Wednesday 17th of March 2004 – New flat
It’s been a good 6 months since I last wrote… Didn’t mean to not write for so long, it just happened… Where do I begin?
It’s all good. Had a very good 6 months, we both have! Happy days. Finally exchanged contracts on the 14th of November. It took about 3 weeks to move. I did most of it on my own, just loading the Nissan Micra full of stuff in the evenings/weekends. You helped. Your dad helped load the car once with the really heavy stuff. Ed and Irene carried the mattress from the old place to the new flat, whilst it rained, while I drove you to the new place. You were lovely! I explained to you we had to get rid of a lot of your toys, you chose which ones (after some crying and changing your mind a million times, and wanting to keep everything). A lot of the toys went to Tracy’s playgroup – she has one right in front of Marlene’s house. J couldn’t help much, apart from staying around one Saturday afternoon while we waited for the gas man who never showed up. He was busy with his own move as we ended up moving at the same time! The weekend we finally left the old house in Ringcroft Street, when I did the bulk of the moving, was the same weekend that J was packing up to move out of his place!
Most of my holidays for last year were used up with that. I had to do some painting, especially in the bathroom. Still need new bathroom suite, the toilet leaks a lot at the moment. The bath is old and the sink is cracked. Also need new boiler. The one we have makes so much noise because of limescale, it could break at any time and British Gas won’t cover that boiler anymore, as it’s over 15 years old. So, at the moment I’m trying to save as much as possible to do all that in the summer – which is not far now, and I haven’t that much saved. Spent about £2000 on new kitchen (cooker, fridge, washing machine), a new bunk bed for you (with desk, wardrobe, drawers underneath – that was another marathon, I put that bed together on my own and it took 8 hours!), cupboard for tv, stereo, a new TV because the old one died as soon as we switched it on! I’d had it for years, bought it second hand, and, well, it was old, but I really liked it – anyway, it decided to die, so I bought a new one – which was just as well, as the old one looked awful on top of new cupboard, curtains, paint…
The balcony is full of stuff, my bike, exercise bike, your toys… But the view is lovely. Although I never realised how noise Mackenzie Road actually is! I thought it’d be quieter but there’s always traffic. Can’t hear it too much because of double glazing but it’ll be noisy in the summer, with the windows open! Anyway, the flat has already gone up to £150K, so we’ve made a bit of money already! Bought it for £130K. There’s a terrible shortage of housing in England, so the prices are still going up!
The war on terror is still going, and since the bombing in Madrid last week, we live in constant fear. Apparently England is next. It’s a bit of paradox… Economically the country is doing well, everyone is employed (although in debt). But now, it seems, 3rd World War has really started. I always thought it was a very bad idea to go to war with Iraq… It just made things so much worse for everyone. I just hope nothing to terrible happens. I’m so happy at the moment it would be tragic if it all ended… I guess it’s better to die on a happy note.
In a bid of independence from R., as he once again has let me down a couple of weekends ago by disappearing and now he’s moving in with Clare, to Hampstead, I applied for a place for you at a school very near my work, where I do some volunteer work, once a week for 20 minutes. I go to St. Joseph’s to play some maths games with two children, who are 8/9 years old, on Thursdays, and have been doing so since the start of the year. They said you could have a place, despite it being a catholic school. The school is brand new and lovely and has lots of resources. So, if all goes well, in September we’ll be driving to/from school/work together! I can’t wait. It’ll be lovely! I’ll never have to go through the stress I go through nearly every day of being late picking you up from the after school playgroup. As it takes me an hour to get there, and I have to go on two lines (District/Picadilly), the possibility of me being late is quite real. And they don’t like it all…
You’ve been going to the after school playgroup since September last year. On the first day I was late, because the Victoria Line train got stuck on the tunnel for 10 minutes. I thought catching the Victoria Line might be quicker, but it ain’t. Anyway, it wasn’t nice being told off on your first day. And as I had just stopped smoking I didn’t handle it quite well and got very upset! Since then it’s been fine, I’ve been late once again, your dad was late once, your grandma is the champion of being late picking you up – even though she hardly ever does it, she’s not far away and she doesn’t even work! So I can’t really rely on her for that.
All that stress will be over from September onwards! And we will be spending more time together.