The big cleanup

After two busy weeks we are ready to put the house on the market.   We have had the shower screen repaired, a tile replaced, and new silicone put in around the bath, and along the back of the sink.   And the eaves above the front door will soon be painted.   We have scrubbed the house from top to bottom.

A few mishaps, as to be expected when one takes their eye off the ball.    

I have had a large piece of skin removed from the side of my leg,   The result of walking into the pointy part of a silicone tube, which was in a box ready to give to one of our neighbours.   

I damaged the back of my new down filled coat.    The result of hanging it on a rack too close to the radiator.   The surface material on the middle bottom of the coat melted slightly and now there is a hole with down feathers coming out of it.    Hopefully the person at the local dry cleaners can do a repair.

I put my Samsung watch on its charger a few days ago and it did not charge, and in fact started to lose charge.   I tried putting the charger on different leads, but to no avail.   Naturally I thought the battery in the watch or the charger itself was the problem.    Luckily I did not contact Samsung or send the watch and charger away to be repaired, because it was the power board that had stopped working.   I am now wearing my watch, which is behaving as it should!

I reversed into a nearly new, small red metallic BMW, at the local shopping centre, the repairs for which will cost our insurance company hundreds of pounds.    The damage consisted of a tiny little dent in the side of the car door.   Interestingly the driver said that the tow bar of our car had caused a dent in her car, and that was before she had even stepped outside of the car to look at any damage.  I was in too much of a hurry to start measuring the height of the dent in comparison to our tow bar.   How did it happen?   I was reversing out of a car park very slowly, and being very careful about not scraping the cars beside me.    The sensor started beeping so I stopped, looked in the rear vision mirror, and saw the top of a car, with a women looking at me.  I then drove back into the car park.    Interestingly, the driver did not use her horn to warn me, or even stop her car when she saw me reversing out.   I have chosen to believe her story.    

Finally, Walter put a few bottles of beer in the freezer drawer, and forgot about them.    Consequently they exploded which resulted in a major cleanup, on Walter's part.   At least that drawer has been emptied and cleaned out, ready to move!

The paper work, required by the solicitor, when one sells a house in England is horrendous, with pages and pages of tick boxes and explanations about fixtures and fittings, changes to titles of house and land, plus details about the leasehold, and other general information.   We also had to have an energy report done, at a cost of £45.    Bureaucracy!   

We have sent piles of items to the charity shop, including the video camera that used the cassette, in the photograph below.    Technology has certainly moved on since we bought the camera in 2003, now mobile telephones take videos. 

I am sure that everyone would like to see a photograph of the area below the stairs which lead up to the maisonette above us.    This is an area that has a slightly damp feel to it, and a perfect hiding place for red back spiders had it been in Australia.    The area also has a platform made of rubble with a brick wall at the front.   A great place for storing everything from paint to wood to car cleaning stuff, and all the bits and pieces that Walter thought he may use again.    All gone, except for some tins of paint, brushes and rollers, a step ladder and snow shovel    There were no spiders lurking this area.

The only spider we have seen was a small one climbing up the wall beside the bed in the spare room.  Where I had been sleeping a few days ago.

As a distraction, I travelled into London with Kathy and Karen to see the light show at different points along the South Bank, and in Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square.    It was a bitterly cold evening, but we rugged up well, and the walk from London Bridge to Charing Cross was very good for our fitness levels.  Altogether a very enjoyable evening.

We first had dinner at a restaurant called Bills.    A great way to start the evening.

The view across the River Thames is always pretty spectacular.

The tunnel of light.

The giant foot, which was actually superimposed onto the side of a tall building rather than a model of a foot.    Quite impressive, all the same.

The lit up sculpture of a fox, in Leicester Square.

A butterfly sculpture in Leicester Square.

The house is nearly perfect, but not quite to our satisfaction.   But as the saying goes, 'hey ho it will have to do', for now.