Part two; what doesn't work

Upon arriving at our new abode, we find that even thought the property has sat empty for at least 4 weeks, there are several things which come to light over the day as having been left in unworking condition. What starts out as a minor annoyance.....a shower not working due to a shorted out isolator switch and a bath that won't stay full as the plug doesn't fit, goes to a rather teeth clenching.....

Television that can't pick up any stations and there are so many wires and even a box which needs power at the spot where the arial should be, that even this intrepid TV guy has to give up and spend a night and a day without television, yes, you heard me , he lived without TV and I lived to tell the tale! On from here, we go to the kitchen or as I like to think of it, the cupoard with a stove in it lol.

See that lovely looking washing machine there? Well most properties don't come with them so they have been on our list of must have's to avoid buying one. On our first day in, I had a few of Glenn's shirts that would be needed soon for work so I thought I'd throw them in. Press a whole load of buttons...nothing, read instructions...wrong ones....press buttons some more...think logically and then press buttons and wait, before pressing again.....machine starts to make noise, that noise that you instantly know means it can't get any water...machine starts to turn clothes, without water. So, look for taps...nowhere to be seen...get Glenn....repeat preceding steps plus try to pull machine out and look behind....not enough room to get a grip....both walk away silently so as to avoid making this someones fault who it clearly isn't. Contact landlord who's number we forunately have, and report all faults: await his arrival to check. (He tries to tell me washer isn't his problem as previous tenants left it so is not in lease..as I am arguing politely Glenn reminds me from his TV'less chair that the advert said 'Includes appliances'. Landlord backs down...he knows when he has been beaten by an BrAussie! (that's a British Australian hybrid such as ourselves)

Now for an interlude of house pics

It is a lovely bright and light house, a lot of money will be saved by not having lights on 24/7. The walls are mainly creamish BUT, there are 8 different floor coverings and the two bay windows have extremely busy flowery curtains that basically go with nothing. Now those of you who know us, know that we are not strangers to some busy decorating and use of colour but there has been zero planning behind this eclectic mix. All in all however, it is not massively unattractive and the furnishings we have work well. While we waited for the landlord we thought we would have a stroll through the garden, which had looked lovely on the google street view pics. However, things have changed. The previous tenants apparently didn't give a stuff about leaving the property in a good state and the agent neglected their duty to do a thorough check, because, the two recycling bins are both filled to the brim with stinking rubbish, the lawn is about a metre long and yellow, the garden shed is full of discarded furniture and baby items, there is litter all over the ground and they even had the cheek to hide some black bags of rubbish behind the shed...ahh there's naught as queer as folk.

The landlord comes round armed with a new switch which an electrician will fit Monday, a new doorbell which we didn't even know was broken, a bath plug. He helps Glenn get the washer out and discovers that the previous had disconnected the pipes to take it away but changed their mind and just pushed it back, he says he will arrange for the rubbish to be collected and says the electrician can look at the TV arial. On Sunday, I spent the day unpacking and Glenn attacked the TV again...lets face it, he was never going to sit around staring at the wall was he? Anyway, he plugged everything into everything and eventually the cry rang out 'The telly's working!' Thank goodness, radio football was about as entertaining as two big bins of rotting rubbish.

Monday morning I text landlord to find out when sparky is due...no answer. I wait a couple of hours and text again; he calls and says here's his number, you ring. I text, because our mobile calls are high due to the fact that we are on a cheap to Oz plan, and again I get no answer. Another couple of hours and I text landlord again...no answer. So I email the agent who has been quite responsive...not this time, I get no answer. It is now about 3pm and I know that if my slowly fermenting husband doesn't get to have a shower tomorrow morning there is going to be hell to pay, so I ring the sparky....'Didn't he tell you it would be after work, in the evening?' I had waited in all day for this guy but, when he did come, he was so personable and friendly and he made everything work even though he complained that the landlord had bought rubbish...he had to repair both the switch and the doorbell straight out of the packet!

All complaints aside, it's a lovely house, the neighbours...one who came round with her daughters and brought us a cake and the other an elderly Irish lady who said 'I'll not terrorise you' and 'I'm church mad you know' seem delightful. Today i went to join the library (15min walk away) and happened on their regular creative writing group....what luck! Glenn's journey to work is a calm 45 mins which he is very happy with and our Tesco is 5 mins away. It seems our research and efforts have paid off and flowery curtains aside, we would be happy to stay here until it is time to return to the land of Oz. Moving house takes up far too much castle/ruins/stately houses/European jaunts time. Oh, one last thing though; all that rain that we didn't have in Measham.....it's here in Birmingham and I finally got to use my transparent pink dotted christmas umbrella.

Its been 6 months.. time we moved. (Part 1)

Thursday... I get home to the piles of neatly and not so neatly piled boxes, over the past week or so Nic has been hard at work getting sorted,  how lucky am i that i married a Gypo who is now so well practiced in the art of moving that it generally goes without any problem, well certainly that we can control. The train falling off the tracks on the way to perth and assorted other mishaps are not our fault.

Friday ... i was booked to meet the agent at 1.15 to collect the keys, of course work here has no allowance for lateness or doing personall business on work time, so it had to be timed to perfection to get there.. (15 mins)...sign, collect keys (20 mins)..and get back to work (15 mins) total 50 minutes allow 10 mins for walking to and from the car park... military precision required.

I leave work at 1pm... arrive car park 1.04... out of car park 1.06... driving.. 1.10...all going well until... traffic jam... i dont move for 10 minutes...1.20...well thats it...  i now cannot make it, Call to nic ..re-arrange time for tomorrow morning..attempt to get back to work... avoid traffic jam.. get slightly lost, back to work at 1.50pm. Sigh..gotta love englands traffic.

Saturday..... "The Plan"....
movers due.... 8am
Me to leave... 8.30
Me to collect keys... 9.30
Movers due at new place around... 10.15
Nic to finish cleaning old house... 10.30
Agent to inspect old house ... 11.30
Nic to drive from old house at 12..arrive new house 1pm

Sat "The Reality"....
movers are late...ARRIVE.... 8.45
Me to leave... 8.30
Me to collect keys... 9.30

10.15...Nic rings me to advise... she has packed her car key and is now stuck with a car full of stuff in Measham.


Movers ACTUALLY ARRIVE at new place .... 11am finish unpacking 11.40

Nic to finish cleaning house... 10.30

Agent to inspect old house ... 11.30

Glenn drives to old house.. 12.25...give Nic car key
Nic to drive from old house at 12.30..arrive new house 1.15pm

and... we are IN!

Stay tuned for part 2...

The beauty of ...

We decided a day out was due, but where to go... the continent?, Irelend?... spectacular London or Edinburgh? nah... Its the West Midlands for us :)

We had a look in the English Heritage book and made our plans.
1) Head out at 8.30 make our way to Ironbridge, this is where the industrial revolution began just outside Telford... i mean, how incredible that this was the basic foundation of the life we now lead, the spinning jenny, canals, steam engines... all from around this area. the bridge itself is beautiful (do we all remember my love of bridges?) and it has the old toll house still there, i have attached a pic that shows the toll charges too.

The Severn was high and flowing fast, ironbridge is a fabulous town with apparently 11 museums nearby.. but that was not our agenda, our next stop was to be the town of "Much Wenlock".

Now personally ive always felt that a little wenlock was enough, but MUCH wenlock, well.. your just being greedy.

What a truly gorgeous medievil town, we were looking for "Wenlock Priory" ruins of another 12th century building, as we got out of the car, the current church bells were ringing out and the whole village was reverberating to the massive bells, as wandered through the streets we just stood open mouthed at building after building that was 500 years old and yet still perfectly functional and in use. We went into the guild hall that housed the market from the 1500's and still has a market each week.

and so after a wonderful walk around the village we made our way to the Priory, once again we are stunned by the sheer history and the fact that this is a building that has been around for 900 years, that all those years ago people were living and learning on this site. and this building is still standing.

oh yes.. and some soooo verrry cute Topiary....

How amazing.. people walking up these steps 900 years ago ???

So, from Much Wenlock we move on to Acton Burnell castle, in truth its more a manor house than castle but once again a stunning ruin, built in 1284, it is thought that the first Parliament in which the commons sat was held here. By now the rain had slightly begun to fall and so from this point on you are lucky enough to enjoy Nic and Glenn in wet weather style.. of course for Nic, this means looking stylishly warm and fashionable.. for me... well it pretty much meeans looking like a dork :)

although to be fair... running away flapping your arms does has a slight standard lowering effect.

How winter should look ^^^

Ok.. heres a couple of bridges that took our (my) fancy, the  first one is important for some reason, that i cant quite remember... the next are where we stopped for lunch and they just randomly happend to be there.

And so on to the roman town, Viroconium (wroxeter)... ok so yes i was amazed at buildings that werre 900 years old... but this... this ruined town is from 01 AD... yes.. 01... a lazy 2009 years old... i mean come on, this was one of Roman britains major towns and these people were going to baths, and markets and working hereTWO THOUSAND  years ago..what did they talk about sitting in those baths??? (possibly they had a premonition about my hat... and were laughing?) That wall behind us has been standing there and had people passing through it since 01 ???

after our wander round the Roman remains... a quick cup of tea and we were off to look for a little unusual Aquaduct... we werent sure of we could find it.. but after a quick trip we saw it off in the distance...

Now... this was quite a way off..behind a couple of fences and across a muddy wet field, but.. this was not going to stop me from seeing the ultimate love of my architectual life.. a bridge with extra excitement. So i set off climbing over the fences and across the field, but it was worth it... a little aquaduct that no longer carries any water but just a pleasure to view and be a part of.

 and so... the end of a fantastic day... and all in the exciting west Midlands :)

And so, the end is near and we did it Brugge way.

Morning comes and with it a delightful breakfast in the lovely restuarant with ample cups of tea, toast, cereals, croissants (for now and slipped in the bag for later). I learnt this morning, that Glenn does not like chocolate with breakfast food...he thought the little brown dots in the croissants were currants, and also, that eating twice as much breakfast does not cover lunch, it just makes you feel sick.We leave our bags at reception and head out for more exploring.

I spotted this pic of the bridge outside our hotel and am now forced to jump back to the previous night to regail you with a tale of Glennish exploits. Later in the evening, Glenn headed out to the market square in search of supper and much needed tea. Both of these he found and enjoyed and then headed back to the room. Ahead of him on the street was a man on a bicycle balancing a box on the handlebars and wobbling all over the place. As Glenn caught up to him near the bridge, he kindly asked if he could help. The man, obviously not speaking any English made sufficient grunting type noises, Glenn waved his arms, and, between them, they came to understand what he was offering. So, what could go wrong you ask? As the man got off the bike, Glenn took hold of it, but at the same time, the man let go of the box (perhaps he thought Glenn was going to get that) and it fell to the floor. Out of it fell two bottles of champagne and some plastic cups, but no, amazingly they did not break! Glenn backed away from the bewildered man quickly and retreated to our room. The moral of this story....don't help foreign men on bikes or, don't let Glenn help you.

There is a lot of art in Europe and I couldn't resist holding hands with the lovers above. The first building is the births/deaths/marriages etc. and above is a repeat of the city hall because today we get to go inside. What an amazing treat it was too! There are only a couple of pics because, well, apparently you aren't supposed to take photo's. Oops.

In the one with me sitting, you can see the 'minstrel' balcony up high, and the paintings which cover the walls, took about 2 years to plan and get permission for and then seven years to do. The painter died during the process and his brother took over the job. I couldn't resist having Glenn stand in the Lord Mayor's lectern...just for a moment he was in a position of power to which he naturally feels inclined...but you know what they say; behind every great man.....
Apart from the fantastiic carvings and paintings and the awesome feeling you get standing in a building that has been used for the same purpose for 800 years, we also saw books and ledgers dating back hundreds of years that relate to the workings of the councils.
 From here we headed back toward the hotel to collect our bags and on the way had planned to visit the chocolate museum. How will it stack up to the fries museum I hear you ask.

And the giant cocoa bean says it all! Here in Brugge they know how to preserve really old buildings, how to make yummy crepes, how to clean hotels and be really polite, how to speak enough English, how to avoid stupid tourists on the wrong side of the road and how to make a Subway sandwich the same as every other country BUT, they do not know how to make coffee or museums! They seem to think a museum is a place full of funny cutouts and lots and lots of brightly coloured wall mounts with lots and lots of boring information written on them. The saving grace, was the 'illumination museum' next door oh and by the way, the chocolate to taste at the door left me sorely wanting. It is the biggest collection of domestic lamps in the world, but, it was interesting because it was full of little clay lamps that have been dug out of the ground from hundreds of years ago. You could follow the progression through the centuries and there were even ones that looked like Aladdin's lamp....even fiction is usually from fact. It was now about 11am so we grabbed our bags and headed out for the rest of our day to be at the busstop by 5.30. At this point I must publicly thank my wonderful husband for rescuing me by pulling my bag as well as his own for the next four hours over miles (well quite a lot anyway) of cobbled streets, especially as the boots specially purchased for this trip were proving to be the most uncomfortable he has ever worn and feeling every point and bump of every stone he stepped on.

We decided better of ice skating ourselves, what with the sore feet and inability to pull a small case lol so onward to what was once a palace. Unfortunately no photo's allowed inside but not before Glenn gets one of me with a genuine, off with her head, guillotine.....Ewwww

Light rain is now falling and we follow our trusty map to 'the forum', a modern building which is the home of theatre and music performance in Brugge. Our card entitles us to go to the 7th floor where we can see forever or at least the edge of the town.

After taking in the fantastic view, we set off for the railway station to stash our bags in a locker, have some lunch and see how long we've got till the bus comes.

Small interjection; I have just watched an internet streaming of the FA cup round b/w Leicester and Man City an we have drawn 2-2 YAY. A win would of curse be better but I think there will be one happy camper coming home from the home of the Foxes in about an hour! It was a very good, competitive, clean game to be replayed on Wednesday at a place I've never heard of.

Anyway, back in Brugge, we still had two hours or so, so we explored the less tourist frequented part of the town..a park called Minniewater

Glenn spent ages waiting patiently for a man on a bike to disappear so he could get this last shot, just as he was taking it a lady with two children were just about to appear in shot. The bike seems to be a very popular mode of transport here. The last place we visited was the old gateway to the town, unfortunately closed inside to visitors in winter but worth the walk and slip and slide along the icy path anyway.

And so our first trip to the continent as locals draws to a close. We had one last Belgian meal; a serve of fries and for me, a waffle covered in warm, oozing white chocolate; oh yes, it was good. As we sat in the train station restaurant eating, we watched two different groups sit down with their local burger; meat patty with pickles, and two of them pulled off the lid and scraped out the pickle...it seems some things are the same no matter what language you speak.

It was a quiet trip back to Hull to be welcomed with dense fog for most of the drive. Obviously we arrived back safe and sound and ready to.......sleep!