We're back!

Finally, we have contact with the outside world!

Now we are happy in our new home.

The last two weeks since we moved in weren't without incident.

The move itself was great, only one wine glass was broken. The house has still got lots of boxes in strange places as we've been too busy to unpack as much as we'd hoped.

We also need to have a big tidy up as we've carted a lot of things around with us that we didn't need in our various recent moves. This time I'm going to get rid of it but the best bit is- we're not moving again so I can take as long as I need.

Here you can see the corridor and the sitting room behind it, viewed from the hall.

A well known cable company caused us lots of tension. We arranged the installation on the day after our move but the best laid plans and all that...!

Anyway, they couldn't get their cables through the dedicated conduit so the electricians managed to drill a new hole through the wall and floorslab. It was a very tense moment. Thankfully, they managed to avoid any underfloor heating pipes, the render or the aluminium drip strip under the wall panel, phew! Well done!

Things weren't plain sailing from there, unfortunately, but I won't bore you with the details here, I'm sure you all know what it's like. The good news is the internet now works.

Even before we had unpacked, we had our blower door test done. It was very interesting to see all the draughts that we still managed to get in our airtight house. The good thing is that we had a fantastic result. We needed to get less than 10m3/hr air leakage for building regs and we got less than 2m3/hr! It means our mechanical heat recovery unit will work efficiently.

A few days after we had moved in we noticed a dreaded problem that we'd had before in the bungalow: the loos weren't flushing properly! We had a horrible discovery outside. The new drains and chamber weren't draining away. We called in the professionals but they couldn't decide what was going on. There was only one thing left to do...who's got a shovel?

A digger appeared again on our sandy site, so Jerry and his brother Phil dug up the drains. It became apparent that the cast iron drain (on the left) was to blame. The join was misaligned and the section of drain had silted up, especially after the months of not being used had made it rock solid. The clay pipe that joined onto it was also full of small fractures, which could have been, amongst many things, the roots of the trees and bushes that had been on site. It was definitely time to replace those bad drains.

We decided that it would be a good idea to get another chamber on the run between the house and the main sewer but fortunately, Jerry and Phil found this! It was a pre-existing man hole in just the right place, it hadn't even come up on any survey but it was most welcome.

So now we have drains that work! It is a real blessing. We've learnt how much water we normally use and won't take if for granted.

I want to thank all our friends, neighbours and the leisure centre for all the showers, clothes washing and the use of the internet in the last few weeks, it was fab! You are all very much appreciated!