We had a generally subdued Christmas holiday - filled with frustration because our finances had reached bottom and we cut spending to the bone but in the background Stan's house had sold and we were waiting for the paperwork to complete so Alan would finally get his share of the inheritance. The house sold in November 2016 but due to the way they do property sales/transfers here and assorted other mishegas the final completion date ended up being in the end of January 2017.
There were a couple bright moments in the holidays tho. We went out to dinner with our friends Ron & Hilary just before Christmas Eve at an old favorite Cypriot restaurant. This was the first time I'd gone out to dinner in almost 2 years! The past year I'd only been able to get out for occasional hospital based Consultant visits. Then we had a really gorgeous Chateaubriand roast with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner thanks to my accumulated Tesco clubcard points. Asti flew over from Germany for a couple days between Christmas and New Year; it was so great to see her again and I really enjoyed her company and conversation. And the highlight of the holidays was a huge festive roast goose dinner with both Asti and Fi joining us at table. Fabulous dinner all homemade from scratch and Fi brought an amazing dessert of chocolate trifle which was in the "death by chocolate" class. So ultimately we wrapped up the old year with companionable feasting and looked forward to a much improved new year.
And to our delight, last week as we waited for Alan's inheritance to hit our bank account, we received a call to inform us that after years of waiting, there was a ground floor apt available for us that met all of our requirements. OMG! What perfect timing! Our move-in date is 20 February. Omg! Omg! I'm obviously going nuts until we sign the lease and get the keys. We're both wild to get in there and start measuring and ordering and moving our things over. OMG! This is such an amazingly wonderful start to the year.
Note that the apt has a private walled garden and Alan is already picking out a BBQ and garden furniture.
More news on the move as soon as we sign the lease.
