and nightwear (if worn) and make your bed up as soon as the removal guys drop it in place - while you still have lots of energy.
Doesn't matter if the rest of the room is a tip as long as at the end of a long, exciting but exhausting day when you have utterly run out of steam you can just climb into a freshly made bed and zonk out :-)

Suffolk_lass

Good job we are all different! I had to look up what they are (little dragons). Whoosh as another thing completely bypassed me!