Last day:
Tuesday I spent in the office mostly. I finished writing new copy for the Guest Welcome Pack folders which go in each cottage, printed them all off, did laminating and left them ready to go back into each cottage. I also created logos for the front of the new Guest Comment Books, laminated those and put them on the fronts of new comment books too.
Ady finished off a last few jobs with Johnny in the morning. In the afternoon he headed off for supplies for Taco Tuesday, courtesy of Jill. I spent some time chatting to Sam who lives next door and we arranged to pop round for a cup of tea after work. Sam is really interesting, very passionate about all things low impact, loves Scotland and is hugely inspired by us and our adventures and the way we raise our kids. He said he loves Davies and Scarlett because they are just always so *happy*. We chatted for a while about our Educational Philosophy and why we do things the way we do. It came after I’d said goodbye to Denise who works in the office and was also saying how fab she thinks D & S are and what a good job we are doing with them. It was really heartening and bolstering to hear and reminded me that we are making active choices about our kids, not just leaving them to their own devices. I felt really good about it – ha, so much for intrinsic rewards eh?! 😉
We put the animals away for the last time and headed over to Sam’s for an hour. Further chatting, cups of tea and coffee and exchanges of contact details with promises of a place for Sam to stay if he ever wants to visit and a promise of helping us out if he ever comes and then we went back to the cottage to get dinner sorted. I made tacos and fajitas inbetween having a shower while the others did more cottage packing up. At 7 ish we took all the food over to Jill and Johnny’s for Taco Tuesday – the last supper.
A lovely evening had by all with lots of laughter, food, drink (we had mexican beer with lime wedges and tried Canadian Ice Wine which was delish). We played Scattergories and Leyah joined us. It was a lovely last evening, ending around midnight when we headed back to our cottage.
The Leaving:
We spent an hour or so packing the last bits up, loading the car and tidying up. Then Davies and Scarlett went off with Leyah for a pony ride. It was totally freezing but an utterly gorgeous day with bright blue skies. They both had a go at trotting, on the lunge lead and did really well despite eyes watering with coldness. I think they were both understandably cross with themselves that we’d all been telling them to do some riding for the whole 3 weeks and they only managed it on the very last morning.
We’d planned to be away at 11am and we were, infact a few minutes before. We went and said our goodbyes to everyone and J&J presented us with rucksacks each for the kids – we’d mentioned loving the Life is Good brand after Ady got one of their t shirts in a charity shop and it turns out they used to stock their stuff in their shops and still have a surplus of stock so the kids now have about 5 Life is Good tops and a rucksack each and Ady has another T shirt too – they don’t do tops with cleavage ;), gift cards for Game and Waterstones and £200 cash 😯 They were most forceful about us taking it and as it will help a lot with our cash flow we very gratefully accepted 🙂 Love them
The drive home was fine, Mike rang me about 10 minutes before we arrived at the house to check we were still on track and to say he hoped the tenants had gone but they had not dropped the keys back to him 😮
We pulled up and saw a bike leaning against the back wall and an old wardrobe on the driveway. Mike arrived shortly after us and we all went in They have gone, just not taking everything with them 🙁 The house is probably about as I was expecting really. The carpet is very grim throughout although the Ady Machine is making a real dent in that to the point that I think we will not bother to replace it to put it on the market, certainly to begin with. The walls are chipped and scuffed, but a coat of paint will sort that out . The sinks and loos are all very dirty and stained, but some elbow grease will fix that. The oven was particularly hideous but a £4 oven cleaner from Sainsburys, loads of hot soapy water and scourers have all but sorted that out. The garden is fairly overgrown and the chickens area is horrid, with a very strange netted affair errected and loads of veg peelings all trodden in and rotting that they wouldn’t ever eat along with eggs shells and lots and lots of chicken poo.
Mike took photos, chatted to us about what happens next and asked if we’d let him put the house on the market.
The kids were upset for a short time as all three of the cockerels we’d had here have gone. There is one in their place, but not one of ours. Most of the hens seem original though. They have called the new cockerel Timothy 🙂 I’m hoping the chickens will like Rum 🙂
After a bit of looking round the place in awe we got ourselves together and headed over to Dad’s, stopping to collect some food on the way as we were all ravenous. Fed, watered and caught up with Dad Ady and I left the kids there and came back over to the house to put the chickens away and make a start on Operation Cleanup. Ady had the Ady machine so he got started with the carpets in the lounge and a first go at Scarlett’s bedroom which was by far the worst room. Upstairs is fairly clean but the downstairs rooms are all pretty horrid. They have smoked in every room so the whole house stinks of fags which is possibly what I am most pissed off about 🙁
I gave the kitchen a surface clean, put cisterm blocks in the loos and put bleach down them, scrubbed the kitchen sink and left bleach soaking in it, got the oven cleaner stuff started and cleaned the downstairs sink and bath. By then it was gone 7pm so conscious of the kids and food we headed back to my parents
Mum was on good form and Dad paid for fish and chips for everyone which was nice. Frazer ate with us too 🙂
Today: After breakfast and chatting with Dad we headed over to the house armed with a first load of stuff. It’s hard to know what to bring and what not to bring, we’re here for about 10 days but will need to bring most stuff back away again to keep the house clear for viewings. Kitchen stuff can stay here but the rest will need to go back to parents so that if we were to sell it would only be a speedy task to empty it again and one Mum or Dad could theoretically do for us.
Ady did more Ady Machining. We’ve decided the carpets have come up well enough for the house to go on the market without replacing them. If it doesn’t sell and feedback is suggesting that is a huge downside then we’ll rethink but for now we’ll save the money. So it’s worth Ady spending the time on them. I finished cleaning the oven and then spent the time sorting out the chickens area which was grim. Scooped up all rubbish and old food, took down all netting and other crap, emptied the coop of stuff and cleaned it out and persuaded them I am not to be afraid of and managed to hand feed most of them 🙂 It looks like the amazing disappearing hen of days gone by may have returned and there is one cock and nine hens although we found one hen on the back doorstep this evening and I could only see 7 more in the coop when I closed it so one may have been spooked enough to not go into the house this evening…
We worked for a few hours and then headed into town. Ady wanted some bits from the pound shop, we needed a hoover (kettle and hoover were two things we got rid of when we left as they were very old and tired, we’ve needed to spend over £30 today on replacing them though so slightly regretting getting rid of them. We do have both electric and hob top kettles in Willow but she is a 50 mile round trip away so not cost effective either.) and we wanted to use the vouchers J&J had given us as we were not sure when we’d next be around Game and Waterstones both of which we have in Worthing. Davies used the game voucher for a 3DS and a PSP game and we split the Waterstones one with Tarly – she got a book about hamsters and we picked up River Cottage Meat half price because the spine glue had come adrift and a book on green building which I’d probably not fork cash out for but will be handy for reference. We got chatting to the guy serving us about why we really wouldn’t be needing a loyalty card where we’re going and he shook our hands and wished us all the best because ‘I’d love to do something like that but I’m not brave enough’. 🙂 🙂
Back home via Mum & Dad’s for a few more bits and the pet shop for some Humphrey the Amazing Traveling Hamster supplies and some shavings for the chicken coop. I finished cleaning the oven and did the kids tea then got in a bath/ Oh how I have missed my bath 🙂 Ironically tomorrow I am having patches put on my back which will mean no baths til Tuesday so it was an even more enhanced luxury for knowing it’s the last for another five days!
We had dinner and then all watched loads of The Good Life on video with the fire burning all camped out in the lounge. It feels all sorts of strange to be back here really, particularly as it is 18 years ago since we moved in (1st Feburary 1994) all but to the day. A FOR SALE board went up today and it’s already on the website which feels rather final. The kids are both slightly sad about selling the house and say that while they don’t actually want to live here themselves anymore they liked the idea that we still owned it while we were renting it out.
In other news the hostel on Rum rang me today to say they have shuffled rooms around to fit us in and we’ll be staying in one of the castle rooms but only being charged hostel rates which is good 🙂