Winter’s log, earthdate 201508.14

Thirty four more Stair Walks…

Until we move. After this evening’s Stair Walk, it’ll be 33 more Stair Walks (that’s three per day @ eleven more days, plus this evening’s Stair Walk) This morning we managed to get ourselves ready in record time – I even did my lunch time Stair Walk before we left! We got to Vermont South shopping centre around 20 to 12, so we milled around a little, then settled into one of the two coffee shops there, grabbed ourselves a cup of reasonably decent coffee, and settled down to wait for “The Call”. I honestly don’t know how we managed to sit there so patiently, just talking! I don’t know about Julian, but my stomach was churning with nervous anticipation! “The Call” finally came around twenty past twelve, and we shot off to the Real Estate Office to collect our keys (at long last!) The place was officially ours! Our names are on the title, so it’s ours, I tell you, ours! 🙂 Then we came back and played Rift… and if you believe that, I have a lovely one-owner bridge to sell you! 🙂 We went “home”, and checked out all the things I’d kept meaning to check, but always forgot – like: did the windows open? And if they did, were there any fly-wire screens on them? Where were the power points in the bathrooms? And other such trivial generalities. Anyway, yes, the windows open – some of them, anyway. Some are slide across’s, and some of them are wind-out’s, and all the windows that do open have very nice, well made – no spider or mosquito could penetrate them – fly-wire screens. Tick! The power points in the bathrooms… hmmm… well, there’s one double power point in each bathroom, on the wall next to the vanity unit, but the amount of space between the vanity basin and the edge of the vanity unit is only about six inches (approximately 15cm, Julian tells me) so wide enough for a small electric toothbrush charger, but not, unfortunately, wide enough for my “squirty” (the water pick I use to clean under my implant bridges) Luckily there’s enough room just behind the vanity basins for the power cord to be threaded (and in fact, will hide the messy cord very nicely!) so the “squirty” can sit in the middle, between the two basins. I’ll need to get the faucets in my bathroom changed – the ones in the en-suite can swivel, the ones in my bathroom can’t, and I want swivelly faucets! I don’t have them here, and I grit my teeth in annoyance every time I need to turn the stream of water away from what I’m washing! Yes, I have chosen the main bathroom rather than the en-suite as “my” bathroom! Why? Well, the shower is bigger and I will be able to fit a shower stool in it, and although the bath is a nuisance and a waste of time (as far as we’re concerned) I’m going to see if Clarke can “cap it” – cover the whole thing with a cut-to-measure sheet of marble, or caesarstone. That would give me a lot more room, and should look nice, with some ferns, perfume, lotions and potions, and “generically pretty things” sitting around on it 🙂 Of the three bedrooms down one side of the house, one will be a “spare bedroom-slash-Flipper’s room”, one will be Julian’s Commodore 64 room, and one will be a “Library Spillover Room”, or “Library #2”, or maybe even “The Little Library”, as the room we’d designated as “the Library” probably isn’t going to be big enough to house all our books. We’re extremely impressed with the heater – it’s ducted gas heating, and it took about twenty minutes for the entire house to go from “arctic refrigerated” to “comfortably cosy and warm” 🙂 Let’s hope that the refrigerated air conditioning works as well in the summer! 🙂 We had our lunch there today, an Optifast Chocolate bar each (I was supposed to have had a Cappuccino bar but Julian inadvertently grabbed two Chocolate ones) and a cup of Moccona coffee – while Julian wandered around taking photos, and we wrote a list of things we wanted Clarke to look at or do for us. We’re meeting up with him tomorrow morning over at Stillwater to talk about what we want done, and to find out how long all the work is likely to take – and on Monday morning, we’re getting the cleaners that the captivating Carmen says are so good, to come and clean the place thoroughly. After our visit there last Tuesday when we found the place so… grubby (I’m trying hard to be very polite there!) I would have thought that the previous owners would have at least made some attempt to clean the place up a bit – but no, it was still as filthy as it was last Tuesday (quite disgraceful, really!) We’re getting three people, for five hours, and as the place is empty they should be able to do a pretty good job in five hours! When we got back here, around 2.30-ish, we had a proper cup of coffee, and himself went off to “make some phone calls”. Whilst we were at Stillwater, Julian had done a little fiddling with the phone on the kitchen wall there, and managed to get the telephone number of the previous owners. When we got back here, he rang Tel$tra armed with that number, which was still “in the system” (that is, it hadn’t been re-allocated yet) the nice girl at Tel$tra was able to give us our new number, and the phone there should be on as of next Monday morning…. so all you “Persons of Interest”, watch your email, OK?! because the number is “Silent and Unlisted” so I can’t send it to anyone any other way. We just had an SMS from Clarke – he wants to meet with us on Sunday, rather than Saturday because he forgot that he has a family sports day, or something, so I think Julian and I are going to have to fit our Rifting in whenever we can At first I thought “That’s OK, we can make Saturday our Sunday on Tarken Glacier”, and then I remembered that we have furniture being delivered tomorrow, so we can’t… We won’t even know what time the furniture is arriving until tomorrow morning, either! So, double drat!

After the place has been properly and thoroughly cleaned next Monday, we’re going to start ferrying boxes over and putting away what we can until the rest of the furniture arrives – then we’ll start putting the furniture and things we’re not keeping up for sale – probably on Gumtree – I’ll post a list of items here when we get all that organised.

Oh, and I saw two little orange and white goldfish in the water at the base of the water feature (which we left running for them when we left – Julian thought it would aerate the water a bit for them) and I was right – they do swim off and hide in the little “caverns” between the blocks of stone that the water feature stands on! So we’d parked the car in the garage… and as Julian was backing out to come back here… he backed bang-smack into the letterbox pillar! Ooops! Well, at least it wasn’t my fault (he’s trying to make out that it was my fault, because he couldn’t see over the top of my wheelchair in the back of the car – strange how he never has trouble with that when he’s reversing here, or over at Shoppingtown, though! 😉 )

Weigh-in this morning. I think I should go back to taking two anti-fluid tablets every morning again! I was most unhappy this morning – after all my walking around and standing up yesterday, killing my back, I stayed the same! The same! It’s not fair! Why?! *pout* **cry** *sniffle* So I’m still sitting on 79.1kg for the second day in a row… 😦 I really hope I do a bit better tomorrow… We’ll see…

Well, tomorrow we’ll be back at Stillwater – once we know when the furniture is arriving, so we’d better take some more lunch with us again – we left the coffee, the mugs, the teaspoon, the tea-towels and the el-cheapo kettle (that Julian bought in Coles this morning) over there, we only brought the milk (and our rubbish) back here. This time I’ll make sure I have the Cappuccino bar… despite being a chocolaholic, I don’t like the Optifast Chocolate bars very much – they stick to my teeth! Anyway, once again, that’s about all I have for you tonight! You’ll notice that the countdown at the top has changed – I decided that rather than count down in days, I’d count down in Stair Walks… just for a change 🙂 Do call back again tomorrow night, find out if my weight has changed (“just for a change!” 😉 ) and if our furniture arrived. Unfortunately though, the furniture that is arriving is in flat-packs, and flat-packs are really boring and uninteresting… boxes… They only become exciting and interesting when they’re assembled – and alas, that won’t be until the week after next! 😦 But there’ll be an awful lot going on, and I’m sure none of you want to miss out on all the gossip 😉 Until then, though, please bee good, don’t forget that what you do today can improve all your tomorrows, and remember to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂