Our House

All my fears about finding a suitable place in Worcester seem to be forgotten as of last Saturday. I was feeling a little despondent about the whole thing to be honest, all my viewings kept getting cancelled and I never dreamed that the four Luke and I had left for Saturday would produce anything worthwhile. The first property was nice, at least it was better than the hotel room I'd seen on Wednesday. It was small though, more like a student flat or bachelor's pad, not really suitable for two people. Still I was happy to see that at least some places didn't look like cheap hotel rooms in Worcester. At least this property was in a nice area of town, right behind Worcester Cathedral. Luke wasn't too pleased with the place and it wouldn't be my first choice either, so it was scratched off the list of possibilities.

When we entered the second flat, we thought we might have found the one. Compared to the first property it was quite large, in an old Tudor building a little outside of Worcester in a town called St. John's. What walls weren't covered in beams were covered in a yellow wallpaper, or perhaps it was a yellowing wallpaper, it's hard to say. While the kitchen had been recently redone the bathroom hadn't been touched since what I assume was the 70's, the fixtures were mauve. Either way the place was quirky and we liked it. We left the St. John's property thinking we might just have found the place, we enjoyed it's quirks rather than being frustrated by them.

Then we entered the townhouse, once again this place was in a nice part of Worcester a few minutes walk from the Cathedral but close enough to still hear the bells. Behind it sits Fort Royal park, a place that looks down on the entire city (quite picturesque if you ask me). The ground floor is the lounge which includes a blocked up fireplace, I already picture making a candlescape in the fireplace. At the back of the lounge is a little hall that has a closet, the stairs and a door leading out the back. In the back we have a little courtyard, complete with shed and two terraces to put plants, hang laundry, and perhaps get a little patio table so on nice days we can eat outdoors.

The first floor (or second floor in American speak) has the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen even comes with a little breakfast nook where we can with a decent-sized table and chairs. The bathroom is basic just a toilet, sink, mirror, and shower. No bathtub, but I don't take that many baths any way. Up the stairs again is the bedroom complete with two built-in wardrobes. It's a pretty big size, at least it's bigger than our current bedroom and probably bigger than my bedroom was at home. At least it should be big enough to fit the dressing table I'm getting from Nicola! The exclamation point emphasizes my excitement at the prospect of getting a dressing table.

The place is great, all it needs is a little TLC. We're set to move in for beginning of September, but they're allowing us to go in once we've signed all the proper forms to start cleaning and painting the place. That's all it really needs, a good cleaning and some new paint. I'm sure the colour scheme might have worked great for the previous tenants but a teal lounge, plum kitchen, and baby blue bedroom aren't going to really work for us. Everyone has been really helpful here helping us get started. Lindsay and Ian have set aside things for Luke and I, like toasters, plates, pots and pans, plus we're allowed to take all of the bedroom furniture. Neil and Nicola are giving us a lot of their old furniture, like the above mentioned dressing table, a coffee table, dining table, etc. Luke's granddad is giving us a TV stand and a rug. Luke's Auntie Julie is buying us a fridge. Pam and Mick (Ian's parents) have offered to get us something, Mick suggested maybe some chairs. And Luke's dad is going to give us some money to get us started since he doesn't have anything old. Even the neighbours across the street have pitched in, they've offered us their old sofabed which has only been used twice, it's emerald green but we'll make it work!

The past two weeks have been dedicated to setting up things for the move, last week was trying to find a property, this week was securing the property, sending emails, making phone calls, filing out paperwork. While that has kept me pretty busy, Luke and I were able to make it to the pub quiz at The White Lion on Tuesday, and I'm happy to report that we got first place out of 15 teams! Not bad at all, considering we thought we'd done one of our worst performances ever. We won 40 pounds from it, split between five people it only amounts to 8 pounds a person, but still it was nice. Luke and I were at The White Lion for dinner. I had the veggie fish and chips, which intrigued me halloumi cheese fried like the fish with tzatziki sauce, a side salad and of course a side of chips. It was YUMMY! Luke had a gourmet burger, which was massive and put our burger nights at Anthem to shame. Half-pound of meat, a fried egg, field mushroom, onion chutney, I don't even know what all was on it. I just know that Luke had to press it down several times with his fist before he could fit it in his mouth.

Besides the house and pub quiz there is not much else to report, other than I'm still having trouble opening a damn bank account and just finished a pretty interesting book called The Shakespeare Curse, apparently it's called Haunt Me Still in America, which deals with the secret behind the "curse" of Macbeth or The Scottish Play as it's referred to in the theatre. Nicola gave it to me to read, she described it as a more subtle Da Vinci Code but with Shakespeare. I think that's an accurate description. It's not the best written book I've ever read but it was a page turner to be sure! I'd recommend it to anyone who has any interest in Shakespeare or enjoys books about history or like The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.