I explained in my last post (in what appears now to have been a different archaeological period) why my wife and I had decided to move to the Kent coast, specifically my childhood summer playground of Folkestone.
( http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/it-was-always-folkestone/ ) .
Well, two house sales, one flat purchase and much frustration and spasmodic heartache later, we descended upon the town a fortnight ago. And every night over the dinner table we interrogate each other as to why we hadn’t done this many years before.
But, of course, there were a number of viable reasons (or were they excuses?) – proximity to ageing parents, financial constraints borne of a meaty mortgage and an almost bank-busting propensity to go on expensive holidays, particularly to the west coast of the U.S.A, or maybe it was just unwarranted caution.
But there is no value in dwelling on those now.
It is the future that matters.
And the future is Folkestone.
We might have settled into our new apartment a month or so earlier had our sellers – now, let’s put this kindly – not taken a more relaxed approach to moving than us. Firstly, they refused to let the estate agents have a set of keys, insisting that they show prospective buyers around their property. Their prerogative, of course, and they did afford us nearly an hour of their time on two occasions, making us tea and establishing a strong personal rapport (we thought).
However, the fact that they engineered a seven week gap between those two viewings and prevented the surveyor from examining the apartment for a further month, explained by a combination of work commitments and regular retreats to their holiday home in France, proved immensely frustrating and stressful as progress on the sale of our house in Gillingham proceeded smoothly.
Moreover, half way through the process, and completely out of the blue, their solicitor delivered an ultimatum to us, insisting that we pay a non-refundable deposit of 1% within 24 hours or they would pull out and place the property back on the market. Disaster was only averted through by the estate agent persuading them that fairness dictated that they put up a similar deposit. An open-ended exclusivity agreement sealed the deal, barring subsequent major catastrophe.
We had viewed eight other properties in the West End of town, none of which remotely matched up in terms of visual appeal, character or size. Once we had seen the property and submitted an offer at the asking price within five minutes of leaving it, we were determined that it would be ours. We even took a significant financial hit following the survey on our own house to secure it.
And the physical move was not without its difficulties either. Firstly, despite valiant and agonising attempts to reduce my book collection before the move, enriching the minds of the populace of the Medway Towns into the bargain, there were still a huge number of heavy boxes of books for the removal men, not only to load onto their van at our former house, but to carry up forty one steps to our apartment in the sky at the other end. We may not have taken much in the way of furniture and white goods, planning to buy long overdue new items on arrival, but this was still a challenging task for them in addition to the ninety mile round trip.
They were brilliant by the way.
We have already bought a new washing machine (to replace the one that had served us so well for twenty years) and our first king size bed, incurring the wrath, in the process, of two teams of delivery men doomed to lug them up those aforementioned stairs. I know it’s their job, but I felt a little guilty as I witnessed the grunts and groans that accompanied the manipulation of the items round and over the bannister at each level.
I dread what expletives might reverberate around the building when a new oven, fridge/freezer and wardrobe are delivered in the coming weeks!
But – let’s be fair – they have it easy.
Because, at least in the case of furniture, they don’t have to assemble the blighters!
The manufacturer’s instructions for the bed stated that it would take two people an hour and a half to accomplish.
Yeah right!
Now, I’m arguably the least competent do-it-yourself person on the planet, though my wife, having been brought up by a handyman father and two equally proficient brothers, has some aptitude (and, miraculously, managed to translate the nineteen pages of obtuse drawings into a workable plan).
I may never have been more impressed by her than on that day.
My contribution, such as it was, was to supply the occasional burst of brute strength.
So how long did it take us?
Only the seven hours!
Usain Bolt could have run the hundred metres 2,520 times in the time it took us to put that together!
But it was worth it, even if there is still a niggling worry as we lay our heads down at night that it’s going to collapse beneath us.
By the way, the washing machine is working well. It even seems to know when the clothes haven’t quite dried and takes it upon itself to add a few minutes to the cycle. Modern technology eh?
Well, at least we were able to slump in front of the television after our mammoth Saturday morning/afternoon ordeal.
Wrong!
Despite assertions before the move that our Virgin Media services would be installed within a few days of our landing in Folkestone, we will have had to wait three weeks before we have an operational landline, broadband or TV in the apartment. Consequently, we have not seen a single minute of the Olympics or the start of the Premier League season – oh, and I must not forget the soaps (my wife instructed me to include that). That said, we have caught up with a lot of movies and television series on DVD that we have not seen for years, or, in some cases, not even taken the outer sleeve off!
Telephone access is not a problem as we have mobile phones, but obtaining meaningful Wifi access (other than on said devices) has necessitated expensive daily trips to the coffee shops of Folkestone (I’m on my second flat white of the morning in Costa Coffee as I write this).
I would not wish any of the above to give you the impression that we are regretting the decision to move.
Far from it.
The glorious skies, near constant sunshine (so far), even the noisy but necessary birdlife have all been a joy, and Bob’s and Chummy’s at the harbour, Rocksalt, Copper and Spices, Django’s, the Lighthouse Champagne Bar at the end of the Harbour Arm, the Grand, Steep Street coffee house and others have all benefited from our custom over the past fortnight.
A significant added and unexpected bonus has been my wife’s transfer from Chatham to Folkestone, converting a round trip drive of more than two hours into a ten minute walk to her new office.
We had planned to head out west in late September for a few weeks. This was diluted to a week in Italy as the exchange rate plummeted following the EU referendum (I refuse to use THAT word). Now, we have decided to stay at “home” and acclimatise ourselves to our new surroundings. After all, there is a sense that we are still on holiday and staying in somebody else’s apartment, but I’m sure that will recede as autumn and winter approach (or will it?).
But when I can gaze upon views like those below every day I feel blessed, and any temporary and trivial hardships, before, during and after the move, simply fade away (unlike love).
Tony Quarrington 