A month in a new place

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind month since we moved into the new house, and yet it feels like we’ve got nothing done.

As I type this, Plumbright are fitting the gas central heating. We’ve lived without heating since we moved in, relying on a couple of portable electric radiators, which are surprisingly effective, but undoubtedly expensive to run. The house itself has been without central heating for many years. It has, we have discovered, an old coal fired Parkway system, which must have once powered a back boiler and the heating, but hasn’t for a long time. It’s been even longer since the big black range in the kitchen has heated the place, though again it clearly once did. And the fireplaces in the various rooms, all of which look great, have been cut off from their chimneys for many years, and date back to when the house was built in the 1970s. Our hot water has been coming from an immersion heater in the bathroom, fed by a tank on the top floor. All this is coming out and we face the prospect of days without any hot water. Coinciding, of course, with a change from hot to cold weather outside.

We’ve been very lucky with the weather, getting out in the back garden a lot, and even entertaining for the first time. Audrey’s friends Lil & Alun, who’d brought down a bit of furniture en route to a wedding nearby, were the first guests to cross our threshold and enjoy tea in the garden. Then, on Saturday afternoon, we played host to Ally & Mike from nearby Newport, and Polly & Chris from Bristol. A fun afternoon, of tea, cakes, and a little Prosecco. We followed this on Monday evening by having Felicity & Tom over for a meal and a walk. We feel at ease in the house and, I think, a house warming can’t be far away.

Today (Weds) Wren have measured for a kitchen, and tomorrow we look at it all in the showrooms. To come next week will be Monmouthshire Roofing fixing the roof, after which we can get the ceilings made good, and finally get using all the top floor rooms. I’ve been a month without a studio, which is weird, perched, and makes it hard to get ones head around proper actual work. I’ve written nothing for over a month.

The biggest disappointment have been BT. In fact they’ve been shocking. In contrast to our plumbers, electricians, and other contractors, who’ve all been prompt and done a cracking job (we even got the front area cleaned by power hose, by virtue of an odd-job man called Jonathan who was working next door, and just had rag-&-bone men turn up to take away the old radiators), BT have kept us waiting over a month to get broadband fitted. 

BT’s first visit should have been March 7th, no one came. Next visit was March 18th. Someone came, found he needed a hoist, didn’t have a hoist, so went. We thought we had an ‘expedited’ visit on Tuesday 22nd. But we didn’t. And their system is so pitiful that they couldn’t give us another appointment till April 5th. I double clarified this: was it definitely going to happen on April 5th, I asked? Yes it was, they said. I checked again yesterday and, after half an hour on the phone (it’s always half an hour on the phone), they confirmed it will in fact be April 7th.

We moved in on March 3rd, and we won’t have broadband fitted until at least April 7th. And, given their piss-poor performance to date, I will believe that when I see it. And, of course, asking other suppliers is on a hiding to nothing, as Virgin don’t come to Chepstow, and anyone else would need the BT cable going into the building before they could help. Pathetic.

Anything else worthy of note? We’re not missing Clevedon, though I will confess there were more places to go for an interesting walk of an evening, strolling from the house. But that’s a small quibble, and to be honest, before the pandemic, we never went out for those evening walks on a regular basis anyway. We’ve just got addicted to them. We’ve discovered local places of interest including the ruins of Piercefield House and the ruins of Caerwent Roman city. In fact, with that and the castle, it’s a very ruins-heavy area. We love it.

The garden’s smashing. How do you stop your cat posing on the grass? Today there’s three heaps of it, all appeared since yesterday. He can’t be doing it all himself, can he?

We’ve put new Billy bookcases with glass doors in the lounge, looking not unlike the ones we left behind at the old place, and I’ve erected three tall bookcases, two on the shelf at the top of the top stairs and one in the downstairs lounge. We returned the Virgin media Tivo box yesterday, so we have no more of those old shows to catch up on. We can watch downloaded shows on the iPad but not on the big screen. And we’ve bought a Freeview HD recorder. My god, this is the most boring blog I’ve ever written, but this is what life consists of right now. Just trying to make your house work, and get everything out of boxes. I’ve painted a fence and a wall, and by god we’re never out of Ikea, B&M, B&Q, Dunelm, Wilko and all those other godforsaken places you get this mundane dross from. I look forward to being able to get on with proper work soon.

Oh, and we went to a comedy show. Little Alice’s Comedy Night was advertised in a flyer in the window of the Beaufort Hotel, so we went to that on Friday night. There were two good 20 minute spots, and two not bad 10-minuters in the middle, along with Little Alice as MC herself. Jolly enjoyable, and more professional and well attended than anything I recall seeing in Clevedon. So, well done Chepstow. You may be quiet of an evening (for which we are grateful) but you can muster a 100 strong crowd for a locally produced comedy show, which can’t be bad.

 

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, Shakespeare & The Bible (no, really), runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. (Also works with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre).