We’ve already blogged about the trials and tribulations of moving apartment in Cairo and needless to say we (especially Scotty!) had had enough of moving, packing and carrying by the time we arrived in the UK at the start of our summer break.
Our plan for this summer was to stay in the UK and not travel overseas on holiday, but to get a bit of a break ourselves, and to make the most of the Olympics being in London, we had decided to get our house in Raynes Park back from the tenants for a month. Whilst we had the place back we thought we could do odd jobs and some work on it (cheaper for us to do it than to get a contractor through the letting agent) to make the place look good ready for new tenants. This seemed like a great plan until we started making a list of the things we’d need to live there…. things we’d either need to find in the loft or garage at MVR, or things we’d just need to buy. Argh! It looks like we’re moving again!
So in the garage we managed to find a saucepan, frying pan and some mugs in one box and then find Scotty’s tool kit, drill etc on another shelf. These were some of the first things we took down ready for tea-making and odd-jobbing. But to make tea you need a kettle…and we must’ve given away our kettle before we moved out….so down to Tesco we go to buy a new kettle.
In the loft and wardrobe at MVR we manage to find our towels, duvet and a bedside lamp. We take these down in another move along with some bedding and pillows pilfered from MVR’s general supplies. We need to take down two ‘loads’ of bedding with us as we’ll be having the B’s to stay on two short London breaks during our time there.
We also bring down Scotty’s guitar that we’ve brought from Buxton with us, as he’ll be needing it to practice (!) and then play at a friend’s wedding over the summer. Speaking of weddings, we need to move (!) our wedding outfits and accessories which includes two suits, one dress and four pairs of shoes!
But we can’t find everything that we need and so off to Tesco it is to buy crockery and cutlery (Tesco Value stuff is so cheap!). We probably didn’t need to buy these things new as we could have taken supplies from MVR, but we are getting fed up of this moving lark. Having said that, we don’t have a car and so do have to carry everything back in rucksacks as we walk home!
Not only do we have to move in, but we also have to move out again about five weeks later. We bring some things back in various trips across London, leave some things in the house, but luckily MummyP offers us a lift for the majority of our things meaning it’s just the packing/unpacking that we have to do, rather than the hauling!
At the end of our summer break we of course have a final pack and move of all our things back to Cairo. This mainly consists of baby stuff (which takes up a fair proportion of two of our cases, then the buggy which will go as a third case with the car seat being hand-luggage) but luckily we will be greeted by a lift in our new apartment which will save Scotty’s sanity after what feels like three months of moving!
‘28-day no quibble returns policy’ you say?
One thing that we knew we’d have to buy for our stay in the house was a TV. We’d gifted our TV to the P’s when we moved out four years ago, but when they bought a new TV they gifted our old one on again. We were quite happy to buy a new TV as we wanted something decent to watch the Olympics on. We were even happier when we browsed around Tesco and saw that you could get a really decent sized TV for 150 quid or so. Our plan being to buy the TV for the summer, and then either leave it in the house, or store it at (or gift it to) MVR. Either way, we knew we were buying.
So up we go to the counter once we’d decided which TV to get and as the guy was ringing it through he ran through their returns policy…. ‘28-day no quibble’ he says, and we both look at each other….
So back home we check the calendar and work out when to buy the TV that would allow us 28-days to watch the Olympics and have visitors. We decide to give ourselves a few days extra on the end and then go back in to Tesco to make our purchase. As we do, we ask the guy (different guy from before) what the returns policy is – just to be sure – and he says that it is 10 days. Erm…. what? They’ve just been on training apparently and the new policy for recordable items is 10 days. We point out to him that we cannot record anything on this TV and then a colleague confirms that in fact it is 28 days. Phew!
So we get our new TV home and it’s bigger (and flatter) than any TV we’ve watched before – this is great! Indeed the Opening Ceremony looks amazing on it and with the red button we enjoy loads of different sports – the TV does a good job. But all good things must come to an end and the time is approaching for us to move out and the TV to go back.
We think we can pack everything up by the Thursday , but it will be a bit of a rush to clean the place etc, so we decide to leave on the Friday instead. It would be silly to return the TV on the Thursday – as then we’d have nothing to watch that evening (!) – so we neatly pack it away on Friday morning and take it back to the store.
Rather than ‘no quibble’, the staff managed to quibble nearly every aspect of returning the TV including whether the return date was 10 days rather than 28, and then that we were actually over the 28 days allowed (we were on 27 days to be precise!). At the end of it, after speaking to three different people, Scotty finally made some progress, although the final ‘quibble’ was to get our Clubcard details so that the points awarded at purchase could be removed!
Raynes Park odd-jobs and improvements
I thought I’d add a note at the bottom of this post about the various odd-jobs and work we did on the house this summer.
Major work included having the stairs, hall and bedroom re-papered and painted, and having the rest of the house repainted (we were tempted to do this ourselves, but in the end got someone to do it!), getting new carpets for the two bedrooms, stairs and hall, getting two of the double-glazed windows replaced and getting a new washing machine.
Other jobs that we did included fitting trellis in the garden and planting some climbers, sanding down the doors to most rooms (as they were either catching on the floor tiles or on the new bouncy carpet!), getting a new valve fitted on the study radiator, fixing a slat on the futon and fixing the light in the garage.
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