How many vacuum cleaners will be sacrificed?

The house is just three days old – well just three days as our home, about three decades as a house, and about three centuries as a barn before that – and already we have lost two vacuum cleaners to the cause.  They are hanging about like drunks outside a pub.  Gran’s is lying down with its spare parts spilled on another side of the room, shocked at its fall from grace, and cleanliness.  The other propped against the wall waiting for a taxi to take it back to its life on the dole.  Perhaps we’ll just renovate the house around them.  I am dreaming of a roomba.

I met my first neighbour today.  I realised even before we said our goodbyes that I’d forgotten his name.  I must find a way to remember.  I hope it’s some consolation to Ian that his was not the only name I couldn’t remember after our first encounter (or fifth!)

Oriana seems most taken with the music that Ian’s brought along to get us in the mood for moving in.  It says Roots on the box.  It’s the sound – but not the soundtrack – of “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”, I think.  Whatever it is, it makes Oriana burst into dance.

We had our first flood.  The plan was to refill the pool.  My bright idea.  I said it wouldn’t fill overnight.  It did.  The pool filled and half the “study” filled too.  Technically we’re covered on our insurance, but I suspect we’ve got more treats in store for our insurer and that carpet will go in the next 15 years anyway so no need to race to replace it now.

We’ve got to come up with some names for the rooms.  So far I’m sticking with the estate agent’s names.  Ian calls the study “the room he died in”, but somehow that doesn’t sit well.

Speaking of which, I have privately named the spider dangling by the kitchen door “Norman”.  It’s clearly died too, but it’s hanging around.  Perhaps we’ll get round to cleaning out the utility room this week.

The utility room looks like we should start “taking in laundry” to fund our new lives.  Washing machines are the only thing we seem so have a plenty.  So far we have Norman’s (the man, not the spider) and one from our London house.  When we move properly we’ll have a third.

Having been forced to abandon the vacuum cleaners, we decided to clean out the garages.  I’ve been loading my car with things that I think we might actually want to take with us, Christmas boxes, work benches, the still-boxed glitter ball (I think the pool room may be the perfect place); Ian’s been loading his with anything from the garage, a potty, the innards of a defunct dishwasher.  It’s genetic.  He’s doomed.

But none of this matters – we have the most magnificent grape vine.