Banged up

Biscuit at the vets waiting for her blood test.

Doh! One of those days

Stamps on the wrong way round.

The box room

Called the box room not for its size but because it's got a load of boxes in it. Eventually April's study / music / art room.

My room

I have bagsied this room. Not sure exactly what to do with it yet but I will think of something.

Storage / gimp room

Small room at the top of the house.

Top floor bathroom

Check out the building tiles on the charity building next to us.

Master bedroom

Or as Poppet would like to think her room. Two massive built in wardrobes certainly come in handy. I may even be allowed to use one of them.

Shower room, ensuite

The second bedroom

Or currently my ironing room.

The bathroom / shower room

Nice big bath

April's dressing room

So that she doesn't wake me with her hair dryer I 'allowed' her to have this room.

The back of the house

Nothing much to see really.

The garden

Here's the garden and sheds. Pretty low maintenance which is what we like. There's actually part of the castle wall in one of the pictures.

The kitchen

It was a shame to leave the new kitchen in the old house but this will do for the time being. The red thing is a Rayburn. It's effectively the boiler for the house and is on all the time. Don't think it's tremendously efficient so we may end up having to get a new boiler.

Dining room / conservatory

We've seen a table we like that seats 10. Now to work out how to get the money to buy it...

The music room / library

The Xbox, CDs and books will go in here.

Hallway and downstairs loo

One of my favorite prints is in there. "bonjour" the text at the bottom says He's not French, but he thinks he is.

Front room

The first thing we did when we moved in was set up the TiVo. Next is getting the chimney swept so we can give the fire a try.

Chez Clark

I thought I'd post some photos of the new house. We're pretty much all unpacked now which is great but loads to do.

Trick shot

Shaheen showing me how it's done. Unfortunately for him, I'm a better player than him whilst shit faced. I won 4-1.

Relaxing cats

Poppet and Biscuit know how to chill out.

Annoyed

I bought 4 new work shirts a couple of weeks ago and I've only just noticed that one of them has a pocket and doesn't have holes for cufflinks.

I now look like I work in IT.

Just not good enough

Bloody England! Sadly, despite getting paid millions a year they're just not good enough. There's still a slim chance of them going through but even if we do go through they'll be out in the next round.

Busy, busy, busy

Very busy at work this week. Did 12 hours at work yesterday.  And in early today. Yawn! Hopefully I won't have to stay late tonight as it would be nice to get home in time to watch the football.

Busy with the house too, changing addresses, ripping up carpet, planning for what needs to be done etc.

Back to the daily grind

Boo! I think it's going to be a busy few weeks for me. We've a tight deadline coming up and there's loads left to do. Hopefully much of it is already done as I've just had 3 days off.

The stag

After the house move I was straight off to north Devon for a rugby mate's stag do. The car was fill of petrol and the roads were clear so we eventually got there at 9. Only 4 hours late. This of course meant we were on catch up...

We basically stayed in the pub all night before getting kicked out at 1.

We were up early the next day for breakfast and to watch the England get narrowly beaten by New Zealand at the rugby, then we were straight off to Total Wipeout. Great fun. If you weren't hungover that is! By this time my hangover was in full swing and was very nearly sick. My friend Lamby was less lucky though (pictured).

After this we headed to the beach for sone beach rugby and a quick dip in the sea. Then back to the luxury caravan for drinks and a bbq.

One of the chaos on the stag was a high value wine broker so he brought along loads of very nice wines. Some English sparkling, some German Riesling and a 4 bottle Jeroboam of reoja. Awesome! He's coming to the wedding too so looking forward to that.

After all this we headed over to the next town over to watch the football. Great game, shame about the result. Then on to a night club, then off home.

I felt surprising okay the next day and headed back. Again it only took 4 hours 20.

I now have today off to recover. Phew!

New house

Well, where to start? We did it!

After a final day of packing on Thursday we had an early night as we were both shattered. This was followed by an early start as the removal guys were due round at 9 and we still had plenty to do.

It took them 3 hours to do a full load and nearly managed to squeeze all our stuff into the one 7.5 ton lorry. By the time they were all packed we'd had the call from our solicitors so were ready to go. Yeah!

With a little help from friends we were all in the new place by 4pm. That was lucky as I was late to drive a friend down to Devon for another rugby friends stag do, leaving poor April to do ask the unpacking.

We're finally in though and everything is looking good.  We've also managed to get the virgin man round to set up the tv's.  Only things left to do now are...

Get the front windows refurbished
Fix drains
Replace carpets / sand down the wooden floors
Redo the damp proof course
Fix a leak
Re-hang a ceiling
Acclimatise the cats

The cats are glad I'm back

Making herself at home

The only day we could get the new sofa delivered was yesterday so the removal guys will have to transport that across to the new place too.

Preferably without Biscuit on top.

I think she likes it.

Some pictures from April's last gig

Another great gig by The Swallows in the Sun Tavern, Covent Garden.

Well. Nearly there

We move to our big new house today. Can't wait. We had yesterday off to do the final packing and think we're about there.

We had another minor scare along the way though. The solicitors got on touch saying there was a final balance of £5,500 left to pay before we could complete! Yikes. Luckily we worked out what this was for and managed to get them to redo their figures not to include the early mortgage redemption fee. Now they will owe us about £500. Suckers!

We've been here for a little over six years now and it's been a great house. In that time we've had done amazing times. We've traveled, both had new jobs, got two lovely cats and even got married.

We'll miss it, but not that bloody hill walk!

Sad day

Sadly one of my favourite comedians died yesterday. No, not Adam Sandler. Rik Mayall.

I mentioned it at work yesterday and two out of my team of nine didn't know who he was. Idiots!

The big move

After a stressful few weeks we've finally exchanged!  Yeah!  Most of the packing ios now done, all we have to do now is move on Friday!  Only problem with that is that i'm also on another stag do!  They'd better hurry up and give us the keys.

Here piggy piggy

Outside the gates of Tonbridge school.

Banksy?

Doubt it, but someone's added a look a like in Tonbridge.

Room with nearly a view

You can just about see our new house through the trees from the other side of the canal.