House moving latest

Hello March! How did you get here so quickly?

It doesn't seem a day since December was here.

So, what have we got planned for me this month?

Well, January seemed to be the month of getting me re-energised about fashion, and this is an on-going project, although I do now own new bras that fit properly (hurrah!) and I had a good look at my figure as it really is (I Trinny & Susannah'd/Gok Wan'd myself). I had a big clear-out and I now know what clothes I'm looking for this year. And I have a whole load of new dress-making patterns to try out. Can I get a squee?!

And February, other than running about sorting out lots of legal details, viewing houses, buying and building furniture - that was my Month of Movies month (and I have to say watching the Oscars, having seen 31 out of the 56 films nominated was a LOT of fun).

So March - well, in 15 days we're supposedly moving from our current rented accomodation (the world's brownest house).... *crosses fingers*

Back in the UK, the shipping men came with these two gigantic lorries:

 

 

Anyone who's been to our house and round the tiny windy roads to get to it will be as amazed as we were that these two actually got there or got out again.....but they did and the large containers you see there are now floating across the Atlantic (on a big ship obviously) on their way to the Panama Canal, then LA then by road to Phoenix.

Meanwhile, we've accepted an offer on the Cottage. £1,500 less than the 'priced to sell' asking price. They've got such a bargain. I wanted to add a clause into accepting their price that they promise to look after my lovely house.....because I know a mafia cat and I know where if they live should they mistreat it....but I was advised that not everyone gets my jokes (to which I said 'I'm not joking').

So now we're waiting from them to complete on our UK house, so we can pay off our UK mortgage, transfer the remaining money from our UK bank to our US bank, to be our deposit on our US house, get the remaining money needed from a new mortgage from a US lender, sort all the closing of insurances on the old house, open up all the insurances on the new, and lots, lots more things that I can't be bothered to type here but are written in my HUGE to-do list. Simples! I thought moving house within the same country was difficult/stressful - it's got nowt on moving house AND country. But we'll get there.

Today's little annoyance was the buyer's solicitors asking our solicitors whether our road is adopted. Luckily I know all about this having been a local government auditor and I know for a fact that it is adopted and is therefore street cleaned once in a blue moon. But you try and prove this fact when you're 6000+ miles away, there's nothing online from the Council, the lists you need to photocopy are only kept with the Highways Agency in the Council, they don't give information out over the 'phone etc. Nightmare!

Plus our solicitors hadn't taken in why we were telling them they needed to complete in the UK by the end of this week - that the transfer of money, transfer of title, release of mortgage money and all the stuff we need to do on this side of the ocean takes time....they were aiming to complete the UK sale on the day we've organised to complete here in the US....and it doesn't work that way guys!

(As an aside, I've found another word that the Americans find as funny/risky as we do them saying 'pants':- 'solicitor', which to them is ONLY someone who, and I'm not sure which way around this is, either sells sex or tries to buy it...anyway, it's to do with prostitution, not a lawyer....and I tell you, the look you get and the silence you cause when asked in the Post Office who your package of documents is going to and you say 'my solicitors'....haha I love our language differences....I was trying to explain what a pelmet was too today, not as funny though).

So there you go. March is going to be fun.

And in between housey stuff, I plan to spring clean my social media...but I'll tell you all about my plans to do that tomorrow.