Monster Raving Loony Party

One of the advantages of having a small island nation populated by people with a wry sense of humor is that you can have national jokes.  For instance, on the last census, 11% of the popualtion put down their religion as "Jedi." 

So it should not come as much surprise that the UK political scene includes, in addition to the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats, the Monster Raving Loony Party.  What is surprising is that it was esablished in 1963, and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2 years.

A few items on their manifesto:

• To combat global warming all buildings should be fitted with air conditioning units on the outside.
• To avoid the trauma of needles, vaccinations should be administered by tranquillizer rifles. This would be less scary for the children as they will not know what hit them, and also more fun for the nurses.
• All politicians be made to swear a "hypocritic oath", requiring them to stand by their policies, or or at least admit when they were wrong.
• McDonald's should provide all prison catering.  Estimates suggest a 50% reduction in crime rates within 2 years with 0% re-offenders.
• Ban all terrorists from having beards.
• All socks to be sold in packs of 3 as a precaution against losing one.
• All wire coathangers should be systematically hung, drawn and unravelled.
  
• Make gardening an Olympic sport.
• Rename the Isle of Man to "The Isle of Men, Women, Children and some Animals" as not just men live there.  Similarly, The Isle of Wight should be changed to: "The Isle of Mixed Races, and Cultures Located off the Coast of Britain."
• All news programs will be required to include at least one interesting fact, in the hope of broadening people's knowledge.
• All pavements should be heated so it is possible to walk bare foot in the winter.
• The English symbol of three lions be changed to 3 badgers. How often do you see lions running round the countryside? We should be proud of the lack of wild and interesting species on our fair isle.
• The Channel Tunnel shall be declared a No Fly Zone.
• Paper cuts should be banned.
• Poets will have to apply for a 'poetic license.'
  
• A government agency will be set up to paint contour lines on hills and color roads the same as on maps.
  
• Bicycle lanes will be replaced with pogo stick lanes.
• All new homes should be built with a swimming pool and bouncy castle as standard. 
  
• For new homeowners, the last '0' should be removed from the price.
• Chocolate should be available as a prescription drug.
• We shall replace the three color traffic lights with a much larger spectrum.
• Everyone in England should be required to buy one hundred square meters of land in France. The English would then own France, saving a lot of arguments. We should then rent the land back to the French and start on Germany.
• Cricket will be made more interesting by elliminating the use of padding (and possibly Cricket Bats)

The MRLP generally gets about 1% of the vote and a disproportionate amount of media coverage.

(Thanks to Jess for suggesting this.)

Olympics fever

i just applied for £7,500 (US $12,378) in Olympic tickets.  Believe me, I'm feeling quite feverish.

i say 'applied' because it is a lottery -- everyone has had a month to apply, with the cut-off date tonight, and then they will allocate tickets randomly until they are sold out.  The difference between this and other lottery events, though, is that winning doesn't mean you can purchase tickets, it means you did purchase tickets. They charge your credit card immediately and irrevocably.  No changes, no refunds, non-transferable. You can't even move house -- they will send the tickets next summer, and if you no longer live there, too bad.

Considering the games are a year away, and the tickets are not cheap, it is quite a ridiculous system.  (Made even more ridiculous by Visa sponsorship, which means you have to use a Visa card that doesn't expire in the next three months.)  So I applied to all of the main events -- the men's 100m final, the 10 metre diving, the team and individual artistic gymnastic events, etc.  i also applied to a few 'fun' events -- archery, BMX, tennis -- and of course the opening and closing ceremonies.  I also applied for four or six tickets for each event, on the assumption that if I win, I won't have any trouble finding other people to go with.  The trouble will be getting them to pay a year in advance.

My track record isn't good -- this year I applied for Wimbledon tickets and Trooping the Colour tickets (the Queen's birthday) with no luck -- but given that I applied for 20 Olympic events (the maximum), I'm hopeful I'll get one or two, which will cost £400 maximum.  Nevertheless, it's quite nervewracking that I've theoretically just committed to spending a month's salary in tickets!

Tranquility

We didn't set out to create tranquility, but given our personalities, it's probably not surprising that we did.

We moved in two days early.  Or the builders went on holiday two days too soon.  Either way, when we moved in on Thursday, there was a laundry list of items unfinished: Painting, kitchen cabinets, cloakroom cabinets, carpet, cooker hood, etc.  The electricians were here all day Thursday; the plumber all day on Friday.  The dustman -- that's garbageman to you -- arrived early Thursday morning but solemnly informed me it was "rubble day" and so couldn't take any of the waste except bricks and dirt.  I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't.  The movers were a gem, although they didn't get to the storage unit -- where all of my stuff was -- because Jess' stuff filled the entire truck.  I literally moved in with a clothes rail and a suitcase.

it was chaotic, as any move is, and even though i've been living with Jess for the past six months, I was amazed to see what came out of that truck.  I don't know where she hid it all in a one bed flat, but it filled a three bed house!  And we didn't move any furniture, save a sofa and a bed!  Of course, the previous owners had left all their furniture, so we had tables and chairs, plus the black leather sofas.  We thought leaving them sit outside for a month would get rid of the cigarette smell, but we were wrong.

Thursday was also Jessica's birthday, so the family went out for dinner, and that evening we came home and climbed into bed, and it was just unbelievably quiet and peaceful.  The house is lovely -- even unfinished -- and so comfortable.  The u-shaped kitchen is so bright and open, with a lovely view of the backyard, it is just a joy to cook, and Jess and I can both be in there without being underfoot.  The living room is also a pleasure to sit in, to chat with people or just curl up on the sofa in the sun.  And the cloakroom slash utility room, for all that we stressed over it, is absolutely perfect.

But the piece de resistance is the upstairs bath.  With granite floor tiles, light grey shower tiles, and a dark drey cabinets, I couldn't see how it would come together, but it did so beautifully.  The floating sink is classy, the folding shower screen doesn't block the large window, and the water pressure is heavenly.  Having dealt with closet-sized bathrooms for the past three years, this feels spacious and luxurious, and we haven't even put in the mirrors yet!

My only complaint, in fact, is that the electrician hasn't hooked up the telephone junction box yet, which means that -- although I've been paying for phone and Internet access for the past two months -- I haven't been able to use them!  That should be rectified on Wednesday.

Despite spending the entire four-day weekend trying to get settled, we still haven't opened half the boxes, and our gardening efforts are patchy, to say the least.  (I did get the shed somewhat organised, so at least our bikes are put away.)  Fortunately we have another four-day weekend next week, although one day will be spent at street parties for the Royal Wedding -- another English tradition.

Falling apart

The last week, when everything should be coming together, it's all falling apart.

• After the incident with the bath valves, the plumber has been there for three days trying to sort everything out, and I don't even know what he's charging me.
• In the cloakroom, the cabinet doors originally were so big, they couldn't open. So we told the builder to cut the doors in half and fix the sides, but he cut the doors down by a third and made them swing from the wrong side. So we told the builder to switch them around, so he moved one pane into the middle, and made the doors swing the same way. In other words, it's a complete mess.
• The vent from the dryer has to go behind the dryer and into the ceiling. That wouldn't be a problem, but it pushes the dryer 2cm from the wall, making it (and the washer) stick out past the cabinet we built, making it impossible to hang the blind in front of it, which we haven't been able to find.
• Speaking of which, the plumber is not happy that the gas dryer vents near the boiler intake.
• The kitchen window is not supporting the brick facade, which has sagged onto it, and everyone is pointing fingers at one another. (We're also worried the same thing will happen over the french doors.)
• When we hired the electrician, we told him we don't want any spotlights. Last week I told him to install 6; tomorrow I have to tell him to install 5 more, just because we haven't been able to find any lights we like. I've also installed two of the old chandeliers, even though we hate them.
• Ikea still has no idea when they will have our cabinet doors in, so we're "going live" missing 7 cabinet doors. In addition, we have a 13cm gap that I have no idea how we're going to deal with.
• For reasons beyond me, the builders cut off one corner of the worktop. It's not a big deal, and it will hardly be noticeable, but it's just one more small irritant, made worse because we don't understand why they did it, and they don't speak English so we can't find out!

The bottom line, though, is that barring any catastrophe, the house will be ready to move in on Thursday, with a few minor fixes to be made later. And in the end, that's exactly what we wanted.

The fresh smell of manure in the morning

Any notion I had of the allotment being a peaceful retreat from daily life was rudely dismissed this morning when the "neighbor" fired up his gas lawnmower. And his neighbor fired up a rototiller. And another brought his dogs. And several more brought children. And instead of a quiet morning with me and the land, it was a cacophony of noise and activity. Until about 11am.

Then everyone left, leaving me alone with a few birds and a lot of worms. (Actually, a few worms less when I left, as the birds cannily watched me turning the earth.) The sun was hidden behind thin clouds, there was a light breeze, and it was beautiful.

Last week I bought a tray of vegetable seedlings. I'm not sure what I was thinking; the allotment wasn't ready, and I didn't have any time. Nevertheless, after carrying them around in the trunk of my car, I needed to get them in the ground, and so I spent almost the entire day at the allotment. I got the peas and carrots planted. I had to come back the next day to plant the beetroot and spring onions. I still need to plant the pak choi and lettuce.

Like most things in my life, when I applied for the allotment, I didn't think about why I wanted it, or what I would do with it. I applied because it was a new experience, and seemed like a quintessentially English thing to do. Plus, I didn't think I'd get it for years.

I expected it to be a lot of work; I expected it to be enjoyable and satisfying; I expected it to be be a good excuse to get out of the house. What I didn't expect was that I'd feel a sense of belonging. Or responsibility. I was now responsible for this little plot of land, these little plants, their tiny head poking above the soil. I apologised as I planted each one in the dry, rocky soil. (I also sang "Beat it" as I planted the beets, but I'm not proud of that.)

Granted, I only have 1/40th of an acre, but that's still about six times larger than my previous best effort. I'm already imagining what I'm going to do with 50 beets, and 100 carrots. I don't even like beets.

Story of our homes

The BBC is presenting a history of homes, which really resonates as we rebuild our home.  For example, it notes we have come full circle from a single room for cooking, eating, sleeping and socialising, into "open plan" living with a single room for cooking, eating, sleeping, and socialising.

Along the way, however, everything became very specialised:

• The rich acquired "living rooms" -- which, ironically, were meant to impress guests rather than actually be lived in -- in the Tudor period (16th century), with the merchants getting them in the 17th Century, and everyone in the 18th century.  In the UK, average living room size has been falling since 1975 as builders make room for bathrooms, utility rooms, and studies.
• In medieval times, your main concerns were to be warm and safe, so sleeping was communal.  However, after Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1440 and reading became more fashionable, bedrooms started to get more private.  Tudor houses had small, solitary rooms called "closets" for reading and praying, and although that trend died out in England, the Pilgrims took it to America.
• In the 17th century, the kitchen -- with its associated smells -- was banished to the basement, another wing, or a separate building, depending on your wealth.  It was not until the 20th century, with the invention of the extractor fan, that the kitchen became a communal space again.
• In the 17th century, the toilet was a pot in the living room (and emptied out the window).  The first recorded sewer system was 3000 BCE (yeah, 5000 years ago), with flush toilets appearing sporadically from 2500 BCE to 500 CE, when they appear to have been lost with the Roman empire.  Elizabeth I had one circa 1600, but she refused to use it.  It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that they caught on again, in part because of the valve flush (which was quieter), the S trap (which prevented odours), and a wash out design, but mostly because the Victorians felt waste was unhygienic.  (They also thought bathing was unhygienic and night air was unhealthy.)  Incidentally, Thomas Twyford invented the first "one piece" ceramic toilet in 1885, and we are installing a Twyford one piece ceramic toilet in our cloakroom.  (New, of course.)
• In 2001, the average British home had 5.3 rooms.  The 2011 census has just been taken, and it will be interesting to see if this number has gone up as homes take on more functions, or down as more people have opted for "open plan" living, making each room serve multiple purposes.
  

While on the topic of toilets, I should dispel three urban myths:

1. Although Thomas Crapper did indeed make toilets (and put his name on them), the word "crap" predates this, and any similarity is just coincidence.
2. Water does not swirl counter-clockwise south of the equator.
3. Garderobes were medieval closets for storing clothes, and also the toilet, as the smell deterred fleas and moths.  (And that was only for the wealthy!)

And finally, you should know modern toilets cause colon cancer.

One week to go

As we come to the final stretch of this remodel, the small, finishing touches like the bath, the toilet, the sink, the plumbing, the kitchen, the utility room, the windows, and the doors are all giving us grief.

To be fair, the windows and doors should arrive today, and the bath should arrive tomorrow (along with the dishwasher).  The only thing missing is the cooker hood, which is out of stock, and they have no idea when it will be in.  (A more practical person would have ordered a cooker hood that was available.  Unfortunately, Jess left that task to me.)

The kitchen was 2cm shorter than the kitchen cabinets -- still not sure exactly how that happened, but I'm blaming the paint thickness -- but we were able to get around that by swapping a 30cm drawer with a 40cm drawer, which worked out just fine.  The worktops have been cut and look great.  The "subway tile" is going up one wall, and also looks great (although it would look better if there was a cooker hood on it).  The wall cabinets should go up today or tomorrow, and the cabinet doors should arrive sometime within the next 150 days, according to Ikea.

One of the corner units has a two-tier carousel, and the builders seem perplexed by that.  At first they set it up so both shelves were in the middle, and you couldn't even fit a spice jar on the second shelf.  We pointed that out and, after great effort, they moved both shelves to the bottom, not actually addressing the issue.  We'll keep working on that.

Yesterday morning, I watched the plumber drill a large hole in the bathroom wall right behind the toilet, so you can understand my surprise when I came back in the evening to find he'd drilled a second large hole right next to the first, and put the waste stack in that  After a rather tense discussion -- which the plumber started with the words "don't panic" -- he explained the first hole was where we wanted it, but the second was where he had to put it.  Somehow this wasn't comforting, but after looking at the elbow he had to install outside, I understood why he did it that way.  (I'm still not happy about it, but I understand it.)  Fortunately, it will all be hidden when it is finished.

The plumber redeemed himself the next day by not showing up.  After 45 minutes of waiting, I called him and he told me that it wasn't worth continuing until the bath had arrived.  I listed the other things he could do -- installing the valves and plumbing, hooking up the kitchen and cloakroom, running gas to the stove and tumble dryer -- and he responded in a way that I didn't expect: "You have a gas tumble dryer?  You never mentioned that."  I can't win.

The utility room, meanwhile, is a bit like Alice taking the red pill*: Your head hits the ceiling, there is no space to stand, the basin is too high, the counter is too low, and opening a cabinet ensures you will hit some part of your body.  Otherwise, it's perfect.

* I am perfectly aware that Alice ate a cake that read "eat me" -- and that there were no pills -- but try phrasing that sentence as "a bit like Alice eating the 'eat me' cake." It just doesn't work.

What marketing wanted

We designed a bath that was sleak and sexy, with a thermostatic valve that allows you to set the temperature with one knob, and select bath or shower with the second knob. The knobs are tucked behind a concertina shower screen, the bath filler sits inside the bath (on the side you don't see), and the shower head comes out of the wall, so all of the plumbing is invisible.

The builder imagined a typical British bath, with two taps poking through the ledge of the tub, and a hose running from this to the showerhead.  (It's not called a 'British telephone' for nothing.)

Unfortunately, in all the discussions we had, we never recognized the disparity.  We didn't think about it when the builder plastered over the wall; we didn't think about it when he tiled over that.  We only realized it when the builder looked at the valve and said something in Polish which I can only assume translated to, "Oh, shit."

It became quickly apparent this was beyond the builder, so I called the plumber, who is English, and he said, "Oh, shit."

Then he said something that was more helpful and quite terrifying: A day and half plus parts.

The problem wasn't that we needed to cut into the newly-tiled wall; the problem was that we needed to move the studs.  Failing that, we needed to relocate the valve to the side wall, where it was going to be quite visible (the exact effect Jess was trying to avoid), and that was a masonry wall.  To accomodate the pipes, the hole needed to be much larger than the valve, and even worse, the pipes were meant to run up to the shower, but now we had to run them down, around the bath, and then up the adjacent wall.

Oh, and did I mention that the bath still hasn't arrived, so we have to do all this work based on paper measurements and hope the bath fits?

It was not a great start to the morning, which was immediately followed by discovering the cabinet doors in the utility room won't open (they hit the toilet) and the new kitchen cabinets won't fit (they are 2cm -- about 1 inch -- too long).

Renewal

I said last year I finally understood what people meant when they said "they miss the seasons." As I approach my third year in the UK (of my planned two year visit) I can feel the cycles moving within me. I know the lambs are in the fields, the bluebells are in the woods; the UK is collectively blinking at the sun and shaking off winter's stupor, and we are all looking forward to a brief but glorious summer, made so only by the inevitable approach of winter.

Someone asked me last week if I felt more at home in Los Angeles or London, and after some thought I had to answer, "neither." LA never felt like home; I never put down roots (probably because it's mostly concrete). I am just beginning to put down roots in London, although at this stage, Jess and I are only constrained by external factors; otherwise we could go live anywhere. Even after all the work we've done to the house, it's still just a house -- it will be a while yet before we make it into a home.

But that's what summer is for, isn't it? To establish roots in order to weather the winter. The house is the first step, the first externalization of an internal process. It's going to be a lot of work, but I know the benefits and rewards will make it all worthwhile.

Worktop saga

We've been so lucky, and everything has gone so smoothly, that when something does go wrong, it actually surprises us.

Case in point is the kitchen worktop.  We were happy with the Ikea kitchen, but not their worktops.  We had to order the kitchen early, but we figured the worktops were cash and carry, and so we thought we had plenty of time.  We checked out a couple of options -- Corian, which was more expensive than the entire kitchen, and glass, which was more expensive than the entire house -- and looked at all the laminate options in at least six different stores, but nothing was quite right.  Finally, coming down to the wire, we decided on a butcher block pattern from...Ikea. 

So for the fourth time we were there past store closing, and were placing the order when they told us it would be delivered 30 April.

Wait, what?  The pattern we chose was "made to measure" which meant they weren't in stock, and even though we didn't want them to do anything -- no cuts, no sinks, just three pieces of laminate-covered MDF -- the soonest we could have them was 4 weeks, which was a week after the builders were gone!

So we cancelled the order and started over.  Jess went over to a place called Howden's and got a chip deck, and we decided on the 'basalt stone black' which was black with a little grey, but had a bit of a texture to it.  Not surprisingly, they were out of stock.  But this was a standard Formica laminate, and so was available at B&Q (the local equivalent of Home Depot) for less, and they had plenty in stock.  The only difference was that B&Q had a round profile instead of a square edge, which I thought looked better. Wednesday night I went to pick some up.

Even though I knew the countertops were 3 metres, and I know a meter is about a yard, I have no idea what I was thinking that I could even lift -- never mind fit -- three large worktops in my car, even with the top down.  But we actually only needed 2 meter lengths, and they could cut them down for me, but I was just wanted to be sure before I committed £300 ($500), so I called Jess and asked her to have a look.

She arrived and immediately had all of the employees in a tizzy, because the website said 'basalt stone honed,' the catalogue said 'basalt stone textured,' and the sign on the product just said 'basalt stone,' and she wanted to know if they were the same thing.  After 20 minutes, they said it was, but I'm sure they had no idea.  It was a moot point, however, as Jess pointed out that even at 2 meters, I still couldn't fit them in my car.

So we called the builder and asked him to pick them up in the morning, went home, had a good nights sleep, and the next day Jess realized that because we had open shelves at the end of the counter, instead of a wall or appliance, we couldn't use a rounded profile!  (The cut edge wouldn't match the front edge, you see.)

We cancelled the order with B&Q and called Howden's back, and they located 3 lengths at two different stores, but they wanted £90 ($150) to deliver!  Finally, Friday morning, I drove to the house and then went with the builder to both stores, but we now have a worktop.

And if you think that's crazy, you should know that tonight Jess is driving to Southhampton, about 90 minutes from London, because Ikea says they have our glass cabinet doors in stock there.

17 days to go...

Did you know...

There are only 66 cities in the UK?  Unlike the US -- where states are broken into counties which are broken into cities -- in the UK city status is granted by the Crown, and there are no formal requirements.  In fact, "city" is an honorific title, and grants no additional powers or funding.

Of those, 30 have a "Lord Mayor" (Lord Provost in Scotland) instead of a regular mayor.  Again, this is a purely ceremonial title, although it makes for a cool parade in London in November.

In addition, there are six areas of royal "patronage":

• The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (granted by Henry I in the 12th century)
  
• Royal Leamington Spa (1838)
• The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (1901)
  
• Royal Tunbridge Wells (1909)
• The Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames (1927)
• Royal Town of Caernarfon, in Wales (1963)

Later this year, Wootton Basset will also be granted a "Royal" patent.  When the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began, the Royal Air Force base in Wiltshire became the main transport hub, which included repatriating the bodies of fallen servicemen. The bodies would then be driven to a hospital in Oxford, passing through the small town of Wootton Bassett, where many of the townspeople would line the streets in respect.  Unfortunately, the subsequent media exposure turned this into a bit of a circus, with protestors and spectators gathering as well, but it was still a very sweet gesture. (Ironically, shortly after the Royal patent is granted the military base will be closed, and the processions will move elsewhere.)

Since 1992, city status has been granted by competition, with 3 for the millenium and 5 for the Queen's Golden Jubilee.  As part of the Diamond Jubilee next year, one town will be granted city status, and one city will be granted Lord Mayor status.  In addition, Greenwich (of GMT fame) will become a Royal Borough.

Of course, over the past thousand years there have been many towns with royal patronage, but as towns became cities, or were merged into other cities, these royal patents were not renewed.  In particular, the 70 royal burghs in Scotland were formally abolished in 1975.  (In fact, the Local Government Act of 1972 abolished all local authorities outside London, establishing the two-tier counties and districts, which were in turn abolished duriing the 1990s, where "unitary authority" was granted to most counties.)

Green dreams

When I did the bed and breakfast, I had grand designs of taking it 'off the grid.'  It was already on well water and a septic system, and I talked to many people about solar farms, windmills, ground source heat pumps, and other green technologies.  In the end, I did none of it, because it was either ludicrously expensive, or local zoning laws would not permit it.  (A 1,000 acre farm, and I couldn't erect a windmill for fear of it impacting my neighbors' views?  Ridiculous.)  In addition, a 200-year-old stone farmhouse provided little by way of efficiencies.

Scaling down a bit, I was hopeful I could do something with the house but, alas, I hit the same brick walls, so to speak.  I did put some insulation in the attic, but could not insulate the exterior walls, because there is no cavity to put the insulation.  (I have looked into exterior insulation, and may do it when finances permit, but more because it would hide the ugly front of the house than it would be a good return on investment.)  I also looked into solar water heating or air source heat pumps, but the problem with those was they needed a water tank, and we were in the process of getting rid of ours.

Partly because the tank was 20 years old, and about 10 years past its due date.  Partly because it had a 'feed and expansion tank' in the attic, and we were trying to get everything out of the attic in preparation for turning that into a bedroom.  Partly because it was sitting on the joist that was no longer supported by the kitchen wall.  But mostly because it was sitting in the bedroom closet--who puts a water tank in the bedroom closet??  We don't have a garage, and it couldn't fit in the kitchen or the utility room, so we got rid of it and put in a combi-boiler, which doesn't require a storage tank, but also isn't compatible with any 'green' water heating.

And the final nail came this morning. A month ago, the electrician told me about LED downlights and I said I wanted those instead of halogen, both because they save electricity (10 watts instead of 50), and because the bulbs have a 50,000 hour shelf life -- in other words, they'll probably last longer than I will. Today, however, he asked if I'd bought any of the LED lights and I said I thought he was doing that.  He said I had to choose them, and then proceeded to tell me about color spectrum and angle of light and different wattages of different brands and the whole history of LED lighting, and by the time he was finished I was so confused, I told him to install halogen bulbs and I'd replace them in the future.

Thus marks my complete and dismal failure in lightening my load on the planet.  (Not to mention the 40 yards of household waste I've sent to the landfill during the remodel.)  There is some small ray of hope that when we do the loft conversion, and have to change the roof, I may put up some solar panels or other token gesture. In the meantime, I'll just be miserable in my warm, comfortable, well-lit home. :-(

Settling down

It's funny, we haven't even moved in yet -- the house isn't even livable yet -- but as the move date draws closer, I feel myself settling down.

Each time I write my new postcode, I feel myself lingering over it, knowing it will be with me for a long time. When I file a change of address, I feel a sense of satisfaction knowing I won't be filing another one for years. As I meet each neighbor, I think of all the times I will wave to them in the street. Even something as simple as turning on the TV makes me wonder how that will feel in the new house.

Of course, as I shop for light fixtures, there's a slight panic that I will be living with them for years, but I'm sure it will be fine.

I've never actually experienced this before. Every other home felt temporary, even after I'd been there for twelve years! Perhaps it's my age, or my desire to settle down, but I suspect it has a lot more to do with Jess. I can't wait to live the rest of my life with her.