Day 4

The task which I had planned to do after my trip to Singapore was finished today. Wallpapering, roughly know the steps to laying it but absolutely no experience with it before. Thank goodness I had asked my friend who has done it before to help me. I didn't realise it was that difficult. The weather was too hot and the adhesive dried very quickly so as a result we had to work fast too. The easiest part of all is to apply the paste. After that, everything is tricky. Matching the pattern, smoothing out bubbles, snipping off the top and bottom. When she showed me how to do it, it seemed pretty easy but trust me, it's not! We didn't manage to finish the wall in the girls' room before doing the school run. I was really worried I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. But I managed somehow after struggling with the last drop which was a really narrow piece.

I had cooked dinner before going to the new house in the morning so when we got home, I just had to heat up and dinner was served. Again, I left after eating to start on the wall in my room. Contrary to what I had thought, it was easier to lay though it had many repeating patterns and the paper was thicker.

A asked me which is easier - painting or laying wallpaper. I told him painting itself is easy but cleaning the tools afterwards is a pain whereas for wallpapering, the task is difficult but clearing up is easy and quick. If I hadn't asked my friend for help, I would have botched the whole thing and probably give up halfway through.

So now, upstairs is all ready. New carpet will go in on Thursday and vinyl on Friday before our move this weekend. I can concentrate on finishing up the packing the next few days . Will load pictures later, too late and tired to do it now.

Day 3

Double whammy day. I broke the pole attached to the roller, twice. First time after it happened, I brought it back to the shop and received a refund for it. Then I bought another one which is not extendable and was cheaper. Not long after I used it, it broke too. I wonder if it's a design fault or simply that I used to much cow strength.

Painting without the pole had been a slow and difficult task. I had to go up and down the ladder , my fingers ached and my palms developed blisters. It's also hard to juggle a family while trying to get the new house ready and also the move. Lavigne didn't have school today as it was inset day and she stayed with me and was totally bored even though I brought toys for her. After we picked Louisa from school, it was back to work before a quick trip to the supermarket in the evening to get some ingredients to make spaghetti bolognese. Adrian had already gone home before us and after dinner, I left the girls with him and went back to finish up the painting.

4 rooms painted in 3 days and I am very pleased.

Day 2

We went to Homesbase this morning to get more paint. Very coincidentally, I bumped into the ex-owner of our house and his son. Their movers had forgotten to clear two of the kitchen cabinets (full of condiments and booze) so I told him about it. He was rather embarrassed and said he'd clear them later that day.

My first painting disaster happened today. The original plan was to paint the whole of the girls' room pink but in the end, I painted only two of the walls to keep it 'less pink'. Since the walls which I didn't paint were dirty and marked, I decided to paint it a neutral colour - snowdrop. That was when it all happened. At Homebase, I couldn't find it in 5L so asked a member of staff to help me. He found it and I happily paid for it without double-checking. When I opened it up at home, I thought the colour looked a little funny. But I started the edging anyhow. The moment the brush touched the wall, I realised something wasn't right. I wondered if I had chosen the wrong colour. I carried on but kept saying aloud 'the colour's not right'. A heard me and asked me to stop. I went to get the paint brochure and matched it with the label and the mystery was solved. I had wanted 'snowdrop' but the guy gave me 'snowfall'. It's a few shades darker. No wonder! So I took the paint back to the shop and explained the situation to the staff. In the end, they said I could get an exchange. Thank goodness! I thought I'd wasted the money and had to get another one. When the man went to get the right paint for me, he came back to tell me the one I'd wanted is meant for kitchen and bathroom. So I had to choose another one on the spot. Luckily I had my wallpaper sample with me. I opted for 'whisper of snowfall'.

Karen, the ex-owner, then dropped by and packed up all her stuff she left behind. There's also an old dryer in the garage which she said if we want it, we can keep it or she'd get someone to come and remove it. A said it's not working so we told her we don't want it. Within about 2 hours, her husband came with a man in a lorry and went away with the dryer. I was really impressed that they worked so quickly. I'd thought they'd come in a few days.

Our progress didn't seem as good as yesterday. We didn't progress to other rooms. But I managed to tape the edges of the playroom and A removed some of the wallpaper in the lounge. I actually quite like the feature wallpaper but it's in gold and charcoal which doesn't go with our colour scheme. A was adamant about stripping it. I felt a tinge of regret while he was doing it. Oh well, nevermind.

I hope to finish painting the playroom and one small wall in A's study (he'd removed a baby's wallpaper border) tomorrow. Then upstairs will be completed apart from the wallpaper. It will be more than what we had set out to do which is good really. I can't wait to lay the wallpaper but am afraid I will mess it up. Shall ask a friend to help me out.

Day 1

I woke up this morning thinking it was quite late. But my alarm hadn't rung and when I looked at my watch, it was only 6am! No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get back to sleep. My mind must be flooded with tasks for the coming week. So I got up and started doing some packing. More than half the content of my kitchen were packed and A made a trip to the new house bringing the boxes with him.

So it was painting day. I had taped the masking tape last night and after A took the girls to Louisa's school summer fair this afternoon, I started painting the master room. When they returned, A took over the half painted room and I went on to paint the girls' room. I'm so glad that at the end of the day, A finished 2 coats (need another coat) and the girls' room was completed. We're now ahead of schedule and I may even have time to lay the wallpaper!

Our New Home

I've just got the key this afternoon after a nail-biting 24 hours. Finally the transaction is completed and the house is rightfully ours. The ex-owners, bless them, they left the house in a very clean state.

Fedup

So my post titles have not been very positive. But I'm really getting really fedup. Our relationship with our landlord didn't start off very well. He refused to provide a fridge which is a norm, locked up the garage due to health and safety reasons and fail to get the lawn in the garden cut. Every month, his wife/sister, someone who shares the same surname as him emails A demanding for rent. We always pay on time and to our Letting agent. Does she not know of something called the invoice? Why a demand in the first place? Why even we have paid? Our landlord had wanted us to move out asap. So when we'd exchanged contracts last week, we gave our one month's notice to the landlord. Now he's demanding us pay the whole month's rent even though we'll handover mid-month. Reason? Not favourable to him because he hasn't found a buyer nor a tenant. MY PROBLEM?! I don't think so! He wanted us out in the first place. So we have to stay put just because no one wants to buy an over-priced house? My boss who sold him the house in the first place had an unpleasant experience with him too. She calls him a swine and she said that's being polite. Now he wants to come see the house, for what I don't know and at what time? Between 7-9am in the morning.

Annoyance

Not only do I have to let potential buyers into the house to view the property, I now have another set of people coming - the potential tenants! The landlord couldn't find a buyer and we're moving out so he's stuck! Big, big inconvenience to me now that I am so busy. However, this is certainly an incentive for me to quickly pack and I'm now so looking forward to the move. No more waiting around for people, no more phonecalls from the estate agents. I just CAN'T WAIT!

At.Long.Last

How can I forget to announce this big big news?! It's something I'd been waiting ages for. Something I can't wait for it to come and then have a big celebration. Who can blame me? I had been ill and still not well.

A passed his viva last Friday!

Which means it's over and done with. Four and a half years of hard work. The reason we came to UK in the first place.

He went back to Surrey last Thurs to stay with a friend in order to prepare for it and I got the news when I was in hospital. After a gruelling 3 hours on Friday morning, he received the news we had all been hoping for and more - no correction needed for his thesis! A straight pass.

It had not been an easy journey. Not for him. Not for me. Not for the family. Lots of tears, heartaches and what have you along the way but he's done it. He's done it! The celebration will have to wait but it will not be forgotten.

Shall I call you Dr Leung from henceforth?

Health scare

Sorry to those who tried to contact me but didn't get a reply. I was admitted to hospital for suspected Meningitis last Friday. Was discharged yesterday and now resting at home. So much time had been wasted since I got ill last Tuesday. But after this nasty viral infection (not Meningitis afterall), my energy level is low and my head feels funny, I'll just have to take things easy and do what I can and not push myself. Many 'interesting' incidents happened during my stay at the hospital but I'll share that some other time.

The Plan

• Present to Friday 26th June - pack
  
• Friday 26th June - Key collection
  
• Saturday 27th June - Strip wallpaper in lounge
• Sunday 28th June to Thursday 2nd July (Yeeks! July!) - Paint selective walls in Master room, LLs room and playroom
• Thursday 2nd July - fitting of new carpet/screeding in cloakroom
  
• Friday 3rd July - fitting of vinyl
• Saturday 4th July/Sunday 5th July - THE MOVE
• Monday 6th July to Sunday 19th July - Clean, unpack, pack for holiday
• Wednesday 15th July - handover of old house
• Monday 20th July - Heathrow Airport
• Tuesday 21st July - SINGAPORE!
  

How realistic this plan is I don't know. But that's all the time I have left. It'll probably be tweaked along the way. Wish me luck!

PPsssst

The deal's almost sealed. Contracts have been exhanged. YAY!!!!!

Panic Mode

I think I'm doing myself no good by putting the countdown on my blog. Everytime I see it and realise how close I am to going back home, I get more and more panicky. Sure I want to go home. But truth be told, there's still so much to be done before I can leave. Trouble is the tickets been booked and paid for so we have to leave whether I complete all my tasks or not.

What's the delay you might ask. Everything's put on hold just because the contracts have not been exchanged and it was supposed to happen last week. No exchange means I can't give notice to my landlord. I can't place an order for the floorings. I can't buy paint. I can't confirm with my boss when I will be away. This delay, in turn, means that I have less time to get the house ready before we move. Now, we may have to leave things to when we return from Singapore. Oh I just can't imagine that. But if we have to do it that way, then it has to be done so.

At least I've completed my sis-in-law's wedding invite design. Next will be deciding on the flowers for the bouquets and bridal car. We kind of know what we want but need to check with the florists the availability of the flowers. Other than that, I think I've nothing to worry about until I reach Singapore.

Floorings. My poor girls. Everytime I ask them to get changed, they'll ask where we're going. We've been making so many trips to carpet shops they are now scared of it. Which child can be bothered about carpets? So we try to explain to them that we want to create a nice home for them. There are now so many pieces of samples in the house you can lay them out to create a patchwork. We also took home a piece of underlay to get a feel of how the carpet will be like when fitted. A and I will step on different samples everyday and we've come to the conclusion that the nicest one is the 6ply yarn which feels really thick and plush. Thing is I'm not so keen on the colour. It looks like a dirty beige. Will go to the shop tomorrow to see if they carry the right shade I want.

Paint. I need to paint the master room, girls' room, part of playroom, living room and dining room. I've got the colour charts BUT we haven't decided on the colour. The existing colour in the what would be the girls' room matches the base colour of the wallpaper. But Louisa doesn't want a 'cream room'. She wants a pink one. So I'm going to choose a very soft pink for her. As for the master room, I can't decide between eau de nil or fawn. But since the table lampshades are in eau de nil, I think it's better to have fawn. As much as I like neutral colours, I also fancy dark colours like those you see in 'Extreme Makeover-Home Edition'. But my dining room is not very big. So even though dark colours make a room appear cosy, they also make it look smaller. I'm still veered towards Olive or if I'm bold enough, redcurrant on a feature wall! The very big job will be taking down the wallpaper in the living room. If we keep it, it'll dictate the colours and decorations in the room which we don't like - black and gold. By the look of things, I don't think I have enough time to take it down and give the wall a lick of paint. I'll just have to concentrate on painting the walls upstairs and not worry about messing up the existing carpets as they'll be ripped up and replaced by new ones.

Wallpaper. They'll have to wait until I come back from my holiday.

Packing and Move. We engaged the service of professional movers the last time. It was expensive but less of a hassle and everything was moved in one single trip. This time, I wonder if we should do the same since we're not moving somewhere far. Will renting a big van do the job? But we need a few strong men to help. Also, my back is not as strong as before. Should I take the risk? After packing a few boxes and moving them around yesterday, it was sore this morning. My boss kept telling me not to move any heavy stuff but if I don't do it, who will? This time round, I'm packing room by room rather than all over the place. I've tackled my own room and have moved on to the girls' room. Upstairs look messy now with cartons stacked against walls. But I console myself that the more boxes I pack, the closer I am to moving, though I'm not looking forward to THE MOVE at all.

Summer is the time when many events happen at schools. Summer fetes, sports days and whatnots. They're going to take up more of my precious time which I'm lacking of. Told you before I'm bad at multi-tasking. A friend had said that what I'm going to do is a tall order. How I wish there's a few of me.

Sunny days never last

Now that I've packed and sealed up the boxes of winter clothes, the temperature has to take a nosedive. We've had days of really hot weather and then you see people walking around wearing scarfs and jackets again. It's been said that you can get 4 seasons in one day in the UK. Today, we had really heavy rain, sun and hailstones. It was also my first time hearing thunder here. Quite a bizzare day, really. Fingers crossed on the home front. Hope things will move forward this week.

Time

The lack of it, that is. Looking at the counter, I realised I'm left with 45 days before flying off. Happy yet getting really anxious and worried. Meanwhile, I have to wait for the hand over of the house which earliest, will be in 2 weeks' time. I'll be then left with just one month to clean up the new house, do whatever needs to be done, pack up our things, move, unpack, clean up the old house for handing back to landlord. I think it's going to be a feat. I wonder how I am going to manage them all. In the meantime, I'm trying to help my sister-in-law with her wedding prep, something which I enjoy doing but I can do a better job if I don't have so many other things on my mind. Right now, I've only managed to pack 2 boxes. Yes, 2 miserable boxes. I should pick up speed and get going. Thankfully though, I have a supportive boss. She knows of my impending move and that I had been booked to go on a course which will take up 2 whole Saturdays this month. So she had kindly suggested that I miss them and go in September instead. I will also be on leave for 2 weeks end of the month to allow me to do some DIY. Better get my bottom off this chair now. Oh and Mike, please don't expect many decent meals from now on, K? Got to just quickly whip things up to fill up tummies.