workshops moving..

Today's dismantling team is four men and Charlie the Dog.
The snow overnight is fast disappearing, thankfully, but there are still icy patches.
One of our willing team is a plumber and heating engineer from just down the road from our new home....hopefully he'll be able to get the heating working!!
Despite being freezing outside, the new home is just a bit cold inside...unlike the old one which is cold and damp!  Both probably about the same age (1920s)

Scotland

I'm here in South Ayrshire...no job as yet, and no benefits either....you have to go through the steps,  Yes, I knew I wouldn't get the first type based on contributions.....but you have to follow the system and can't miss a step.

It feels like a Snakes and Ladders game at times.  I want to support myself, but until I can it gets stressful.  It is like treading a minefield and the wrongly worded or phrased answer can get you back "down the snake" instead of "up the ladder". Even if you're still giving the same information that phrased the "correct" way would mean success.    Ho, Hum....

Still, despite cold (hailstorms!) wet and windy weather the earth is warming and smells good, House Martins are on the wires and the woodpecker is drumming.
We're getting out by car and by bike to see friends and places.

I've applied for a gallery job, but age might tell against me, even though it shouldn't.
I've got the job experience, but no degree....

Blogging will be intermittent until we can get a landline....

ready to go..

The car is, as The Pirate says, "cubed"....only room for me and two bags and a computer left in it!! 
It didn't take long to pack, after The Oily One had fitted the new heater matrix. That was the long job, loads of fiddling and cussing to get the dashboard off and back on and disconnecting and reconnecting things. Unfortunately I now  need a speedo cable...but at least I can judge the speed by the engine revs.
 The weather stayed dry all day until it was time to pack, of course, but at least it is only fine rain.

One problem....we've got the Leach kickwheel in, and clay and tools...but so far I cannot find the wheelhead!!     Something to hunt for tomorrow after breakfast.
If it doesn't turn up it should be easy enough to get another. 

I've sorted and tidied and cleared- two more boxes of rubbish pots and two bags are waiting to be disposed of.  Yet there still seems to be far too much left!!   I've no doubt that I'll "weed" this lot further when I get home and we'll be back in June for another go.

Now after supper and a glass of crab apple vodka...takes two years to make but its worth it...its time to ask The Carpenter to shift the pictures et cetera from the old laptop, then to here.

belongings, alias "stuff"

I've just read a post by Milkmoon about moving home..

Since 1998 we've moved five times to progressively smaller homes....each time we've had to reduce what we have.
Now I'm leaving home and going to share a one bedroom, one living room cottage......

HOW do I reduce what I have still more....HOW do I pare down my belongings, my book collection, my pot collection?

I already have garden plants to move, and a workshop  to pare down to bare essentials- not easy after so many years.

Living here in New Zealand for a while has shown us that we need far less than we think, but reducing all the things that have memories attached will hurt.

moving to New Zealand

Today I met a woman who moved to New Zealand in 1974.

She and her family (husband, four children) were one of sixtythree families who came from Britain, when the New Zealand Dairy Board came looking for families to live and work on farms.

The rest came by boat, they were the last and had no time to be booked on the boat....so flew, for the cost of £25.

Only one son has returned to England, and she returns for one month a year to see him and his family, and the friends she had at school.

Last time, she happened to meet one man a friend of a schoolfriend...whose daughter and family live in a street she walks down every day in Te Aroha!

we've been a bit busy...

A Blue Moon to say goodbye to a home

and farewell to friends

The first fire in the new home

fresh firewood?!

The Shed is up!!

First visitors

going for a walk in Birmingham

A view from the Lickey Hills

The Oily One at work with a shaft driven bike

waiting for the Tour of Britain on Caerffili Mountain  ....and how is this for a bike rack?!!

The MD and Family...

The uplift at Cwmcarn for the downhill run

we're in the queue too....

lets go ride!!  Balance bikes are fun!!

The Pirate is busy training and gardening-we're making my allotment fit to hand over to the next tenant and choosing plants to keep.
We've had a day off ride together too.

I've signed on as unemployed..the pottery in St.Fagans closes at the end of the month, gardening and cleaning work has disappeared and my sales are well down as is my energy.  
The best thing to do when banging one's head against a wall....is to stop!!

travelling

Back in South Wales now...and tired after the house move and the drive.

We stopped over with friends who live by the Lickey Hills..and had a beautiful morning walk over the hill- countryside in Birmingham, thanks to the generosity of the Cadbury family in the early 1900s.

we've arrived

Like the swallows we've flitted- and been given two much needed sideboards in the process!

Unloading in progress....and we've been lucky to have three days of good weather whilst many others in the British Isles had a lot of rain.

Just before our last load last night, the full moon rose over the head of the Girvan valley and she was stunningly beautiful. 

We're surrounded by boxes and bike wheels, but we're beginning to make sense of things.
It was a relief to have a good night's sleep in a house that wasn't damp and wake to the morning sun.

Now we're doing a final clearout and clean up at the old address.

moving in

In progress!

for the confused

moving week starts here...and it is wet, of course.

The Pirate is moving about six miles from here as the tied cottage is needed for a shepherd.
Then we'll be on our travels and I'll be officially there next year!

the Pirate moves!!

Rent paid, cottage checked and photographed, paperwork signed!!!!

Moving day Monday!!

Now to concentrate on the Straiton Fun Day tomorrow, day off on Sunday and start moving Monday morning.

Posting will be even more irregular, but we have progress :-)

packing

Sorting and packing for someone else isn't easy, when you don't find it easy to do your own!

At  least papers will be with papers, bike stuff with bike stuff and so on. Even that is reducing how much space it all takes.    

It isn't easy to move from somewhere that is a double and a small room and a loft bigger.....but together we'll do it.

At  last we're getting more practical help too.  Just a week now until Moving Day and vans will appear and furniture moved.