Sunday November 20th 2022

Another enjoyable morning for Lois and me in our recently acquired new-build home in Malvern, thanks to the weekend visit of our elder daughter Alison and her 14-year-old daughter Rosalind from their family home in Headley, Hampshire. 

For a while Lois and I do not feel so isolated, which is nice!

09:45 Ali and Rosalind arrive after checking out at their hotel - the Premier Inn, Malvern. 

All four of us then have an enjoyable zoom with our other daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia, and with her 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.

Alison, Rosalind, Lois and I have an enjoyable zoom

with Sarah and the twins in Perth, Australia

The twins are shy at first - they're used to talking to Lois and me, but Lily in particular is a bit shy, to start with, talking to Alison and Rosalind. They soon warm up, however, and I can tell that the twins are fascinated to hear, in particular, Rosalind talk: all children instinctively look up to older children who are their friends and relatives, we have always found, and they listen, as if spellbound, to whatever the older kids say.

Like so many kids today all three of them are totally fascinated by the Harry Potter books. Jessica is a voracious reader and has read all the books already, and both twins are enthralled when Rosalind starts talking about other series of books that she has read and enjoyed.

11:30 The zoom call ends and Alison, Rosalind, Lois and I go for a little walk around the estate before lunch. 

Rosalind, Alison and I in front of our new new-build home

we take a walk around the estate - when it's finished

there will be 300 houses altogether but maybe only

a quarter have been finished. In the background part of

the Malvern Hills can be seen.

On our walk we pass the Qinetiq Technology Park complex, contractors who do top secret security and defence work for the UK Government. It's based on the site where radar was developed in World War II. 

on our walk we pass along the perimeter fence of

Qinetiq, the security and defence contractor

It's quite nostalgic for me to see a fence like this, and the barbed wire etc, because I worked at a place with similar physical defences for over 30 years. Happy days!!!!

flashback to 2004: my former workplace just prior to its being demolished

- happy days !!!!!!

Lois and I suspect that one of our neighbours, Laurence, works for Qinetiq - we've seen him going off to work on foot, so presumable he works somewhere nearby, and he's just the sort of quiet guy that places like this love to employ. But we'll see - maybe we're quite wrong and he's a turf accountant or a nightclub entertainer. Only time will tell !!!!

flashback to 1944: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

visit the RRE (Royal Radar Establishment), Malvern

13:00 We come home and have some lunch, and then Alison and Rosalind load up the car and go home to Hampshire. Luckily, however, they're taking some things with them, which will make our new house slightly less crowded: a glass-doored display cabinet, a double duvet, and Alison's wedding dress from 1999.

flashback to 1999: Alison and Ed get married, and after the service, they and all their guests

drove out to Prescott Hill, Gloucestershire, for the reception.

14:00 Sob sob - Lois and I are all on our own again. Boo hoo!!!!!

Saturday November 19th 2022

 An exciting day - for the first time in our new new-build home in Malvern, Worcestershire, Lois and I are entertaining guests, our daughter Alison and our 14-year-old granddaughter Rosalind, who arrive from Headley, Hampshire at about 9:15 am, having left home around 6:45 am - yikes!

Soon after Alison and Rosalind arrive, we head off to nearby West Malvern to view a house-for-sale on behalf of our other daughter Sarah and her husband Francis, who live in Perth, Australia with their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica. Sarah and family are hoping to move back to the UK in the spring.

It turns out to be a nice house but the parking situation is horrendous, with no off-road parking for the house. It's got great views, but it's on the side of a really steep hill, and the rambling back garden drops away at an alarming rate - Lois and I would need climbers' ropes and harnesses to get to the bottom of it safely - yikes (again)!

After we get back to our house, we speak to Sarah and Francis on whatsapp, to tell them about the house - we try to give them the information without skewing it towards either a yes or a no, which is tough.

we talk about the house-for-sale on whatsapp with Sarah and 

Francis in Perth, Australia. Left to right: Rosalind, Alison and Lois

Will Sarah and Francis put in an offer on the house? We think on balance that they won't, but we'll see.

After lunch, Lois, Alison and Rosalind go off for a walk, while I stay behind to take delivery of an IKEA "Billy" Bookcase. The plan is that this will go some way towards solving our current "book mountain" problem. Piles of books here and there all over the house - what madness !!!!!

I ask the delivery guy to stash the flatpack in the corner of the room, where hopefully it won't fall on anybody. I must be going health-and-safety mad haha!

I ask the delivery guy to stash the flatpack for our shiny new

IKEA "Billy Bookcase" in the corner of the living-room,

where hopefully it won't fall on anybody - I'm all heart haha!

14:30 Alison and Rosalind go off to check in at the Premier Inn where they've booked a family room for the night. They come back around 4pm for a piece of lovely chocolate cake, followed an hour later by one of our Cook meals. 

Then they go back to their hotel leaving Lois and me to watch a countdown of the Top 20 Christmas toys of all time.

22:00 And so to bed....... "Are things beginning to go back to being more normal?", we ask each other. But we think it's a bit early to start saying that. Oh dear !!!!!

Friday November 18th 2022

These are strange days indeed that Lois and I are living through - nobody told us there'd be days like these: living in the middle of a building site, surrounded by unfinished new houses, and not having half the things in our own house that we consider basic to civilised living - oh dear! Our normal ways of filling our days have all gone completely out of the window, that's for sure. When will the normal days come back? HELP !!!!!!!!

Today was a day that started with us seemingly beset by a lot of problems in prospect for the coming weekend.

We are expecting our daughter Alison and our 14-year-old granddaughter Rosalind, arriving tomorrow mid-morning and leaving on Sunday afternoon. Of course we're very much looking forward to the visit, but there seem to be a lot of problems to worry about.

1. The street outside is full of holes as builders struggle to fix a lot of underground pipes and connections - we don't really understand what that's all about, but the worries are: will we be able to drive anywhere? and will Alison be able to get to us? - at the start of today there is a big 4 foot deep hole in front of our parking space, which doesn't bode well for the weekend.

flashback to Wednesday: the street outside our house

2. Our house is full of flattened cardboard boxes from our move 2 and a half weeks ago. The movers are supposed to be coming to take them away today, but they haven't confirmed. And will they even be able to get to the house, because of all the underground pipe work and holes in the road?

3. Alison and Rosalind are arriving mid-morning tomorrow, but our other daughter, Sarah, who lives in Australia, wants Lois and me to view a house-for-sale, which she and her husband Francis are interested in putting an offer on - and it turns out that the only appointment time available is 10 am.

4. IKEA are supposed to be delivering a Billy Bookcase in flat pack form tomorrow, but we haven't had confirmation so we only have a 12-hour time slot - 7 am till 7pm. What good is that?

We start the day with all these anxieties, but magically, as the day wears on, all the problems go away, however, which is weird, and it leaves us feeling quite weak.

1. A guy from the removal firm arrives at 7:45 am - we're only just up and around, but he willingly takes away all our flattened moving boxes, even though he has to park up the street and round the corner. He doesn't mind, he says!

And after he goes, it's so comforting to be in a house without flattened boxes everywhere we look, which is nice. Suddenly our living-room begins to look spacious - what madness !!!!

the living-room starts to look spacious, but to the observant eye

there's a glimpse of one of our many "picture mountains" leaning up against 

the side of the bureau - oh dear!

...and on the right of the picture there's one

of our many "picture mountains" under the radiator..

but we're still pleased: it almost looks like a normal living-room

- good grief !!!!!!!

2. Work on the road outside continues but by going-home time, it's all been put to rights, so there won't be a problem for Ali or for us, if we want to drive anywhere over the weekend.

3. Ali and Rosalind will try to get here early if they can, so they can also come and look round the house that Sarah and Francis are interested in.

4. I ring IKEA late afternoon, and they tell me they are definitely delivering the 6' 6" tall Billy Bookcase to us tomorrow, at some time between 11:30 am and 3:30 pm, so that's all good. Maybe in the next week or so we can reduce some of our "book mountains".

Things are definitely looking up!

Thursday November 18th 2022

A day of mixed fortunes as Lois and I try to establish ourselves in our new-build home in the middle of a building site where at least half the houses haven't been finished yet.

On the minus side, a group of clowns working on underground pipes managed to cut off our water supply, which we only discovered by trying to fill a kettle after afternoon nap-time was over. Nobody had told us that our water was off - what madness !!!! I think somebody had driven a spade through something - it wasn't totally clear. Neil, the friendly and competent deputy site-manager and customer services guy was on to it right away, which was nice. By 5 pm in more or less total darkness the guys had done a temporary repair to take us through the night, and they're coming back tomorrow to do a permanent fix.

Neil, the friendly and competent deputy site-manager and

customer care guy indulging in his favourite hobby - golf

On the plus side we're looking forward to having our elder daughter Alison and her 14-year-old daughter Rosalind staying in the area for the weekend, arriving from Hampshire on Saturday and going back home on Sunday. 

To prepare we drove 7 miles to make our first visit to the small Warners-Morrison supermarket at Upton-on-Severn, where they also sell "Cook Meals" the superior quality ready-meals, which we love to spoil ourselves with.

the Warners-Morrison supermarket at Upton on Severn

the prestigious "Cook Meals" section of the supermarket,

only frequented by us and the store's other more discerning customers

In case you're wondering, we're still looking forward to some day being able to do many more normal things like entertaining family and planning meals, and less of having to deal with the problems of living in the middle of a building-site in a house that still needs a lot of things installed to make it what we want. 

I'm sure it will happen one day!

Wednesday November 16th 2022

Lois and I have been living in our new-build home in Malvern for 2 weeks now, and every day we find out something new about the hazards of living in the middle of a building-site. Today in the middle of our afternoon nap the door-bell rang and we found out that the builders were going to be digging a large hole outside the house early tomorrow morning, so we wouldn't be able to drive our car in or out after about 8 am. And due to a communications snafu, they had forgotten to tell us. Oh dear! 

They were very apologetic, but what use is that?

The morning had seemed so promising - sunshine for once, and the opportunity to have a little walk and post a letter. 

We actually smiled when we saw that the builders were obviously already planning some typically noisy project. Little did we know that the project included a huge hole outside our front door. What a madness it all is!!!!

We go out for our walk and smile at the builders' amusing little antics and their sinful ways!

"Tee-hee!", we laughed. "What are these guys 

planning to do today to fill their 8 hours?"

We pass the entrance to Qinetiq, the technology park on the site of the old Malvern World War II Radar Research Station, where they invented radar, radar counter-measures and then, when they became bored with radar, they invented microwave ovens. What bigheads haha!

Eventually we get to post our letter.

we post our letter in the nearest Royal Mail postbox

- isn't it fun being retired haha!

After our nap was interrupted we moved our car up to the top of the site, by the Marketing Suite, because we need to do food shopping tomorrow, in preparation for the visit on Saturday by our daughter Alison and our granddaughter Rosalind.

Busy busy busy!

the site marketing suite (on the left) where we later decide

to park our car tonight. This will give us another couple of hours

in bed tomorrow morning, which will be nice!

Tuesday November 15th 2022

Moving into a new-build home is a young person's game, that's for sure. Lois and I thought that if it was a new house that not much would need doing to it - the opposite is true: everything has been left for us to choose and order for ourselves, which is a lot of work when you just want the default fittings - although it turns out there aren't any defaults - damn! 

It's sheer madness!!!!

But we like to be positive and every night when we go to bed we like to count the successes of the day, and put aside the failures for renewed work tomorrow.

Today's wins:

1. Our old friend Stephen has agreed to come over from Cheltenham put some shelves in for us here in Malvern, and do some other DIY. That's great because now we won't have to look for some unknown local handyman, with all the delays and perils that that entails.

our so-called "larder" clearly needs a lot of shelving put in...

as does our so-called "airing cupboard" - what a madness it all is !!!!

2. I managed to order a "Billy Bookcase" flatpack from IKEA online, although I messed up on the delivery date. I tried to change it, again online, but this didn't work. So I phoned Customer Services and they also told me to "try again tomorrow" - politely, but disappointingly. The guy was having some problem with his system.

a typical IKEA "Billy Bookcase", but ours will be arriving 

on the wrong day - damn!!!!

The idea of the Billy Bookcase is to help us deal with our terrible Book Mountain problem. Despite all the hundreds of books that we gave away to charity when we were still in our old house, it seems we've still got loads too many, and they're currently stashed here and there in our new home.

parts of our "Book Mountain", spread here and there around the house

3. We rang Express Removals in Gloucester and they have agreed to come and take away our moving boxes on Friday, all nicely emptied and flattened by us, and hopefully they will make good on that promise, in time for the weekend visit of our daughter Alison together wih one of Ali and Ed's three children, Rosalind (14).

flashback to February 2019: the whole family at Wembley Stadium, London:

(left to right) Josie, Alison, Rosalind, Isaac and Ed

4. I fitted two lampshades, so we have two fewer bare bulbs hanging from our ceilings.

5. I updated our daughter Sarah with the latest legal and financial moves in her attempts by herself and husband Francis to move back from Australia after 7 years, and to buy a house here in the UK.

flashback to September: Sarah and Francis with the twins,

sheltering from stormy weather just outside Perth, Australia

Other issues:

Still no TV feed, so we're still watching what we can via the internet. And still no landline telephone.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day....

Monday November 14th 2022

It's now 2 weeks since we first moved into our new-build home in Malvern.

You probably don't realise, but after we moved in, Lois and I suddenly found ourselves living in the middle of a building-site, and all the houses on the opposite side of the road from us are still being built. And even the houses on our side, including our house, have only just been built: the paint is hardly dry. What total madness!!!!

It's interesting to watch the work on the houses opposite us, however - and today, the start of a new week, we're conscious that the pace of work has gone up by a huge notch: the place is swarming with guys in white helmets and high-viz jackets. There must be a big push on to try and get the street finished now so they can start selling all the unsold houses, I guess. So it's incredibly noisy all day, which is a pity.

Luckily we don't need to monitor them all day - Lois's cuddly toy tiger, Mir Jafar, keeps an eye on them for us, which is a relief!

Mir Jafar, Lois's cuddly toy, monitors the building work for us,

so we can relax, which is nice!

And we've discovered that Malvern is a dramatic place for weather - today, however, it's been a drizzly old day and the tops of the hills have been shrouded in mist.

behind me, the Malvern hills shrouded in mist but there's a glimpse of 

the so-called "finished" side of the street, where 

some of the houses are now occupied, and have cars out front.

flashback to 1971 - the Malvern hills in sunnier times: Lois and I

spend a week there after I return from my year in Japan

Some progress on us getting a TV service - the builders put the coaxial antenna socket in the wrong place, and we mostly have to watch just the channels we can get on our old laptop. The guys are coming Tuesday next week to move the socket, which will be a great step forward. And next Monday we're being measured up for blinds for the windows on the back of the house.

How to do things the wrong way round, in 14 easy lessons!!!!

Sunday November 13th 2022

Lois and I have now moved from the house in Cheltenham, the one we've been living in for over 36 years, to a much smaller house in Malvern, 25 miles to the north-west.

Very painful - we threw away loads of stuff before we left Cheltenham, but when we arrived in Malvern on Halloween (October 31st)  we still found we were trying to "pour a quart into a pint pot". What madness!!!!

We've been living surrounded by boxes for about a month.

our old bedroom in Cheltenham

our old dining-room in Cheltenham

October 31st: we finally shut the door on our dear old home 

for the last time after 36 years

flashback to 1986: our house in the year we moved into it - 

our daughters Alison and Sarah, now 47 and 45 respectively

First pictures from our new home:

still surrounded by boxes...

the flowers that our daughter Sarah in Australia

sent us as a welcome gift

our first zoom from the new house with Sarah

and her 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica

The strange thing is that every time I try to restart my blog, after 10 minutes it turns out that there's something more important that I've got to do.

Damn, it's happening again haha!!!!

Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!