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

Suffolk_lass

Removals
In contrast, we used the (then) best of breed (national) removal company (like plucking-car) when we moved here and thanks to an arrogant little s**t on the team that moved us, a wooden tea chest with valuable items in was bounced on an edge, chipping a one-off piece of ceramic art that was a wedding present. They also had a case of wine still on the big van after claiming to have unloaded everything and at least one box was never unloaded or discovered (it contained one of a set of really good quality stainless steel saucepans, among other things), so not exactly inconspicuous. I concluded that it is really down to the team you get. The condition that you have to notify any damage or missing items within 48 hours was also completely unrealistic.

Both our removal company moves have been a nightmare. The one before (a local company) resulted in all the boxes (labelled) being piled up in the hall. All 108 of them, and furniture haphazardly dumped wherever, although mostly on the right floors (DH calling where things were to go as three pairs unloaded did not make any difference. Unwisely, I had taken the small son on a Santa train trip with his nursery. It was the week before Christmas. You can imagine the holiday that year!

savingholmes

Sorry the selling agent has been such a pain. 

Hope all settles down.

You are sounding organised as ever. Good that you've started packing. I still intend to continue decluttering - now I've got in the swing of it - it is easier to identify things that have just become surplus to requirements.

Drawingaline

Our removal teams have always been fantastic. We have used the same company each time, but last time they had been paired up with a more local team. 

On the day they were a man down, it was lockdown, 4 kids in the house, two stressed house cats, hubby on work calls and me frantically trying to clean around them. 

They were just all lovely, got on with it, didn't flap. And only the lightest of teasing when we got to the new house and they had to contend with two flights of stairs for most of the heavy boxs! 

A decent removal company really is worth the money.

RelievedSheff

Just catching up with your diary. Glad the house move seems to be going well, other than the EA!

We have used a van and man service for our last couple of moves. The last lot were absolutely fantastic. Could not fault them and if we ever do move again we will certainly use them again.

We had to do the packing ourselves of course but we didn't mind that part and we used the opportunity to have a good declutter and clear out.

beanielou

My new neighbours seem to have moved everything in a trailor!

starnac

Catching up on your diary EH. We've never used movers to be honest. We've always done it ourselves but I can definitely see the benefit of doing so. 

It must be selling agents as we had one that was very dramatic when we bought this house. It started when DH and I viewed the house and liked it and asked for a second viewing so we could bring the kids with us. She point blank refused for "Covid reasons". No one was living in the house, it was empty apart from one sofa and a few bits down in the basement. She told us they would have to wait until we moved in! I told her that there was no way would I expect my children to move to a new house and area when they have not had a chance to voice their opinion on it. She fought with us for a while until she realised that there was no way we would make an offer on the house (despite us loving it) until the kids had seen it. 

She then tried to blame the sellers, saying it was their rules. The house was being sold by two brothers in their 60's, there was no way they would want to miss out on a sale for what I assume is their inheritance. I asked her contact them and ask. She rolled her eyes at me but did ring them. Guess what? They were more than happy for us to bring our kids around to see the house! Shocker right?

EDITED TO ADD This was early summer 2021 so not right in the middle of the Covid problems/lockdown etc

Suffolk_lass

starnac said:

Catching up on your diary EH. We've never used movers to be honest. We've always done it ourselves but I can definitely see the benefit of doing so. 

It must be selling agents as we had one that was very dramatic when we bought this house. It started when DH and I viewed the house and liked it and asked for a second viewing so we could bring the kids with us. She point blank refused for "Covid reasons". No one was living in the house, it was empty apart from one sofa and a few bits down in the basement. She told us they would have to wait until we moved in! I told her that there was no way would I expect my children to move to a new house and area when they have not had a chance to voice their opinion on it. She fought with us for a while until she realised that there was no way we would make an offer on the house (despite us loving it) until the kids had seen it. 

She then tried to blame the sellers, saying it was their rules. The house was being sold by two brothers in their 60's, there was no way they would want to miss out on a sale for what I assume is their inheritance. I asked her contact them and ask. She rolled her eyes at me but did ring them. Guess what? They were more than happy for us to bring our kids around to see the house! Shocker right?

You do wonder how these people get to be allowed out on their own, don't you!

savingholmes

Hope you are okay EH - you've gone a bit quiet. Is it all the volunteering stuff?

EssexHebridean

Oh what a lovely lot of visitors - thank you all for popping by, sorry you found the kettle not on and the dust bunnies blowing about! 

I've been off for another few days - this time across at Fairford for the Royal International Air Tattoo - great fun as ever although decidedly wet for some of the time, decidedly wind for some more of the time, and both for a fair bit of the rest of the time! Thankfully they were able to get plenty of flying displays on in between the weather (and some while it was practically monsoon conditions which was entertaining!)  Arrivals on Wednesday and Thursday were decent with just a few short sharp showers - we managed to stay pretty dry all day. Friday was almost a washout and we were extremely glad of the fact that the package we had booked this year included a nice dry marquee, toilets very close by, food stands very close by, and somewhere to leave bags when we wanted to. We still got pretty much soaked through just walking back to the car though - in spite of the giant rain ponchos that my pal Tim bought one of for each of us! Saturday was miles better from the rain point of view, but stupidly windy - and that meant that we did lose a few displays, and yesterday was mixed - the wind wasn't too bad and the earlier part of the day mostly dry but with a couple of big monsoon-like deluges in the afternoon -we did stick it out in the grandstand right through though, again, halleluiah for the ponchos!  MASSES of photos - and I am now feeling far more confident with the new camera, there is nothing like using it for anything up to 7 hours in a day to really get to grips with a bit of new kit like that, and Tim has a similar model so was also able to pass on lots of little bits of wisdom that he has picked up since he's had his. All in all a really excellent few days!

What it definitely was NOT though was MSE-friendly - although it was all budgeted, by the time the ticket, the accommodation, and the food was all taken into account it was most definitely not a cheap few days. We're talking about sharing a big house in between a few of us next year which might be a way of keeping the costs down. Ultimately I really don't begrudge the cost - it's a fantastic few days and we always have a complete blast! The ticket package with all days included and the grandstand/marquee etc was pricey but we all agreed yesterday that it was well worth its money to be honest - and we'll certainly do it again. I bought food to take in for the two arrivals days to reduce the costs a bit, and ate at the accommodation in the evenings once I was in the Airbnb rather than eating out or doing takeaways. Also made sure I had a big bottle of water each day so didn't buy any drinks on site at all - my insulated cup meant I started each day with a hot cuppa as well and I can find space to tuck that into my camera bag once I've drunk the contents too. All spendiness has come from my personal spends of course - and I just needed to top that up with £50 from my airshow account over the weekend. I probably will need to do a similar top up from my fun account ready for the beer festival setup days as well as there is always nights out with the guys then. 

Now it's back to the usual stuff for a couple of weeks before it's time to head off again for the beer festival! Bless MrEH's cotton socks, he's been keeping everything ticking over in respect of that stuff over the weekend, although thankfully now it's all calmed down a bit at least. I also need to get back to some proper meal planning - I'll be popping for oddments of shopping after work tonight so need to think through what we have that we can eat this week. MrEH went to the farmer's market on Saturday so we're having sausage and mash tonight. Might even dig a can of beans out of the tin drawer too! I'm assuming he is rugby training tomorrow so that will be the old faithful couscous. The rest of the week is currently a mystery though. I'll buy the basics tonight then see what I can put together from what we have in for the rest. 

Both cars have had fuel over the weekend, and MrEH is feeding his Oyster today. On the "incoming" side though £50 bill credit has arrived in the Octopus account from my Mum switching to them with our referral code - very handy, and credit there is now up to £465 which is a decent little lump building ready for the winter. 

That's about it from me I think...so I'll just finish with:

A Good Thing: A great weekend with pals, lots of laughs in spite of (and sometimes because of!) the weather, and some lovely photo opportunities.
A Bad Thing: the only real thing (aside from the weather, but that can't be helped!) was the appalling marshalling of vehicles leaving the car park last night. I got marshalled away from my nearest exit queue which was moving, into one which was stationary, and stayed so for half an hour before moving very slowly. Turned out that it was a broken down bus causing the issue which is fair enough, you can't plan for that - but it seems utterly stupid to turn people away from a queue that would have enabled them to clear the field faster and into one that couldn't go anywhere. To add insult to injury, others who had doubled back to go into that queue when they realised it was moving were allowed to join it. Poor management, and I'll be noting that in my feedback form.
A Food For Thought Thing: We went in feeling that the cost for the "FRIAT" package was high, and that it would probably just be a one-off for us, but left feeling that actually we had got excellent value from it. Having clean tidy well stocked toilets was a complete bonus. The food stands in the enclosure were good quality and not too badly priced. There was plenty of seating available inside the marquee when needed - on Friday we spent very few periods standing as we were mostly able to rustle up three chairs easily enough, and the grandstand gave excellent views of the flying. Had we been staying further south we would have been able to enter and exit the showground area itself via a dedicated "fast track" lane too which would have been a bonus. Getting the detailed list of what was arriving/departing/flying for each day was very useful. I reckon the extra/over cost above what I would have paid for regular tickets & 2 days in the park& view enclosure for arrivals was about £25 a day, which actually feels like very good value. 

milann

Look as if you’ve had an amazing time despite the weather.