Nebulous Mooch

I was happy to see our water bill slip through the mail slot in our door today. We need proof of address to do everything here and bills are the best way to prove your address.

My happiness was shattered when I opened the bill and saw that it was for 260 pounds. “Are you going to kill me or should I just kill myself?” I said as I dropped the bill on the table in front of my husband.

“This can’t be right.” He picked it up and examined it closely.

Fortunately we discovered that it is a bill for an entire year of water and sewage service. We have the choice of paying it all upfront, paying for it six months at a time, or paying it monthly. That’s a relief. Once we realized that, my heart started beating again.

After much sorrow and heartache, we’ve finally moved into a flat. We lived with no furniture for about a week and struggled to get internet service. Now things are finally coming together–like our bed. We put that together this afternoon.

Our boxes arrived from the States a day after we moved into our place. We rented a van to pick them up on Friday. Our van rental coincided with an Ikea sale on the following day. We thought this sale was the perfect opportunity to save money on furniture. Since we had the truck until 9 am on Saturday and the sale started at 6 am, we thought we’d have plenty of time to purchase the sofa and bed we wanted and return the truck. We’d get sale prices and save on delivery costs. It was a great plan. I mean, who’d want to go furniture shopping at 6 am on a Saturday? Apparently, everyone who lives in London would.

When we arrived at 6 on the dot, the parking lot was full and people were running through the parking lot to get into the store. Who knew that cheap furniture you have to assemble yourself was so popular?

My first time at Ikea, I was tired, dehydrated and hated everything there. I swore I’d never go bad. So much changed after a week of fruitless furniture shopping. Ikea started looking better and better. But, it still wasn’t good run through the parking lot on a cold April morning good.

The store was a mad house. I waited in line for almost an hour to purchase our bed only to find out that we had to pick it up from another location and the wait there was three hours. We had to get it delivered anyway.

The best part of the trip was watching my husband nervously navigate the crowded Ikea parking lot in the very large van we had rented.

I won’t get too excited until we have the keys in our hands, but we got a place to live. So we did a little dance and made up a little song. The lyrics included the words Bushy Mill Lane (the street we’ll live on) and everything we could think of that rhymes with lane. Rather my husband was singing rhyming lyrics, I was too excited to realize that lyrics are supposed to rhyme.

This is the view from a window in the house we’re staying in.

Sometimes it snows in April.

When I woke up this morning, I looked outside and the sky was clear. “It’s a beautiful day. I should do the wash,” I said to my husband. This is what happens when you don’t have a dryer. It’s still chilly out and our clothes take awhile to dry. On a day like today, I normally would’ve said, “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go for a walk.” We’ll do that too but first I need to do the wash.

So I spent the morning trying to get my husband and stepson to hurry up and shower so I could wash the clothes. “Aren’t you going to shower? I need to wash clothes,” I kept saying. I don’t want to use up all the hot water.

The washing machine is finally on the spin cycle, but the heavy dark clouds have already moved in. I’ll be hanging the wash up inside again. Hopefully my stepson’s long sleeved shirts will be dry tomorrow morning.