We drove down to the new house this morning and collected the keys, our money fortunately having arrived a little before we did. Then after poking around the house, garden and stables for a bit (What are all these pull cords in the bedrooms that don't seem to do anything? Do we actually know the alarm code? What's this bare concrete patch in the middle of the front lawn?) we drove home again, because we're not actually moving in until Friday (although I'm going to be there all day tomorrow to let in carpet cleaners and the window cleaner, and accept delivery of a washing machine, a dishwasher, a fridge, a freezer, a ton (literally) of horse bedding, some horse feed, a lawn mower, a strimmer, some other bits and pieces from Amazon, a dining table and chairs, some stable tools, and a grocery order from Ocado).
Our new concrete has been laid, and the stable yard looks good, although there's some grass that needs to grow back. The fencing work isn't being done until mid August, but we have electric fencing on plastic posts to keep them away from the dodgy fences until they've been replaced.
We're now a little concerned by the amount of stuff that needs to be done by next Wednesday morning, when the horses move in -- there's some junk in the stables, tack room and barn to get rid of, door furniture that needs replacing, electric fencing that needs to be connected up, and so on.
In theory, our phone line and ADSL account will both be switched over to the new house some time on Friday. If we go offline for a while, then this did not actually happen.
