Manic Monday – The Bangles.

Well the last seven days have been pretty manic as a whole but since I’m touching base on a Monday we’ll just go with it.

We’re now all present and correct in our new home in Surrey. The letting agent met us all here last Wednesday to do the hand over and I’d just like to wholeheartedly thank Katie and Elle at Move Revolution in Nutfield for being so thoroughly proficient and getting us in here in the very short timescale that they were given.

We had booked a delivery from Scandinavia’s finest for later that afternoon which allowed me time to give the kitchen cupboards a quick clean and start on the childproofing. Despite bringing a box of toys,Alexandra and Calder were happier playing hide and seek in the cupboards and I was happy enough to let them do so. We’d gone for a different brand of lock from those that we had at the old house because the little criminals could burst them.Alexandra actually pulled the front off the cutlery drawer by hanging from it and was most displeased to find herself smack bang on her bum in the middle of the kitchen floor with a gloss white lump of MDF in her hand.

When Ikea delivery man arrives I do a time check.Probably best to get our bed and some book cases made up ready for the move on Friday and can come back to the ‘Alcatraz’ kitchen installation once we’re in. Daddy Simon does a sterling job of entertaining the troops while I build up a bed that is bigger than we anticipated and contemplate how we will fit existing furniture around it as I put together bookshelves in an ever decreasing office space.

A further time check.If we set off now we’ll be stuck in rush hour traffic – not somewhere anyone would want to be with a couple of hungry toddlers. I build a small Volvo out of the nuts and bolts left over from the less sturdily built Swedish products and zip over to McDonalds for a couple of Happy Meals which keeps kiddies quiet for long enough for me to build a desk and pack up ready for home. Three out of the four of the team doze on the way home and two out of the four of have to be carried up to bed and put into their PJ’s half asleep. The remaining two return downstairs for their own dinner and a well deserved glass of wine or two.

Removal Men arrive bright and early on Thursday morning and get to work straight away. I pack a bag or three for Alexandra and Calder’s trip to Nana and Grampy’s on Friday and throw some essentials in a bag /big case to see Daddy Simon and I through until we can locate clean underwear again. It’s all going swimmingly well so we pop out for a walk and return to find majority of house packed up.

Friday is another early start and we’re all washed and dressed when removal men arrive, Then some more arrive and then another and it all starts to pick up pace very quickly. The Removal men are ready to go and we’re not. It not exactly how I had envisaged leaving Killearn Road –

“Have you read the water meter?”

“No.”

“Do you know where the water meter is?”

“No.”

“Do we need a special key to open the drain marked ‘Thames Water’ outside the house?”

” I don’t know.”

We’ll it’s different from the two previous ‘Nos’ but he still won’t be my ‘Phone a Friend’ lifeline if I ever get on ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’. I can prise open the drain with the car key – risky strategy given that it’s all loaded up and the spare is in ‘a box’ in ‘a van’ that is probably on the M25 by now. Memorising the numbers I jump into passenger seat of the car and we pull away, bidding farewell to our home of the last seven and a bit years. By the time we get on to the South Circular I can’t remember why I’m reciting “344750” but put in my phone in case it’s important.

We arrive in Redhill just behind van number one and just ahead of Nana and Grampy. Alexandra and Calder are so excited to see them that they forget to look back and cry for their Daddies as they change cars and leave us until Sunday morning.

The big van arrives just as the heavens open but Jed, Paul and Nigel from Britannia Sanderstead work hard to build us a wee cardboard city within our new home. Again,we were very lucky to get such a great team that could help out on such short notice.

Daddy Simon and I work hard over the weekend to get some sort of normality installed before the rest of our wee family rejoin us.Kitchen is unpacked and organised. Alexandra and Calder’s bedroom is unpacked and ready for their return and Daddy Simon’s office will be home to Pushkin until he settles into a more rural life.

Daddy Graeme has also utilised an odd shaped cupboard as a drinks cupboard and is so proud of it.

Kiddies came back yesterday afternoon. I missed them dreadfully. Over the the past few weeks they have been bundled in and out the car at several different properties and had their routine messed about with and on the whole they have remained the happy-go-lucky,cheeky little monsters that Daddy Simon and I know and love so much.

The bin lorry woke Calder ( at 0610!!!! ) this morning and so it’s been a bit of a long day getting used to seeing familiar everyday items in new surroundings. Henry the Hoover has a new French girlfriend – Miele. The washing machine doesn’t have a door to hide behind here so Alexandra can help him out mid cycle, pause him or just plain switch him off. Calder took full advantage of the fact that I’d allowed him to climb on the dining room chairs thinking that if he fell off ,a carpeted floor would be a much kinder landing than a stone tiled one – then I caught him pushing back from table with his feet. He’s been grounded again.

Tomorrow will no doubt be another manic one but it’s lovely to be home.❤️

We’ll all be on The Victoria Derbyshire Show on Wednesday morning (13th Feb @ 10 am)

Two toddlers on live TV – easy as pie!!!

“So I get the whole top floor to myself then??? COOOOOOL!”

“Just testing it for you Daddy Simon.”

“This show’s a bit fast paced for me.”

The first attempt at childproofing the washing machine.

Because I’ve got that sort of time on my hands…