Gosh how long it's been and how much has happened

I'm so sorry for the lack of updates and my absence from the blogging world. I have been online, but my time has been taken up by budgets, house viewings, arguing with my bank about trying to charge me to transfer money, sorting out paperwork for my new job, trying to find cheap (and free) furniture for the flat we found, packing mine (and T's) stuff and saying my goodbyes at home!



It's been a very exciting, stressful and bittersweet couple of weeks... we found the most perfect flat after looking at some really horrid places (seriously I never even lived in such places as a student!!!) and thinking we were doomed to live in a place where even a whole-house disinfectant wouldn't get rid of the "unclean" feeling! I have some photos on T's mum's camera but need to wait for him to put them onto the computer for me (I don't have the right software on my own laptop). As soon as I have them I shall post some before and after pictures!



T has returned to work today after a glorious week off together, where we even set up a joint bank account :o) According to T's sister we are now married in the financial world lol!! We've been offered furniture, tins of food and cleaning products from all members of both sides of the family, so we are now ready to go. The only thing is that the money for the deposit has gone out of my account but not cleared with the bank the letting agency uses, so we cannot get the keys until a-bank-that-shall-not-be-named sorts itself out and clears it. So for now I am spending my days packing up all of T's things (I don't know how he dare say I have more clothes than him!!!) and looking after his niece who is currently painting a piggy bank whilst his parents pick up the free sofa from a kind person who advertised on gumtree!



I love spending time at T's - I get to see both his nieces and get to know his family better. If I'd still been living in Cambridge when I met him I might never have been forced to spend so much time here and neither would he have got to know my family so well. This weekend the parents meet - it should be an interesting (and scary) experience!



There's another reason this week is bittersweet - I said goodbye to my hometown for what may be the last time. I have left home so many times over the past 6 years - but I always knew I'd be returning for holidays and things (such is the life of a student). When I graduated I went home but relations were so strained between my mum and myself that my dad told me if I didn't leave I'd do irrepairable damage - he was right! So I left, and things were HARD! Going home and actually healing my relationship with my mum was the best thing I ever did and I am so glad I am leaving this time in good spirits and knowing that although I am so excited to finally have a place to call my own (not a shared house with random strangers) I will still miss being so close (geographically speaking) to my family.

*edit* had to stop writing as the sofa arrived - it is beautiful with a capital beau and it has free cushions and a free throw!! T's mum has also got out her old sewing machine so I can have a go at making more nice things to go with it - yay!

It is now the morning after I first wrote this post - I've just seen T off for work, with a lovely pack-up which includes my Grandma's homemade Lincolnshire plum bread! That's another thing - it seems only us Lincolnshire folk say "pack-up" everybody else calls it a packed-lunch... most times I say "pack-up" people give me a blank look and ask me what on earth I'm talking about. Does anybody else have such phrases that they took as normal until they met people from further afield and realised it was only a local saying?