Thursday 25 October 2012

Further up ... and worn out

Since we got the new mattress on Sunday evening I had been feeling a bit insecure in bed ... we know our house has a slope towards the middle, a lot of houses in Barnsley are a bit wonky so despite this being pointed out when we bought it we weren't particularly worried.  It seems that over the last year I'd got used to leaning to the side in bed and I suppose the old mattress had adjusted to fit. With a new firm mattress I was constantly feeling as if I was being tipped out of bed - so I looked out a spirit level this morning (handy the OH being a joiner) and discovered that I wasn't imagining things.  The OH being himself suggested beer mats - hey this is our bed, not a pub table - and it took two stacks each nearly an inch high to correct the slope.  Wow!  I've had to crank my bed table up again to compensate.

Yesterday we went to the old house and took pictures of the rooms with 'set dressing' to make the house look more lived in.  The advantage seeing three different estate agents in the past few weeks has been that we've picked and chosen the best bits of advice from each one and combined them to (hopefully!) improve the selling prospects for the house.  If you look at the pictures carefully (when they appear on Merryweathers/Zoopla) you will be able to see that some items have mysteriously cloned themselves from room to room, and we have made good use of a rabbit covered tin (guess who?) that a fellow CAMRA member used to bring some goodies to the last beer festival set up.  It appears in the dining room, kitchen and bathroom!  Emailed to the estate agents last night along with the EPC (energy performance certificate).  Yes, that's another thing that came out from our discussions with the various estate agents - we should have had an EPC within 7 days of the house going on sale - by law.  The previous estate agents did not tell us this.

.... long time passes ...

Oh, dear the day didn't go exactly as I planned.  The above was written before 9am and it is now 10:30pm.  I started to move the bookcases - to try to get the one from the sitting room out of there so I can put sci-fi books on it.  "Scary" books are not allowed in the sitting room - and no books in the dining room.  That leaves the stairs and landing, bedrooms and office to try to soak up the 20 odd boxes from my dad's collection.  I also changed the covers in the sitting room and hoovered.  By 11:30am I had worn myself out and lay down on the nice soft sofa ... the phone rang at 3:30pm - I'd slept for at least 3 hours.

The call was from Swinton about our car insurance - because the garage and the insurance company haven't got their act together yet we are going to be stuck with higher premiums for a few months as I've effectively lost 2 years no claims until it's sorted.  This was the shunt on the way home from GBBF in August.  She must have been on the phone well over an hour with the two calls.

What a day - and I wasted so long asleep.  There are piles of books all over the landing and stairs, but I've sorted out a box to take to the charity shop.  My book catalogue is now kaput.  I might as well throw that out as well.  Or start again.  Something I've been doing since I was a child, entering all my fiction books in a catalogue - keeping track of what I've got.  It's a paper file and a card system, alphabetical by author.  I suppose I could go electronic ... I wonder if a cheap bar code reader or some sort of scanner can read ISBN codes?

We've had to put a bandage around the cat's neck as well, one scratch gets better and then she makes another.  We've cut her claws and put antiseptic cream on it, but she now has a lovely collar made out of elastic bandage!

Bed now, see you tomorrow.


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