Organised Chaos!

I have no idea why I decided to vacuum before the removal men came. Complete waste of time!

I thought I had a good system. Green stickers for rental. Red stickers for storage. All cupboards & shelves marked with stickers. Boxes we packed labelled with R or S + room / contents. Similar things grouped together for easy packing. Some boxes taken to the "new" house. Plants & some garden furniture to go there too. Stuff for charity or Freegle gone. Rubbish gone. A plan of position of furniture for rental.

A lot of time & effort planning, sorting & packing.

Removal men very hardworking - a very physically demanding job. Quite stressful too. 9.30 - 2.30 constant work.

Once they started it was utterly exhausting. 2 men packing for a day - lots of queries. Me up & down stairs constantly. Because there were 2, I was on the go all day. At the end the house was literally stuffed with boxes. Movement was limited. 

When I came to cook supper I discovered that they had emptied my kitchen cupboards of everything apart from a drawer of cutlery, a shelf of crockery & a cupboard of cereals. Even my bread bin had gone! No sharp knives, cooking utensils, trays or oven gloves. No food, other than what was in the fridge freezer. I thought that the rental stuff would wait till the day of the actual move so I could use it in the 2 intervening days (3 suppers, lunches & breakfasts). 

When I went to bed I realised that my bedroom curtains had gone. Fortunately I have an eye mask.

Today was moving stuff to storage - A hugely time consuming process. Big yellow is extremely well organised & the 3 men I spoke to were really helpful & lovely with it. But lots of information to go through & paperwork, even though I had done a lot in advance online. Then the keypad code didn't work so a lot of hanging around again. But everything went into the unit. It was very tight though. No chance of being able to get at anything now although technically I do have access. Given how tightly the removers must have packed it I do wonder what state things will come out again. I didn't see it go into the lorry or going into the store. I don't know how protected things like leather settees are protected. The facility is amazing - a little village of different sized storage units with streets!

Now peace reigns. I am about to tidy up & vacuum all the dust up so that I feel tidy & organised. Nothing is happening tomorrow. I just have to go to the rental to let BT in.

Thursday is actually moving to the rental. 

I will be so glad when this is over.

 

 

Data Overload

I have a sheet of A4 with actions I need to take on moving house. Each organisation has their own way of dealing with change of contact details. If you are techie & lucky you can do it on line. Doing it on the phone is often safer because you are talking to a human being who actually understands what needs to be done. The ones I have spoken too - eventually - have been really helpful.

The worst organisations are the insurers. Hours wasted coping with menus & selecting from up to 6 options. Holding on. Dreadful music. Repeating information because the people who answer the phone & the underwriters don't have the same information on their system.The most helpful have been Thames Water & Octopus Energy. British Gas & SSE are uncontactable on the phone. Either too many phone calls or too few people, or both. 

Many organisations don't have the facility to notify a move in advance, banks for example. So you have to wait until you have actually moved & then change your details. As if you haven't got enough to do unpacking & settling in!

I am so fed up with it. In this technological age you would think that it would be possible to have some centralised website with a list of all the people anyone needs to notify. You then tick as appropriate, inpout your old details & the new ones, then everyone gets the information.

Well there is - sort of. But I've only just discovered it.

www.iammoving.com 

It takes a while to get the hang of it & in my case because I am selling, buying & renting it's a lot more complicated. It isn't possible to do it for some organisations. I only ended up with 9. But it shows it can be done. There just need to be more options.

Moving is getting closer & I've hardly started the packing!

 

Ducks in a Row 2

Well things are progressing, but I have a very long list. Ducks everywhere, but some aligned. I either can't get to sleep, or I wake up in the middle of the night & my brain churns. Going to try meditating on a meaningless word. Your brain can't think of more than one thing at once - fact.

Finally exchanged  on Tuesday. Completion on the 21st. Rental ready on the 15th. So needed to do the important things first. Buildings & Contents insurance, Removals & Storage, Phone & Broadband transfer. A file of documents relating to this house for my buyer, who is coming on Wednesday. Still lots of other people to inform.....Stuff to go to charity shop.

Then there is the exhausting & time consuming packing to be done. With the added complication of half of my stuff going to store & half going to the rental. I have made a list of furniture & where it is going. I have a plan of the furniture in the rental. But I know, with absolute certainty, that there will be things I store that I should have taken with me. The good news is that I have access to my storage.

The whole process is very expensive - the temporary rental / contents insurance, stuff for the rental, insurance on the house I'm buying, storage...Then there are the costs of buying & doing up the new house - estate agent, solicitor, surveyor, removers, stamp duty... / architect, structural engineer, party wall surveyor, planning dept, builder, fixtures & fittings....

To be honest I'm trying not to think about the money. I'm focussing on my vision of what my house will be, hopefully by Christmas. It's a project - The closest I will get to building my own home. Future proof for the aged, senile, me. But also a house as sympathetic to eco needs as possible.

It's a challenge & there will be problems. I will get fed up with it all. But at the end of it I hope I will be pleased with what I have achieved, (with the help of a lot of people), & happy in my new home.

It's all a risk. The house might throw up problems I haven't envisaged. The house may not be worth what I have paid for it & then spent on it. But it isn't just property. I won't be taking it with me when I go.

It will be my home. My creation. The extension isn't going to be a pitched roof copy of the 1930's house. It's going to be a modern, 21st century annexe, made of 21st century materials. It's going to have a sedum & wildflower roof! I am so excited about that.

Ducks in a Row

My ducks have minds of their own & won't conform in any way at all. I'm trying to juggle buying, selling, renting & renovating three houses. It's just taken over my life. I still haven't exchanged contracts.

My brilliant idea of buying a caravan to live in on site probably won't work. I would possibly be in the way of the builders & getting WiFi, electricity, water & emptying the loo sorted would be difficult. Well beyond my capabilities to solve. I wouldn't know where to start.

Rental landlords are very reluctant to do a contract with a 6 month break clause, but I know I'll probably only be there for about 8 months. A year at most. Almost everything is tied into the academic year in Oxford. Once again I am surprised & appalled at the mass of paperwork involved in renting a property. It's pages & pages to plough through & try to assimilate. Have they never heard of "Key Facts"  summaries?

Life at the moment seems very complicated. 

I suppose the positive aspect is that at least I have had a project to occupy me for the last 19 months. I've mentally moved into 3 completely different houses now. I've not been bored while shielding, too much to do! Currently designing a sympathetic & Eco extension & complete internal renovation of a 1930's house is very interesting.

I just want those pesky ducks to stop messing about & line up nicely.

Following my Blog

Apparently Google is discontinuing the  FollowByEmail widget (FeedBurner) in July 2021. After July 2021, my feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to subscribers will no longer be supported. 

Afraid I don't understand the instructions to export my email subscribers to a CSV, which is what I'm supposed to do. 

Google is making Blogging much more complicated. First they removed Google +. Now they are removing FeedBurner. It is really disappointing & frustrating. They don't provide any substitute for readers to follow a Blog.

So I will continue to Blog, but I'm sorry the onus will be on my readers to check Senile Sealion to see what I have published. I do post to Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest.

I do hope I don't loose you.

 

Reasons to be Cheerful

 Are you positive or negative, glass half full or glass half empty, a radiator or a drain? I always believe I can do anything I set my mind to. I project what the worst case scenario is, but understand that the chances of it happening are slight. Mostly I believe that things turn out to be for the best. Possibly not what I thought I wanted to happen, but one door closes & another opens.

I simply can't do anything but recognise how fortunate I am in comparison with so many people today. So if I have a setback I have to put it in that context. A setback is an opportunity to learn something.

Now I'm sounding too much like an American self help guru!

The point is there are many "Reasons to be Cheerful"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1injh4-n1jY&list=RD1injh4-n1jY&start_radio=1&t=0&ab_channel=IanDury%26TheBlockheads 

I love this - Dury was a poet, but it's the jolly rhythm that really cheers. Maybe what we all need to do, especially after this last few years of recession, Brexit & Covid, is really try to think of our own...

Reasons to be Cheerful.

Once you start, I'm sure, like me, you will find quite a few. Isn't sunshine better than dwelling in the dark cave of gloom & despond? Positivity generates action & cheerfulness. 

Nothing good comes out of negativity.

Following the Rules

If you are brought up to do as you are told, you may spend a lifetime following the rules. As a generalisation girls are more compliant than boys until adolescence. Boys tend to be more independent & risk taking. There is lots of research evidence for this. 

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00543213/document

As adults we mostly live within the Laws enacted by our Government. If we don't we may have to face the "Full force of the Law" & end up in prison.

I am intrigued by what has happened since the first Covid Lockdown in March 2020

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/timeline-lockdown-web.pdf

Life has changed in so many ways, but not least that we have become completely ruled by the legislation enacted to deal with the Pandemic & the voluntary compliance with other rules.

What really interests me is the differences in how individuals interpret what they should & shouldn't be doing. I would contend that no one can possibly not know which behaviours are not allowed. If they aren't sure they have the internet, the media & numerous other sources of information to check. There really is no excuse unless one is disabled. 

Yet people are finding ways round the rules all the time. They are ignoring distancing & mask wearing. They are travelling abroad for all sorts of spurious reasons. Travellers are not self isolating. Ipsos Mori has been polling attitudes to rules & legislation throughout the pandemic.

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/public-opinion-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic

I don't want to get Covid - I'm 76 & have underlying conditions which mean I have to shield. Fortunately I've had both jabs. I'm not likely to be a risk to anyone else. I do follow the rules, whilst applying my own risk assessment.

I'm just really baffled by the attitudes of people who don't - deliberately. Do they give themselves reasons why the rules don't apply to them? Don't they care if they get the virus? Don't they care if they pass the virus on to someone else who becomes seriously ill or dies? Don't they believe the danger of the virus is real, despite all the graphic media & news coverage? Do they really believe the ridiculous myths & conspiracy theories (a Covid Infodemic)? Why are they resiting having the vaccine?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-persistent-covid-19-myths-and-why-people-believe-them/

https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/covid-top-10-current-conspiracy-theories/

We humans have a wide range of intelligence, skills, experience & expertise. The people who have accurate information & are in positions of power & influence have to use all our modern methods of communication in order to take the population with them. 

In order for populations to  follow the Rules you either need to have a dictatorship where people are forced to comply, or a really well run, well informed, democracy. 

Sadly we don't seem to have either. Luckily, most people are doing their best.