The Final Countdown

Hi dear reader. I hope you are well.

I started writing this about a week ago, and before I knew it, I blinked and another week was gone. Things are SO busy at the moment, I feel like I can barely even come up for air.

It is now less than ONE WEEK before we are due to move, and if the truth be known, I have been freaking out. I am feeling EVERY emotion under the sun! ONE WEEK!!!!

What Am I Freaking Out About?!

I’ll be honest. Things are moving really fast right now, like SERIOUSLY fast. I always knew that July was going to be a busy month, but I didn’t expect it to be THIS busy. I seriously underestimated how much work would go into getting rid of stuff and packing up your entire house and garden, as well as trying to juggle full time work and an extra full social load. 50,000 gigs, last outings with friends before we move, my sister’s graduation on (literally) the hottest day in the history of England followed by a 4 day trip to Wales just days before we’ve due to move, it’s been nothing short of chaos! All I can say is it is a bloody good job we started clearing out the house and packing when we did.

We started a couple of months ago doing things like decluttering rooms, packing up things very slowly, and those little things we did months back when we didn’t even know if we were moving have proven invaluable right now. As we creep closer to our moving date, we have zero spare time to do anything. I would strongly recommend if you are moving house to just get started, even if you don’t know if your move will go ahead! We told ourselves that if it fell through, it was still a good thing to declutter the house, and good it was.

COLD FEET and Excitement

I mentioned in my last post about having cold feet, and this feeling has only intensified as the weeks have gone on and the move draws closer. In my job working with coaches, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that I should interrogate my feelings, and fully lean into them, even when they feel unpleasant. So every time I’ve been feeling excessively sad or anxious, I’ve been questioning myself and my feelings to see what exactly is making me feel that way. Here are some of the things I’ve come up with:

• My home is no longer my home and I feel really unsettled
• I can’t bear the thought of leaving the doggy daycare where Riley has spent the last 7 years of her life and who I trust wholeheartedly to care for my baby. This is a BIG one, and I have basically cried the whole way to and from daycare every time I’ve taken Riley in the last three weeks!
• I am moving away from so many of my loved ones, family and friends
• I will no longer be able to go to Reddish Vale whenever I want – a place where I have spent the last 10 years walking, running and generally enjoying
• I have so many beautiful memories in this house, it has been the backdrop to basically my entire adult life
• I’ll no longer be able to just nip for local food or drinks with friends and get a cheap taxi home
• If I want to go into Manchester it’s a little more limited, time-consuming, and pricy
• I am moving to a place where I know nobody and worry that I’ll feel lonely and unsettled
• I fear that our baby dog won’t understand that this is her new home
• I worry that I’m going to hate where we’ve chosen to live and it’ll be far too late to do anything about it
• What if my neighbours aren’t very nice?
• I’m leaving everything I’ve known for the last 10 years and feel like I’m starting afresh
• I’m not sure I’m ready for this period of my life to be over and the next chapter to begin
• I’m feeling anxious and emotional and this is only exacerbated as each day goes on
• I’m generally just an emotional person and I’m finding this transition now that it’s actually happening really emotional

But along with all the anxiety and emotional overload, I am excited. REALLY excited.

I am excited for what is to come, I am excited to move into a bigger house, I’m excited to have a new area to explore, and I am just excited that we are sharing this journey together, me, James, and little Riley. I am excited for change. I am excited for newness. I am excited to explore and I am excited to embark on this next chapter.

Our living room is now full to the brim with our belongings packed, and boxes containing new furniture and things for our new home that we’ve been buying over recent months. Every room is filled with boxes, some of which are packed with items that I have always dreamt of having when we eventually made the move (cough – because when else can you treat yourself to THREE White Company soap and hand cream sets and diffusers for every room in the house?!) We are pretty much packed up and ready to go, and we are ready to embark on making our new home ours. I’m craving stability and a sense of home comfort right now that’s for sure!

One Last Curveball

Because it wouldn’t be our home journey without one last fucking curveball for the road would it?! (please keep everything crossed that this was our last curveball, I really don’t want anymore!!!)

With just two weeks to go, we found out last week that we were potentially going to be delayed and unable to move in on Thursday 28th July. Unable to move in on the date that our home developer dictated to us, after trying to agree 50 other dates on the day we exchanged. The date that THEY dictated to us based on their financial accounts, the date that HAD TO BE THEN, and not the week after as we were requesting at the time. There was absolutely no way we would be messing our buyers around again so we knew we would be out of our home on Thursday 28th, and where we would go next would be for us to figure out!

Then, shortly after planning where we would go and when to put our belongings into storage, it transpired that we WON’T be delayed afterall. Phew. Back on for Thursday 28th!

But then… we found out YESTERDAY, just ONE WEEK BEFORE COMPLETING, that we can no longer complete on Thursday 28th July. Why, you wonder?

Are you ready for it?

Seriously, are you ready?

Because the staff at the development site are “having a day out”.

They’re having a day out and there will be nobody there to give us the keys.

What type of day out I don’t know. But social or training, a day out nonetheless, so there is nobody around to give us our keys and complete. I didn’t even know what to say when I found out.

Anyway, if you’re wondering why I’m not making a bigger deal out of this, it’s because after a short panic that once again we have no confirmation of when we’ll actually be moving in, the developer reassured us that we can’t do Thursday 28th, but we CAN do Wednesday 27th! A day earlier!

So today has involved a lot of urgent rejigging of plans, cancelling of doggy daycare, rearranging people to help us on the new date, rebooking moving vans etc. etc. and we have received final confirmation that our official moving date will now be Wednesday 27th. We now move even sooner than expected – eeeeek! How exciting.

Do We Have Enough Time?

We were already cutting it fine timewise, as we are currently away from now until Sunday on a trip that has been postponed about 500 times in the last year or two (I know, really REALLY not good timing but we figured maybe it would do us some good to get away with our friends into the countryside, the calm before the chaos perhaps?) I already felt a little anxious having only Monday to Wednesday to get sorted and trying to juggle work with final packing and cleaning, but we now have a grand total of TWO days when we get home to get sorted before the move. Yikes.

Literally, the ONLY reason I am sane right now is down to our amazing buyers. They are away next weekend, and we already had a plan in place that they wouldn’t move in until the following week when they’re back, meaning we have a few days to move out and get the house fully cleaned and ready for them without having to cross over on the day. I honestly don’t know how people have to leave one house on the same day as they move into another and have everything immaculate and ready for their buyers. There is only so much cleaning and preparation I can do in advance whilst I physically can’t see so many of my floors and skirting boards for boxes!

Maybe they book time off work or maybe they don’t have weekends away two days before they move LOL. Either way, I have to work Monday and Tuesday, and just had to last-minute cancel my workload on Wednesday to get cracking, so I will be eternally grateful to the buyers. When I say it has been a lifesaver, I MEAN IT.

Next up – MOVING WEEK.

Things are ramping up, my stress levels are starting to soar and I think I can even feel my blood pressure rising! We all know I can be a bit of a stresshead – so wish me luck, I think I’m going to need it.

See you on the other side!

PREVIOUS INSTALMENTS IN THE SERIES:

• We’re Moving House!
• The Decision to Move House
• When People Come to View Your Home
• How to Choose an Estate Agent
• When It’s Not Meant to Be…
• The Turmoil of Taylor Wimpey Part 1
• The Turmoil of Taylor Wimpey Part 2
• Our Lucky Break?
• We Found a House!
• What Does it Take to Get an Update?!
• THE Meeting
• Back in the Running
• Survey Time
• “You’re Not Going to Make The Exchange Date”
• The World of Survey Queries
• Moving House: Delays and Apathy
• Exchange: Could it be Happening?
• We’ve Exchanged!!!!!!!
• All Systems Go
• Packing Up The House
• Cold Feet