I’m blogging off my phone today – despite an engineer coming to my home and insisting the Wi-Fi was working, here we are without any internet access.

Other fun things to happen on the day we moved in:

• We discovered a leak from the place where a washing machine once was that required a morning of pipes being cut and new fittings being attached.
• That particular issue meant various cleaners couldn’t really clean because they had no access to water the day before. Though, it led to a helpful introduction to the neighbours as I had to knock on doors to see if somebody would give us a few buckets of water (stretching the “just a cup of water” thing to breaking point).
• We arrived to find no cooker (as expected). However, the previous owner clearly used a gas cooker. We since discovered, after trying to get one, the kitchen wasn’t gas safe in any way. Sadly, there was no means of attaching an electric one anywhere either. So, in came an electrician to install a cooker point and in went the order for a new cooker (we’re now without for a week).
• There was no place for a dishwasher, so a cupboard had to be pulled out and new plumbing put in for one.
• The removal men, helpfully, put half the stuff in the wrong rooms so we had to spend the evening shifting it about rather than unpacking boxes.

Despite those few hiccoughs, the move was surprisingly stress free. My friend was the one who resolved all our plumbing and carpentry issues. He was also the one who called upon his electrician friend to resolve our cooker conundrum. Another friend dropped round some food for our tea (they made sure it was hot and wouldn’t need an oven!)

What is more, we feel extremely grateful to the Lord that we had the money to deal with these things. We are similarly grateful that when various people came over to help, they were actually able to resolve the issue rather than telling us nothing could be done.

Beyond this, Rachel’s parents have kindly taken ours kids to theirs so we could move without them under our feet. That has been extremely helpful. Even my Dad happened to be passing by on work and stopped in to help the night before with a more pressing leak.

We now, by God’s grace, have the semblance of a house that we can use. Yes, things are in boxes still. Yes, we have a tonne of building work to do that will probably leave us in chaos for a few months. But the house is usable, these things are doable and God has been very kind to us in this way.