The many changes afoot

So this house move has brought and is bringing many changes. 

Firstly it has enabled me to get rid of my long-hated pink tilt and swivel "Lazyboy" armchair. Made in America. Brought from thence by a dear old friend in Chester and given to us with two humungous sofas which accompanied it faithfully over the years. The sofas were eventually donated to a students' furnishing charity. The armchair has gone to family. It was loved by all as profoundly as I hated it. The problem was that whenever I sat in it it tilted and swivelled. It felt that this was its duty. But I wanted a solid, stable armchair in which to read, listen to music, have my being.

Anyway, the last laugh's on me. At present I am sitting in a green plastic garden chair. Still, at least it doesn't swivel. And I have the hope set before me of soon acquiring a good, old-fashioned armchair, such as my soul loveth.

The chair was given to us, as I said, by a dear old friend who lived in a barn conversion just outside Chester. At least she lived there until I made her move into a flat into the centre of town. Or so she claimed. I don't think I did. I just encouraged her to go speak to an estate agent and, hop, quick as winking she was installed in a splendid apartment right in the middle of town.

Her old house had charm. It had country views. It had a nice little yard. It had seclusion. It had small windows and lots of gloom. But what she needed was people, shops, cafés, buses stopping outside, a park, happy children squabbling, life. So she moved, and she was blissful.

If it was me that made her move, then there is no blame to bear, only credit to share.

We are also jettisoning Catrin's old bed. It's a marvellous contraption, a normal size single that pulls out inscrutably to form a massive double bed. It has two drawers in which you can keep much bedding. However it has the wrong orientation for the years ahead of us, so it's being sold to a couple we know who need just such a bed. I don't know HOW we're going to get it out of this flat and into theirs. It weighs a ton constructed and takes an age to put together.

Anyway, orientation. The bed is what they call a "day bed". That is, it is constructed to form, quite imperceptibly, a kind of sofa, with a back and sides. In our case the back and sides are too small to fulfil any useful function as, for example, arms and backrest, but just big enough to prevent any elderly person exiting the bed in case of nocturnal exigencies. And as we are both the youngest in our respective families, and as we are now clocking on the kilometres, the decision was taken that we needed a bed from which an elderly person, taken short, could exit without having to leap over the metaphorical wall. With or without help.

We've identified a sofa-bed which will fulfil the desired function.

Just as well we don't get attached to things, eh?

So we're very pleased with the flat. The flooring we chose is pleasant. The tiles are unobtrusive. The bathroom floor would make a Roman glad. The shower is indecently inviting. 

I'm so pleased. All is good. We're very thankful for this wonderful place.

OK, so the door won't open for the postman, and at the moment our water contract may have been sent to an obscure Post Office deep in darkest Bègles, but I'm sure the management company will soon sort this out and all will be well and all manner, and so on and so forth.