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However stressful moving house will be, it can't be as bad as moving into our last place 7 years ago. The house wasn't ready, we had a new baby, we had a new puppy and the house was intent on haunting and killing us. So even though it's non-stop box-popping and mild disputes over where the party cups should be stored, we are not being poisoned by carbon monoxide and we have heating, water, plumbing - just no internet (though I've hooked into one of those public EE ones, which is adequate, if slow and I can only access it while sitting on the toilet).
We enjoyed the high life of being child free for the morning by going out for breakfast. I have eaten out for all meals in the last two or three days and have noticeably put on weight. This house may make me happy, but it may kill me.
Not having the internet does slow down settling into a modern home. Everything wants to connect to the wifi. Even my Hive thermostat, which at least allows me to control it without a router, has no way of changing the time and date without the internet doing it for it.
After a brief return to the old house to take back some stuff we didn't need and pick up stuff that we'd forgotten (feeling a bit like Robinson Crusoe returning to his shipwreck for supplies), we picked up Phoebe, but Ernie wanted to stay with his grandparents, which was lucky as he would have been a nightmare to have around in a house full of boxes and dangerous new stuff to mess around with. We took Phoebe out for dinner, though most things were booked. We got a table at the Glasshouse, which turned out to be an incredibly rowdy pub populated by raucous drunk people in their twenties, even at 6.30pm. We'd had to pay £15 to secure the booking - I'd assumed because it was a good restaurant, but I suspect actually because its clientele is so drunk that they aren't guaranteed to show. Phoebe was scared and I was worried about the terrible things she might see, so we went to Pizza Express and the manager kindly refunded our money.
There's a window where that kind of pub is fun and it's somewhere between being 9 and 57. I can't say exactly where. I haven't drunk for nearly four years and a sip of champagne aside, Phoebe's managed 9 years sober. One day she'll want to be in a place like this. Thankfully I never shall.
Pizza Express was less raucous and the only incident was a small 6 year old boy walking up to our table, staring at us intensely and then walking away. He turned out to be podcaster/broadcaster Olly Mann's son.
Phoebe wasn't phased by the new bedroom and fell asleep pretty easily. Catie and me also feel very much at home very quickly. There's much to do and it's as knackering and boring as you'd expect. One day we'll be unpacked and know where we put the colander. But not today.
Having to catch up on these blogs late due to internet and busyness and I have to say that the whole weekend feels like one long, long, day.
