Derby signing

Derby Waterstone's signing today - see you there!

Freshly baked bread on the breeze.

We live within sniffing distance of not one, but two bakeries. Just over the railway line is the Warburtons Variety plant on Union road that makes all the fruit loaves and tea cakes.It's rather a nice smell to get on the breeze every time the wind comes this way.

Where the house is up to, a trip to Scotland and the Derby signing in a week.

You may have all noticed that my blog posts have become more infrequent than usual. Rest assured that this is simply the product of a house move and the associated building and decorating work that I've been busying myself with. In the last ten days we've added an extra room (by adding a stud partition wall where there had been one in the distant past to recreate the old third bedroom. That introduced a lot of mess, and the need for a lot of decoration. Most of this is now in, and Zoë is moved into her new office.

I let her pick the colour she wanted the walls. Trust her to specifically pick a shade of green that cunningly works as a green screen for doing background effects to her vlog! It actually looks quite nice in the flesh too; especially now the room is fitted out with furniture and her stuff. Hopefully tomorrow whilst I'm away in Scotland on work related travels, she will finish unpacking all the boxes that contain her office stuff that are strewn about the house.

Energy efficiency is something I've mentioned before. With rises in gas and electricity costs a regular occurrence, it makes sense. With this house being the first that I've ever owned, I wanted to make a real effort to head it up the energy efficiency charts towards the holy grail of a category 'A' house. Most people will be familair with the banding system. Any new fridge or freezer will be a good example as they all come with the little banding sticker telling you where the device fits in on the efficiency bands.

For houses category 'C' seems to be average, and the vast majority of properties fall somewhere here. This one was at the very top end of 'D' - somewhat poorer - because of a few easily rectifiable things. All of the easy to do things have been done including adding cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and changing the 100Watt bulbs that were everywhere for far more modest 11Watt energy savers (don't ask - we bought the house from old people who seemed to like BRIGHT!!!). According to the energy efficiency report this should shift us to the top end of 'C'. I want to achieve 'B' rating by the winter, and a new roof (with insulation) above the large lounge bay window will go a long way towards that. I have never seen a house that managed 'A' in the flesh, but I suspect that for a house built in 1927 that would be a very tall order. Still 'B' will be a good target to aim for. When the new boiler and radiators are done, maybe we will go some way to getting there.

Bed beckons as a 2:00am start in the morning will see me on my way to Livingston. On a book-related subject, don't forget the Waterstone's signing that I'm doing at the Derby branch in a week's time. See you there!

That wall's all wet.

The plasterer has gone, and the walls are all done upstairs. Now comes the waiting game before we get the wallpaper on the other three walls stripped and get painting. If only moving into an office could be more simple? But it isn't. Still, it will be a lovely new environment for Zoë with lots of hard-wired power sockets (every modern office needs plenty of these) and a hardwired LAN (capable of up to Gigabit speeds) because I hate wires trailing everywhere.

Surprisingly we've come in under budget, so I'll put whatever is left towards decorating stuff. That'll be a new frontier for us both. I know the theory behind this decorating thing I've heard so much about, but the practical side might be a little different. We'll both find out for certain later on in the week!

Finally settling in under the hammering of many different contractors all at once.

I've finally got the internet back properly! The electrician ran the ethernet cables along under the floors and through the ceilings so that we have a hard-wired LAN in the house to each room. It seems to be working all right.

Moving house continues to be stressful with the steady procession of contractors passing through. You all know me by now to be an OCD neat freak perfectionist, so it should come as no surprise to learn that I am not comfortable until I've got this new house just as we want it. We've had Zoë's office put in, and the plasterers are plastering the walls as I type. By Thursday with the dehumidifier in there we'll be ready to decorate it then it's a big go for moving her stuff in over the weekend. That will clear out a lot of the boxes from elsewhere in the house.

Next I have to arrange for a joiner to do a fitted wardrobe in the main bedroom and shelving in what will become the library/dining room. 'Library?' I can almost feel you thinking. Well, yes. We have so many books and the dining room is so large that we decided "what the hell" and are going to shelve a lot of the walls. Still, it saves us from having to decorate the room.

After all that the builder will be back after his holidays to put a pitched roof over the front bay window, and add a porch there too. Then there's a drive to go in at the front and a carport to go at the side. Ultimately there will also be a new extension at the back, as well as a conservatory, but now we're talking about plans for next year and the year after.

Does it all feel like home? Yes, it certainly does. Despite all the stresses of the move and the work being done, neither of us would ever want to go back to rent-a-hell that was the succession of dodgy rented homes. If I drill a hole in this wall, at least it is MY wall to drill a hole into!

A shed roof, leaky internet and a book signing in Knutsford.

I've been offline a lot in the past few days because of internet failure (I think the cable that gets it to this house sprang a leak). However we're back, but very busy. This homeowner malarky is very time consuming! Yesterday I did my first proper bit of homeowner DIY - I replaced the shed roof. Just in time too, as it came on to rain just after I finished.

Today I shall be in Knutsford, signing copies of 'Bringing home the stars' at the Waterstone's branch. See you there!

Notes from beyond the house move.

I apologise for the lack of blogging of late. In my defence I have just moved house! The internet is in but the LAN isn't, and won't be until the new office wall goes in on Monday. But we're getting there, even if it does mean that we're surrounded by mountains of boxes!

We had a very successful move, despite Fate's best efforts. The keys were delayed in being released, followed by the removal van breaking down on the morning before it could make the first trip; it held the important furniture that was all supposed to go into the house first. As a result we ended up moving in a jumble and my organised strategies were defenestrated (pushed out of the window). When I came to move my car across it was loaded with boxes of records until it creaked. I was also hitched to my boat on a trailer. Can you guess yet when I had my first flat tyre in years? I had to unload the boot (no mean feat) and the jack positively groaned when jacking the car up because of the extra weight.

I also had to intercept and scrub some furniture as it came because of the dreaded mould issues that we had in the last house. This house is much drier and better but I didn't want to take a chance on transplanting black mould from the last place. That house has been condemned because of it. No-one is allowed to live there until the Landlord has rectified all the issues to an approved standard and the work is inspected. Karma there at least for all the repairs he neglected whilst happily taking our rent money. Here we own the place outright.

I have to admit that owning my own home feels great. There is a difference in feeling about it, and I like it! Of course, I have to get into this DIY house maintenance and improvement bandwagon but then as the Landlord didn't do basic repairs I had to, so I already know how to do some things. Today's jobs though include weeding the garden - we have three to weed. After that I have to go into the loft to remove boarding so that the people coming on Monday to insulate the house can lay the stuff (I'm told they aren't allowed to put it straight over floorboards for some as yet unexplained reason). That makes Monday a busy day, with the builders dividing up a room to create the new office. Still, probably best to get it all done there and then.

And finally, if ever there was any doubts that black mould poisoning was the cause of our illnesses and tiredness, that is now proven. We are getting great nights' sleep and are seeming to manage refreshed on barely five hours a night - just like old times. I have not felt this good since before we moved into the last house.

As a final endnote I shall be doing a book signing for 'Bringing home the stars' at the Waterstone's in Knutsford on Sunday (NOT Saturday) so if you want to come down and meet me and get a book signed it will be a golden opportunity. After this there is only one more signing in Derby that is booked on the signing trail. After that I will try and take a break before the next book comes out and the signing trail starts all over again; probably at the end of August this year.