Week 292: Fourteen-Hour Days
It’s been an intense week, but mostly in a good way. Apart from Wednesday I’ve been working a full day remotely and then spending a further seven hours doing jobs around the house. We’ve achieved so much and the place feels a lot more like it’s ours already.
The cleaning on Monday held up most other jobs, it was all pretty grim. We were surprised when the agency sent one person because it’s a lot of house. She worked super hard but it wasn’t quite the deep clean we were hoping for so we’ve been doing a lot of extra cleaning on top.
Our mattress arrived on Tuesday. We have enough space for a Super King and it’s luxurious. For me it beat the first two nights where we had to sleep on the sofas.
On Wednesday we had the day off work but it was still a super heavy-going day. We drove an hour and a half to Hull to meet Charlotte’s mum and granny and then met the movers to bring all of Charlotte’s granny’s spare furniture to Matlock. It’s a lot of really great antique stuff and several beds however we discovered a pretty gross amount of mould from it all sitting in an empty house.
This meant that, instead of the fun of putting furniture in place, it all had to be delivered to the garden where we spent hours and hours cleaning it all. It was gross and an unexpectedly huge amount of work.
As well as this we discovered that the grout in the kitchen, dining room, and utility is not black by design. It’s just years and years of built-up dirt. I’m not a clean freak by any means but it’s the thing I’m struggling with most. I bought a steam cleaner and we steamed a test patch; it’s gonna work and it looks sparkling. We just can’t do it now and make the house damp before we leave it empty for a couple of weeks. Having a steam cleaner is fun though! I’m intending to take it to Whitechapel and deep clean all our rugs and tiles ☺️
On Saturday I had to get up early because the washing machine arrived. Then I had to do a wild amount of washing of bedlinen. I forgot to mention that the free beds had clearly previously had a carpet beetle infestation; all dead but, having dealt with similar before, I was taking no risks. What’s amazing is having a washing line though: game changer. More jobs all day.
I continued to purge the old owner’s dirt. I scrubbed some chairs they left many times between cups of tea in the garden. I re-hoovered (after our new vacuum arrived) and it picked up a lot more dust and dirt. I replaced all the brown and sticky string lights in the bathrooms 🤢
Over the week we met the neighbours on both sides, they’re lovely and have offered to keep an eye while we’re back and forth. Everyone here seems very friendly, maybe it’s just the nice weather?
On Sunday we allowed ourselves to relax. We walked a mile to Lumsdale Waterfall, ate a packed lunch ther, and then walked back a different route. We stumbled across a tap room that’s super close to the house and sat in the sun drinking local beer. What a delightful day!
Back to London tomorrow evening, after the proper internet is installed. I’ll be pleased not to have to tether next time.
