Sorry that it has been so long since I last posted!! Things have just been a little crazy!
Jacob and I have been staying at Sharon & Mike’s home for the last month and a half while we were looking for the right place for us to live. It was hard to narrow it down because there are so many different little towns and cities surrounding London. We knew that we needed to find somewhere that had a good balance of not too expensive rent, but was also close to London and didn’t cost too much to travel into London each month. (Travel from Sittingbourne was £435 each month!!) We finally found a new apartment building in a town about 30 minutes outside of London and within a week we had our apartment! Everything went so fast.
So yesterday was moving day! We woke up early and packed everything up (it didn’t take all that long considering we just had to move our clothes, some kitchen items that we had already bought, and our bed and dresser). Jacob’s sister, Esther, and her husband, Matt, spent the day helping us move. First we loaded our stuff into our fancy rented van and dropped it off at the apartment. Then we drove over to Homesense and Ikea so that we could get other odds and ends.
First we went to Homesense (the UK version of HomeGoods) and found a great little sideboard where we decided to put all of our plates, bowls, and glasses. I think it may have been one of my favourite things we found today…
Then we headed off to Ikea. Here we found our couch, a basket for our coffee table, a side table, and other odds and ends (glasses, knives, etc). And most importantly…A REAL CHRISTMAS TREE!! Because it is only a few days before Christmas Ikea are trying to get rid of all the sad trees that don’t have homes yet, so we got a real tree for only £1! What a deal!!
It was quite late in the evening by the time that we were finished, and after getting some dinner we headed back to the apartment to set everything up. When we parked the van Matt went to lock the driver door when the key snapped in the lock. Seriously. We called the van company and their response was, “Oh sorry, we forgot to mention that that van always does this.”…Thanks. Apparently if the key wasn’t pushed in all the way the door has a defence mechanism that simply snaps the key off in the lock, what a brilliant idea. Just kidding. We had to wait about 2 hours for a locksmith to arrive. At this point it was just after midnight and we hadn’t even set anything up yet.
So we quickly carried everything upstairs and got to work. Around 2:30 AM we were finished and drove back to Sittingbourne to drop to drop the van off and so that Esther and Matt could go home and get some sleep.
As we got ready to drive home, we realized that we were having everyone over for Christmas dinner and we had no food. So we decided that instead of battling the crowds the next day, we would go middle of the night shopping. So at 3:30 AM there we were, filling up our grocery basket with all the foods we would need. We made sure that our list was all checked off and then finally headed home. Once we were back we quickly unpacked all the food, put it away, and at about 6 AM we went to sleep!
What a long day! But I am so excited that we finally have a place to call our own!!
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