Now it can be told©

By Michael Casey

Ok, so we managed, finally to move house, with the help of God and two Policeman, plus a Polish guy called Carol, so rejoice rejoice. Carol works like a Trojan even though he is Polish. So a big thank you to him. Not forgetting our builder  Mr A, I’m just glad I’ll have more space to run around in, like a gerbil in a bigger cage. I nearly forgot  Mr P did the electrics, so without him we’d be in the dark.

The stress involved is horrendous, if I didn’t have silver hair already then it would have turned that colour. We finally spotted the house we all agreed on, when? Saint Patrick’s Day 2018, is God taking the Mick? We had bid for other houses but were either outbid or we refused to pay the amount they wanted. You have to have to be able to say NO, otherwise you can overstretch yourself, or buy rubbish. So by the time we are in with all our stuff and when you see this piece online it will be near enough 17^th October, which is 7 months.

We had to wait for the owner’s kids to finish the school year, so that takes up a few months of your life. Then you plan the changes you want the house, and the changes you need to make. A “perfect” house is never perfect, and the area where we live/will live is a hot property area, so you have to take the pain or you’ll never get anything nice. A couple of times we met a few buyers who’d been after the same properties as us. In the end like Captain Picard I just said, buy it and offer full price. Which is what I did when I bought my own house all those years ago. So make it so.

When I bought my own house I could please myself, now 30 years later, married with 2 bilingual daughters and a cat called Totoro I was the least important person in the equation. We both did agree on removing a boiler from a bedroom and doing the electrics. So yes the cost of that does hurt, but once it is done it is done for life. And yes, 10 years is my own expected life expectancy, I hope I’m wrong, but either way at least my girls will be warm and have safe electrics for the next 60 years.

Then there is the debate on décor, so white and grey is the approved colour chart, with Polish Carol doing all the hard work. With all the owners furniture removed you realise the floor bounces a little too much, so you fearfully lift the carpet. Then you realise you have to replace the floor, and yes that hurts too, and the silver hairs spread over your head, that’s if you haven’t got them already. Whenever you check something you will find something, not always bad, but you think it is better to replace now, rather than take a chance. I should pause while I shed tearful tears.

Some people finally move house and have a heart attack, I’ve had my unplanned quadruple heart bypass back in Jan 2015, so I hope I miss that kind of event. So long as I get to sleep in my new home in my new bed, I’ll die happy as this has all been a long time in coming. We must have been searching for 2 years. Prices have gone up 15% in that time. So you can imagine the fun and games all that involves.

We hope we’ll be able to do a soft move, spread over a week or so, backing up with the school half term, and then it will Christmas on the horizon. And as you have seen I have many red clothes, so the local kids think I’m Santa Claus, ho ho ho And believe it or not an Ebenezor did actually come to view my old house, a Dickens of a story, but again totally true.

You get nice people and nasty people viewing your own home, then they look you straight in the eye and try and steal it from you. I’m doing you a favour if I give you 20% under the market value. 2 years ago their offer would have been good buy the market has moved on, so everybody has to pay more. This is England for you, I don’t know what it is like where you live, probably equally as frightening.

Speaking of frightening I need to have a haircut today, this Santa is looking like claws, my mane is just too long now. So I’ll pop along to my local Pakistani barber and get it cut, but not too much or I’ll get the flu, speaking of which the flu jab is on Thursday and I fear this Winter coming be as bad as the one just gone. But hopefully our home will be very warm. I can always cuddle up with the reindeer. At this very moment I know I have to write special story for Christmas. It will be called Lech, Boris and Gregorgi Save Christmas, as only a Slav story will do. I looked over to my bookshelf where I have another angel framed and in an instance the story was formed. I hope I can glue it together well.

Well I wrote the Slav Christmas story, and you have all been reading it already, as ever I started in one direction and ended in another. Hopefully our new wifi will be up and running by the time I sit down and talk to you again. I have put Altogether Now on my site to give you all a chance to read 1,000,000 words in one place, or there abouts. And yes everything remains my copyright whether you are reading me in Space and showing your ignorance about Churchill, or whether you are on some beach enjoying the sun in some place far far away from Birmingham the one in England. Hurricane Michael has just hit USA, will Trump continue to deny Climate Change? You know he will, in the end it’s up to the Ladies which way the Future of USA will go. As they say Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. So Ladies and Gentlemen get off that couch and vote.

We are arguing about the décor of the new house and what part of my old house gets to adorn the new house. Where do my 3 clocks fit in, or do they end up in the bin, or Charity Shop. How many of my paintings get to go on the wall, or will the axe fall. Part of your life just ends when you move house, the dustbin or even skip beckons. Fancy new lamp shades take precedence over light itself, and considering our old house was South Facing, Light is a big issue. That’s partly why it took so long in finding the new place, we are used to a lot of natural light, so finding a good compromise was hard.  Then curtains and curtain poles suddenly are top of the list. Steamy Windows would have been good enough for me. Or did Trump pay her $130,000s as well?

I’m waiting in for curtain poles as we speak, but I just wish the last lick of paint was done then we can move in Lock Stock and Barrel, and curtain pole. Jean Michel Jarre is playing Images as I talk to you and images of where the furniture will be and where we’ll all sit and will the tv work up that corner are drifting through my mind. Will I like my new spot by the window as I talk to you all, or is the much quieter road  going to be less bountiful for passing ideas. No more Mrs Candyfloss head any more, no more passing people, no more free ideas.

So should I take up residence in our new living room, or the kitchen even? Maybe I should pretend to be a teenager and stay in my bedroom and write, the view is different with less trees, though actually it is much closer now to the actual woods so I could just sit on a bench in the woods every day. Then come home inspired, so expect plenty of stories about squirrels or foxes even. A whole new world beckons so long as my Health does not get get worse. Getting the shopping in will be more of a challenge too, going down a hill is easy, but coming back up it with heavy milk is another matter entirely.  I would not have even have thought of this a few years ago, but now, but now.

 

here’s the writer resting in bed, plus the new  study