No, not mine. My eldest daughter, and her fiancee, have bought their first house! They’ve been renting until now so a house of their own, on a newly built estate is exciting.

They have a while of rental left on the old property, allowing them to slowly move. However, getting carpets put in the new house has held things up and they’re still waiting for one for the living room. With the clock ticking they couldn’t wait any longer. I’d always said I’d go and help out – despite them not living nearby – and I was called up on Saturday to see if I could go and help them, 2 days later, on Monday and Tuesday.

Thankfully, I have a very understanding and flexible employer and I was able to do this without any issue at all.

On Sunday, though, I was worried. This was our back garden on Sunday night and it was due to freeze all night and the next day…

As it turned out, the roads cleared and the snow was confined to my area of the country. Laura and Paul live a 2 hour drive away from me, in Gloucester, which is further south. The nearer to them I got, the less snow there was.

I left around 10am, when rush-hour had died down, and arrived around midday. This was to the old house, which is where both of them were still living. Paul was at work, so Laura and I set about boxing up as much as we could and journeying too and from the two houses, making use of the large capacity of my car. Both houses are a 20 minute drive apart.

The new house was great – my first time seeing it in person. They have a hallway for a start, rather than walking straight into the living room. The place is decorated all white but is lovely and warm – they have a dual-zone combi-boiler, with separate touch-screen controls for down and upstairs. It’s made a huge difference getting the carpets down.

Paul was back early evening and we continued the ferrying, now with 2 cars. Mid-evening we stopped to go to Tim Hortons, which has only recently opened in the area, and only one of 37 currently in the UK.

That was our last run and we headed back to the new house to spend the first night there. I had a fold-out bed in the spare room and they slept on the floor in their bedroom.

Out of sheer habit I was up at 6:30am and after breakfasting and showering, I realised that no chairs or even just a living room meant I was limited to what I could do until Paul and Laura were ready. I sat on the stairs playing Apple Arcade.

The plan for Tuesday was to hire a van to move the big items. Laura was confident we could get one on the day, despite never having done it before. We turned up at one place and there nothing, which didn’t look good. However, we then tried Europcar and they had a large Transit. Fantastic. I’d never driven a van before, which was slightly never-wracking, and after a while I got quite used to it – it was fun!

We only managed 2 runs in the day, due to how long it takes to load a large van! It was due back by the time the Europcar office closed at 4pm. We were cutting it fine but was due to get it back to them by around 3:30pm. And then my SatNav took me to the wrong place. It was getting busy, traffic wise, and the drop-off point was now at least 20 minutes away. We got there with 5 minutes to go – they checked the van over and returned our deposit.

We returned back to the new house and, around 5:30pm, I left.

During those two days, we made a large dint in the house moving, particularly with the large items. On Tuesday night they were in a position to sleep in their own bed again. I was physically exhausted but also more generally tired too. I have cuts to my hands and bruises over my legs, but it was a great couple of days despite any of that.

Laura and I spent a lot of time in the car and van over those last 2 days, giving us a chance to catch up, discuss their up-coming wedding and exchange gossip 😉