We got the keys to our first house on the 27th of September!

Too bad we had nothing to put in it! 🙂 After we had our inventory inspection and signed the papers, we headed to base to hit up the loan locker. This is where you can borrow dishes, pots & pans, silverware, etc. We dropped those back off at the house, then went back to base to start packing up our suitcases!

We didn’t really “move in” to the house until the next day, which was when our loan furniture got dropped off. It was a bit of a hassle, but it was our fault. I was supposed to be at the house by 8am, which was the earliest the furniture would be dropped off. Well, Andrew wanted to put his PT gear in the car with me before I left, and he didn’t get back to the room until nearly 8am.

So I started driving (remember, I’ve only driven in this country once before) toward the house. Well, first I had to wait for a train (this took a good 5 minutes). And then I missed a turn and got lost in a little town. It’s out in the country, so my GPS signal was failing me. And I kept shifting into the wrong gear when I was trying to reverse. I was SO stressed out and upset! By the time I finally got to the house, the furniture guys were long gone. I got ahold of Andrew, who told me to just wait at the house. The delivery guys said they would try to swing by later in the day if they had time. And Andrew had already checked out of the hotel room, so there was really no where else for me to go.

So I sat on pillows in the master bedroom, which was the only spot (besides the driveway) to pick up a couple of bars of signal on my phone. I was bored & uncomfortable. I read a book on my phone and crocheted alternately. In silence. All I had to eat for lunch was some chips and my bottle of water. I felt quite pathetic. Yes, this is a good time to feel bad for me. I was feeling bad for myself!

Andrew got a ride from a friend out to our house when he was done with work (early, thankfully), and the delivery guys arrived shortly after that. They delivered a dining table and 2 chairs, a couch and two chairs that resembled dorm room furniture, a coffee table & two end tables, a full-size bed, a washer & dryer, a refrigerator, and a microwave. They also brought a dishwasher, but it turns out we didn’t have a spot for it (or the hook-ups).

Here is the best picture I have of our loaner couch. This is after we had our living room painted as well:

Over the next few days, we bought a few things for the house. We needed a new basic vacuum cleaner with a UK plug (which we found — cheap!). We also needed some shades for the lights. A lot of the rooms just had bare bulbs hanging:

So we needed lamp shades to put over them. Andrew was surprisingly opinionated about this! I’m so used to hearing other women say that their husbands don’t really care what they pick for decor in the home, but Andrew almost always has an opinion about things we put in the house. I’m glad he cares, but sometimes it makes things difficult: we are both pretty opinionated! But we agreed on these for the living room:

I don’t think Andrew loved them or anything, but between what he wanted (cheap price) and what I wanted (something that looks nice), this is what we got. I was happy, because I knew it would match the furniture and decor we had coming! 🙂

And that weekend it was Andrew’s turn to get some things he wanted: gardening things. The day we went to get “outdoorsy” things was October 1st. And we had record high temperatures, ick.

For those who know me, you know I do not like warm temperatures. If it’s above 70, I’m not happy. Andrew always looks at me like I’m an insane person when I complain about warm, sunny days. I can’t help it; I know I’m weird.

Anyways, this was our trunk after shopping at B&Q (it’s like a Lowe’s or something):

Birdfeeders, plants for the conservatory, bulbs to plant, etc. I’ll admit, I was excited too. I wanted SOMETHING to be in the conservatory, I was excited for Andrew to plant some of my favorite flowers (tulips, hyacinths, crocuses), and I liked the idea of being able to watch the birds from the conservatory windows. Andrew also planted some herbs in the conservatory, since we both cook with them a lot, and we don’t like to pay the prices they want in the grocery stores!

So we had a house. We had the basics for living. The thing I was really desperate for at that point (besides our household goods) was a phone connection. We found an old forest-green cord phone in a cupboard, so we figured we’d use that for the time being. But our phone hook-up stuff didn’t come until the 10th of October. The same day that our Wi-Fi stuff came. I know it was only about 2 weeks, but I was miserable not being able to talk to my family. I sat bawling in the bathroom one night while Andrew slept. With nothing to do all day but crochet, I was lonely, and I would sit and dwell on the fact that I couldn’t call home. I was ecstatic when Andrew hooked up the phone and I could call home!

Now all I needed was my “stuff”…

September 24: the day I finally decided to get behind the wheel of a British car!

I only drove a little ways… we checked out the local auction area. They have an auction every Saturday. We found some interesting items there (we were more interested in the antiques than the modern things), but we haven’t been back to participate in an auction yet.

I made Andrew drive to Bury St. Edmunds. I was NOT ready for that! It wasn’t really the driving there that worried me, it was entering the town and navigating the roundabouts. Our main reason for going was to check out the outdoor market area. Most of the towns here have outdoor markets at least once a week, even small towns! The best part (to us) is the local produce. The prices are pretty good, and if you go at the end of the day, you can get really good deals on items that the vendors just don’t want to pack up.

We went to Harriet’s, a tea room designed to look like an old tearoom from the early 1900s.

Even the servers dressed in old-fashioned outfits! The food was very good, and we tried a new type of tea: smoked. It definitely had a smoky taste to it, and I didn’t particularly like it. It just wasn’t refreshing or anything to me.

We perused a few more areas before heading home. I had very sore feet (I always seem to value cuteness over comfort), so I was a little crabby. I wanted to rest my feet back at the hotel for awhile, but by then it was about dinnertime. We were pretty sick of eating on base, so I found a restaurant in Icklingham to check out.

The restaurant we planned to go to turned out to be closed until further notice. Darn it! But we had driven past another restaurant that looked good called The Red Lion.

This is a very old building that has been around for hundreds of years. Now it’s a family-run restaurant. The family lives above the restaurant.

We had to wait for a table since we hadn’t made a reservation. It sounds like they are staffed for the number of reservations made in a night. Lucky for us, one of the parties didn’t show up, so we were seated before 8pm. We didn’t mind waiting: we were just going to drink pints of beer until we got seated! 🙂

Our food ended up being amazing! Andrew & I both ordered salads before our main courses. His had apples and walnuts, and mine had black pudding and goat cheese. So good! My main course was bacon-wrapped chicken in a tasty whole grain mustard sauce. Andrew had seafood crepes. We then shared raspberry sorbet in sugar-spun bowls.

What a delicious meal! We still need to go back sometime, and I’m sure our next meal will be as good as our first!