Tag Archives: Moving house

A Long Week

Blog, Christmas, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Yorkshire Dales, ,

I almost forgot it was blog day this morning. It feels like ages since last weekend. I took the astonishing photo at the top of the page last Saturday after dropping off the man who sold Anna his car back at his house. The intensity of those iron grey clouds, brooding above the sunny Yorkshire Dales landscape was so arresting that I had to try to capture it.

I worked from Yorkshire on Monday, then left Anna, Lauren, Andrew and Triar at Mum and Dad’s to head back up to Scotland. I was sad to miss Anna and Lauren’s last day, but my furniture was due to arrive on Tuesday (at last) so Scotland beckoned.

I started work early on Tuesday morning at Donna’s house, which is only a ten minute drive from the house I’m renting. Having heard nothing from Pickford’s, I called them, getting through at about nine-forty, only to be told my slot was between ten and twelve. Grabbing my work bag, I rushed out to my car and drove over, arriving only moments before ten. The only furniture in the house was a single kitchen chair and I set it by the living room window, thinking I’d try to get some work done before they arrived, but before I could open my laptop, they arrived.

Regular readers will remember the awful day back in October when the removal men arrived a day early, causing chaos and doing an appallingly bad job in general (Last Post) so I was very pleased that this time, the (different) crew had arrived right on schedule. The contrast continued as they unpacked my sofas and beds, working hard to find all the parts of the beds, as they were worried I wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep without them.

They eventually found the three metal barriers that hold the mattress in place and the remote control for one of the beds in two random boxes, but when I assured them that I had somewhere to sleep that night, they gave up on the search for the legs and the parts for the other bed (both are adjustable) and carried on bringing the remaining furniture in. Their willingness and communication was such a contrast with the firm at the Norwegian end. They worked for a company called Bee Smart and I found myself musing that, if I move again within the next year (the rental house is temporary) I would probably call them.

Donna had offered to help me unpack on Thursday and so, having taken the day off work, she and I headed over to start to get my new house into some kind of order. Like Shirley, who helped me to clean the old house, Donna worked so efficiently that, by the end of the day, the kitchen was cleaned, all my kitchen equipment was found and washed and both beds were assembled. We had a bit of a laugh over some of the packing. As I said in my October post, the removal men had run out of boxes and complained I had too much stuff. Donna, who was going through the boxes, brought two of them to me to show their contents, or rather, the lack of them. This kitchen box was only half full.

Perhaps there was some excuse as that one was heavy, but this was the most sublime:

Top tip: if you’re moving in Norway, don’t use Vinje’s!

The landlady (Lorna) unexpectedly arrived, just as as Donna was finishing up the kitchen. As I brought Lorna in, Donna was standing in a cloud of steam, sleeves rolled up, placing the last of my bowls onto a towel she had placed on one of the worktops, having run out of space on the drainer. All the cupboards were washed and standing open to dry. For a first impression, as a new tenant, I couldn’t have hoped for better.

We had discovered the night before, that the toilet flush wasn’t working properly, so within minutes, Lorna was on the phone to a plumber. They gave a tentative promise that they’d try to pop in at eight the next morning. No mean feat two days before the weekend before Christmas. Then she left and Donna and I went back to sorting through my stuff.

There were a few broken things, but fortunately not too much. Donna had offered to wash some bed clothes, so that when Andrew and I came up there would be beds all ready to go and anyway, I was beginning to feel tired, so we headed back to Donna’s at about three.

To top off the day, Donna had friends coming round, and again, I was included in the invitation. We had wine and Chinese food and plenty of friendly chat. I slept well overnight, but had to get up early to go back to the rental to meet the plumbers. And so, I now have two beds, ready to sleep in, a kitchen full of clean pots and pans and a working toilet. It was sad to leave Donna’s yesterday, though also lovely to be back at Mum and Dad’s. This will be my first UK Christmas in over ten years and I’m really looking forward to it.

Cows in the Field

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 05:15/20:17 Daylength: 15hr01min

Well the flat handover went slightly worse than I expected. Though I had assumed the landlord might be quite fussy and exacting, I hadn’t expected him to go into full rage mode. We looked round the flat together on Sunday evening and for the most part it went quite well. There was a moment of triumph for him when he found I hadn’t dusted on the top of a couple of very high, inbuilt cupboards and heard I hadn’t cleaned out the U-bends in the bathroom, but despite their expressed disbelief that I could have done the cleaning in two days (I was told over and over that it had taken them fourteen days to clean the three bedroom flat before we moved in) they seemed satisfied. It was agreed that I would go back and rectify the dusting and U-bend situation and so we left to go and eat as it was late and there were still three days of the lease to go.

I received a message while we were eating, to say I hadn’t vacuumed under the seats on the sofas (I had forgotten) and that we had removed an office chair (a miscommunication between John and Andrew, who had both removed one) but otherwise I was quite pleased myself. The remaining work would only take a short time to do, and then I would be free. They hadn’t taken a deposit, so I thought that if I could do the work to a reasonable level, and they were adequately satisfied, there would be no further comeback.

Andrew had offered to come and give me a hand on the Monday evening. So relaxed was I about finishing up, that I almost took some of the afternoon off work and went myself, though perhaps it was some sixth sense that protected me. I collected Andrew after school and we went round to the flat. We hadn’t even had a chance to begin, when the front door of the flat was slammed open and the landlord strode into the room and right up to us. It was obvious immediately that he was angry. He told us in a tight voice that not only had we not come close to cleaning the flat well enough, but that we had damaged three items.

I asked him to show me the items, the first of which was the board under the sink in the bathroom. There had been an ongoing problem with the U-bend, which he knew about as I had asked him how to fix it the first time it cropped up. Indeed the very first time I found I had wet feet on running the tap, I had opened the cupboard to find the MDF was already warped, and so I had concluded that it was not a completely new problem.

I politely pointed out this fact and he began to get angrier, insisting that he knew it had been fine when we moved in because he’d replaced the panel before we came. Ironic that it didn’t even cross his mind that his statement was a clear indication that there was a problem with the U-bend if he had to change the board before (without taking the sensible precaution of getting a plumber out to fix the actual problem) but by this time he was working himself up into a full head of steam.

By the time we left the bathroom, he had gone into full ranting mode. Even with Andrew there, I felt uneasy and uncomfortable. The fact that there had been a sock under the cushions on the couch seemed to be a particular point of vexation. Not sure why they found it quite so shocking. He was shouting by this time and I made the decision that we should leave, so I handed him the key and Andrew and I left. By the time we got home, there was a terse message on my phone about the fact that I was “refusing to engage with the process” with ten photographs, which included a cupboard door where the hinge at the top had come slightly loose and a photograph of the drawer under the oven, which I had opened during cleaning, to find that the base was entirely rusted through, with large rust bubbles bursting out through the black paint, which definitely had not occurred over the course of two years.

It ended up with me blocking their numbers. John went round to further tell them, in no uncertain terms, why I had left. Unsurprisingly he was met with much less aggression, as he is about four inches taller and visibly stronger than the ex-landlord. Typical bullying behaviour to yell at a woman and a young man with Asperger’s and be polite to someone who could easily take you out. I guess I wasn’t entirely surprised. A year earlier, he had randomly come out of the house and yelled at Anna and Andrew for some made-up misdemeanour. In fact, it was after that that I started to look for somewhere new to live. In the event though, it was all pretty unpleasant, and utterly unnecessary. Had he engaged in a normal fashion, I would have completed the remaining tasks and probably would even have agreed to pay a small amount for the damage under the sink. Never have I been so glad, however, that the one thing they had neglected to do was to take the sizeable (two month’s rent) deposit from me.

Anyway, with all that said, what I mostly feel is relief that we have moved out and pride in my sons, both of whom helped me handle a difficult situation. I was shaking when John came home, and he was incensed, but he had the presence of mind to take a calming friend with him. It’s a wonderful feeling every time I see something that tells me that I have raised some truly decent human beings who also love me. The best feeling in the world!

The rest of the week has gone much better. I was in Tromsø for a couple of nights, catching up with all my far-flung colleagues from around the region.

Wooden fishing boat in Tromsø harbour

The end of the week has been really very pleasant. I came home from Tromsø to find that John had strimmed the veritable hay field at the back of the house, where the grass had obviously not been mowed for a good long time. John is likely to move back into the house (though he might stay in his caravan outside the abattoir during the long working days of the season) and it is lovely to have so much help. I’ve really wanted them all to feel like this is truly a home they can return to, should they want or need it, and it’s obvious John is enjoying working on making it a truly pleasant place to live. I would enjoy doing it on my own, but it’s even better with family to share it with.

He called me up on the way to work yesterday, to say that there was ground fog over the valley and that if I wanted to take some photos for this blog, now was the moment. And so I drove out to find that not only were there wonderful views over the valley, but that there was frost on the ground and all the leaves were swathed in white.

Sunrise over the Målselv valley with frosted field in the foreground and fog over the river

Yesterday was the only weekday when I was likely to have a chance to take enough time off work to get some things sorted in the house, so I had arranged for the beds to be delivered, a new heat exchanger/air conditioning unit to be installed and, most importantly, a builder to assess the work that needed to be done on the roof and (money permitting, after the roof was fixed) various jobs inside the house. It seems likely that the roof will cost less to fix than the 50,000-100,000 NOK (round 5,000-10,000 British pounds or US$) and so we will hopefully have more to spare for other things.

And all day, as I worked in and around the house, I could see that there were cows in the field across the road. Of all the domesticated animals, dairy cows are easily my favourite. They are such calm, curious creatures. I had a real feeling of “cows in the meadow, all’s right in the world”. I know that’s not a real saying, but it works for me. It won’t be long before the winter arrives and then the cows will be inside, but they’ll be out again next summer and the summer after that and the summer after that. I have a really good feeling about the move we’ve just made. Onwards and upwards!

The cattle on the other side of the road

Moving

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:07/22:36. Daylength: 19hr28min

This is going to be very short. I’m on my iPad, which makes typing and editing much more difficult, and I only have a couple of photos, a reflection of how busy this week has been.

On Monday, I got the keys to my new house. It was wonderful to see inside it again. It’s been ages since I was biting my fingernails in that Tromsø hotel room, making that bid. It was better than I remembered. When I went to the viewing I was obviously being hyper-critical, because the walls, with their textured wallpaper and holes, are nowhere near as hideous as they seemed back then.

It was my first (and probably last) time meeting the seller. She said she’d been very happy in the house, and every time I’ve visited this week, it’s given me a lift, which I hope will continue. The boys love it too. They have chosen their bedrooms and both seem happy, which is wonderful. Andrew and I took Triar over yesterday and he cantered round, then cheerfully christened the garden with his first poo. Some things never change!

So this is the view from the end of the house with the veranda:

View of trees and mountains, taken from the veranda

And this is the view from the back, which you can see through the window when you sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

View of trees and a hill

So the remainder of the week has been punctuated with calls to internet providers, visits to furniture shops (three beds have now been ordered) and discussions with a builder about the hole in the roof, and the more pressing jobs that need to be done. We bought some paint yesterday. John’s new bedroom is currently black and mine is bright pink, so we thought that a quick makeover was in order before we move in. My colleagues have been very helpful. Trude has given all kinds of useful information on everything from where I can get a heat exchanger to be paid for over time, to where I can buy wood for the stove. Øivind has offered me lots of furniture, which is just brilliant.

Hilde was also very reassuring yesterday. I was visibly unwell at work, having spent part of the night in pain (the usual upper right quadrant/shoulder area) and sweating. (Who knew that the night sweats from (probably) a blocked bile duct can be worse than the menopause?) I commented that it would be potentially calamitous if they found something serious on my MRI on Friday. She immediately said she was sure a dugnad could be arranged. A dugnad is a very Norwegian thing, where lots of people chip in to get a job done. Often it’s a community thing, like maintaining a local park area, so I was very touched that they might have one for me.

Anyway, so far things are progressing quite well with the move. John’s friend and colleague, Bowen, is coming on Monday evening to move furniture. He has a pick-up and trailer, so hopefully we can get Øivind’s furniture, so we will have sofas and shoe cupboards and coffee tables. I have moved a lot of kitchen equipment and white goods over. Somehow, despite having lots of forks and spoons, there are only two knives, which is odd, but easily fixed. In the coming week, I hope to move all my books and the remaining kitchen stuff, and get the storage room at the flat properly cleared. It is currently in the maximum chaos stage, where I’ve taken all the big stuff and now there are just small things scattered everywhere. Fortunately we’re not moving far, so I don’t have to pack carefully, so much as fling everything into boxes, then not shake them too much!

We’re in Tromsø for the weekend. Not the best timing ever to have a weekend away, but I do need to rest, so it’s all good. And last but not least, Andrew turned 18 on Tuesday. So now all my children are officially grown up. The black forest cake I made him was messy, but he seemed pleased enough, which is all that matters. Have a good week all!