If you fall, I'll be there - Floor

So we arrived in Felixstowe in really good time so much better than the experience of driving to Somerset back in February and I didn't need to sleep for a day to get over the journey - absolute result.  Now from where we were staying we had a 5 minute walk to the beach absolutely fantastic, little man and Willis oh and big man loved their daily (thrice daily) at least trips to the sea. Now if you evert your eyes directly to the front you have the sea and all its majestic glory, to the left the promenade and to the right ......... so if you didn't look to the right too often quite picturesque and as hubby said lots of jobs in the area is always a good sign. We however if we ever choose to live here would need to work 30hr days (yes I know that's impossible I'm just saying). Little man loved sorry LOVED the Spiderman slide up, down, up, down, up, down
goodness knows what he would do in the winter time when it would all be closed down.

This is all by the by, as I'd said earlier every holiday I'd booked in January to look at areas had become null & void as travelling is an issue, especially as not all the family would be coming with us so it really ruled out Cornwall, parts of Devon & really Somerset thanks to the long windy drive to get somewhere.

So............................... my heart has laid with Norfolk still since I left, something drew me there in the first place and something is drawing me back there again. It has a great city, low crime rate (cough other than some parts of Norwich but even that wouldn't touch the surface of crime in some parts of London). We booked a viewing in Harleston however thanks to breaking down on the M25 on the way to the viewing we didn't really get very far at all. So on the Wednesday midweek of out break to Felixstowe we ventured to Harleston to see if we liked the area or not.

It really was quite charming, as I normally do when driving round look for teenagers and saw every single one we could see with a smile on their face (what do they put in the water??). So me & the hubster are planning a trip back to Harleston for a couple of nights to see what we think. Other options in Norfolk we've looked into are Diss, North Walsham (although that will turn into quite a drive but only 5 miles from the sea) Long Stratton the closest town to the village we lived in before & where the boys went to school previously & Poringland just a few miles outside of Norwich.
 North Walsham

& poringland UM ......................... no pictures of Poringland so might go off the list but it had some good schools :).



So we have had the tenancy agreement through again, gosh still can't believe its been 3 years already in one place and will probably sign for 6 months - 9 months so we'd be looking at moving once again February to May 2016 (I prefer even number moves, got this thing about odd years being unlikely no idea why just one of my weird quirks. Anyway talking about weird quirks will need to brush up on my Norfolk dialect interpretation as we all know how badly that went last time hee hee.

Now I only have a few minutes of typing left as the hubster has booked me to watch the Best Shed of 2015 yay sooooooooooooooooo excited major sign of old age creeping in when you think a Sunday evening is best spent sitting with your hubster watching various shed's but oh............. I love the programme & also George's Clarkes Amazing Spaces so............. when we do finally buy a property one of the first things on the list or indeed if already there will be a whooper of a shed. Now will it be a man's cave  a working shop shed  or................. I just love this one
....

Then I will be watching the dreaded "HUMANS" now a lot of people have a fear of  clowns, I have a fear of technology and what it can be turned into ??  Recently as I work daily on Ebay there has been a header advert for just this & the more I write the more I may well  be unable to read my own blog again aaargh. This humanoid is now in England nuff said!!!
https://youtu.be/IhVu2hxm07E
 and many many more are being made ...........................ok I won't sleep tonight.



Must think beautiful sheds and Norfolk........................

 

TTFN!!!

I never run with scissors. The last two words were unneccesary!

So on looking back on my last blog I realised I have developed a kind of goo-mance with google,
being my No 1 search engine of choice. In fact me being as blonde as I am my internet gets me onto my bing page only for me to search by going to google first, well I don't two time ;).
I also realised that from my last blog you might be thinking why is she still keeping it escapingtothecountry if she is looking at seaside areas, all will be explained in later when I've caught up with the present.

So my google searches today came up with some general information for all you house movers, area of your dream searchers etc. What does google think of areas when the town is inputted into their search engine, a full list complied & courtesy of Metro newspaper.

Here’s the list in full:
London is funny
Aberdeen is racist
Liverpool is the best
Birmingham is a dump
Glasgow is a dump
Edinburgh is colder than London
Swansea is the death of ambition
Cardiff is boring
Manchester is my planet/Manchester is red
Inverness is shite
Dundee is shite
Durham is for oxbridge rejects
Carlisle is the opposite of bliss
Morpeth is on flood alert
Lancaster is ghetto
York is the best place to live
Chester is irritable
Sheffield is the greenest city in europe
Nottingham is full of fun
Derby is crap
Stafford is a man
Shrewsbury in soft light
Leicester is a dump
Norwich is inbred
Cambridge is better than oxford
Oxford is overrated
Northampton is a dump
Warwick is broken
Worcester is the paris of the 80s
Hereford is crap
Bristol is a paradise
Bath is black/leaking
Gloucester is rough
Aylesbury is it a nice place to live
Chelmsford is now a city
Taunton is a part of minehead already
Exeter is boring
St Austell near the beach
Winchester is camelot
Brighton is brilliant
Newport is the worst city in the uk
Dorchester is dangerous
Exeter is on sale
Banbury is running
Berwick is a good suburb
Stevenage is crap
Oban is worth visiting
Perth is a culture shock
Stirling is hockeyville
Antrim is my stepfather’s name
Derry is nicknamed the oak county
Dublin is expensive
Cork is happy
Kerry is an idiot
Galway is happy too
Mayo is gross
Tyrone is anthrax bad
Wexford (is) university accredited
Kent is the garden of england
Lancashire is wonderful
Somerset is the real killer
Portsmouth is this love/ an island
Bournemouth is better than ibiza
Poole is a beautiful place
Hartlepool is blooming/my passion
Hertfordshire is posh
East London is a vampire
Ilford is safe

Think what you want of that

Ok so my main reason for doing the search was to find the happiest place to live in the UK I may have done this before so forgive me but these lists change every month anyway.


It appears it might not be so ‘grim up north’ after all, with the North Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate being named the happiest place to live in Britain. 
More than 50,000 people responded to a survey which asked how contented they are with their home and local community.
With rising property prices and a reputation for unfriendliness, London residents reported the lowest levels of satisfaction, with the ten least happy places to live in the poll all in the capital.
East London was named the place where people are least happy out of all 111 places ranked, with Ilford, Croydon, East Central London and Twickenham all in the bottom ten of the report by Rightmove.


Rightmove said Harrogate scored top in the survey for safety, its sense of neighbourliness and recreation.
It appears you have to pay a bit more for happiness, however, with the average house asking price around £37,000 higher than the national average, at £309,133.
Councillor Michael Newby, Mayor of the Borough of Harrogate, said: ‘The district has some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK, if not in Europe and beyond.
‘There is also a great community feel, which certainly makes life a lot happier for many people.


10 happiest places to live in Britain
1. Harrogate, Yorkshire and the Humber
2. Inverness, Scotland
3. Taunton, south-west
4. Stockport, north-west
5. Falkirk, Scotland
6. Norwich, East Anglia
7. Hull, Yorkshire and the Humber
8. Preston, north-west
9. Truro, south-west
10. Telford, West Midlands
10 least happy places to live
1. East London
2. Ilford
3. Croydon
4. East Central London
5. Twickenham
6. Enfield
7. North London
8. Harrow
9. South East London
10. West London

So according to that I used to live 7 miles from one of the happiest places in the UK and I moved back to 7 miles away from one of the least happiest places to live in the UK. Go figure!! hee hee!

Now back to our recent escapades so in April we were due to go to Looe for the week in the Easter holidays. But with the hubsters car playing up we knew we'd have problems with a journey like that and as much as I love my beetle it'll be a struggle to get Willis in & luggage & kids. So the hunt for a new car began & I looked and looked as you know I like doing things like that but every suggestion I made got dismissed by the hubster.
 so I gave up and he looked for himself. Found one he was interested in and as he had no car I drove him to the garage or should I say football car park!! I kid you not, but no hubster still thinks it will be fine & phones the man up so he can look at the car & ........................sends me on my way as he is SURE the car will be perfect and he'll buy it on the spot and drive back home. Of course by the time I get home I hear my phone ringing and apparently there was black smoke coming out of the exhaust and the car sounded awful and yet the man was still trying to sell the car to the hubster, aaargh!! I went and collected him and the search continued.

Eventually he found a car in (I think) a real garage in Wembley and he brought it after having as brief drive in it. When he got home I was very impressed a Volvo XC90, black leather seated, tv screen sat nav and all sorts of bits and bobs and luckily just in time as we were going away the week after to Looe.

Two days (for those hard of hearing 2 DAYS) after he'd purchased it as he went to turn into our road it just stopped and wouldn't restart. He was then helped along the way by a woman behind him blasting her horn. He got out of the car went up to her and said (politely this is my hubster after all) "don't you think if I could move the car I would" she drove off impatiently.

He pushed the car back to the house & phoned up the garage, we then had to phone the rac to get the car towed back to the garage. Hubster said to them about our holiday blah blah in a couple of days. I didn't pack our suitcase but by pure chance I contacted the holiday site to say I couldn't find our booking confirmation (for which I was going to tell them we wouldn't be coming on our holiday) & then contacted me back after looking into it and apologised as our booking had gone astray and would it be possible to take a downgrade of accommodation or book the week for another time for which they would also upgrade our accommodation.

 no money lost, no holiday lost just postponed until October now BIG phew!

So a few weeks later (yes it was that long) the garage got back in  touch with us and said that they couldn't fix the Volvo but they could supply us with the same car, same year but higher spec. OK!

And before we knew it, it was May and our next holiday had arrived, the new Volvo had been working really well so we had no concerns until ........................... we decided to take a trip to Ruislip Lido with Willis & the little man only to discover he (the dog) couldn't jump up into the car.

In fact apparently he'd got half of his body in and then just fell backwards & ended up in a heap on the floor.

Bless him, what to do now Willis is a big dog and a big heavy dog at that so he can't be lifted into the boot. Arrrgh!! A major hast purchase of a dog ramp that can take his weight and folds to flat into the car was made and then the wait to see if it arrived in time. Finally it did arrive but Willis was so sceptical of it the little man had to climb up the ramp each time to coax Willis up, finally he got the jist of it and by the 4th go, you guessed it he just jumped straight over the ramp and into the car.

 hmmmmmmm no further words are needed & the ramp didn't get taken will no doubt turn into the most expensive ramp into little mans trampoline this summer!

So the morning of our trip to Felixstowe, we planned to take a brief detour as we had also booked a viewing at a house in Harleston, Norfolk.

Packed, got everyone in their right places in the car, good to go............... petrol in the car........... already rolling along on the M25  its going well, don't think it, don't think it!

The car just lost ALL acceleration and then stopped. So we ended up calling the Rac (again) & stood stupidly behind the metal barrier for safety. Now why do people beep you??? Is it to say hi how you doing? bad day for a long journey? or just... ha ha ha ha ha ha!! ONE word my friend KARMA!



We waited for the RAC and then like buses 2 turn up one for me and little man, & the tow truck for car, hubster, middle man & Willis. On the drive home talking to the RAC man about what had happened. His words "sounds to me like someone put the wrong petrol in the car" nah he wouldn't have done that......................... would he?

So hubster arrived home slower than me of course and the car needed to be unloaded on the main road and I asked him the question. "no I definitely put the right petrol in, I used the same pump I always use and the same red nozzle".

We load up my car without middle man as it was a toss up between him and Willis (it is a beetle after all) and middle man put his hands up to stay at home I think the humiliation of standing roadside whilst broken down was a tad too much for him and he needed the rest of the week to get over it.



Our first stop was to fill up my car with petrol this time, hubster put the petrol in and then asked the lady if she had a receipt for his last order so he could see what he'd put in. Now I'm VERY blonde but do have some secret savvy about me (just don't like to let on) and said to hubby you said you put in the red nozzle at that pump over there that you used last time "yes" but the two back red pumps are diesel but the 2 fronts red pumps are unleaded. Obviously just done to confuse my colour coded hubster. "oh" yes he put unleaded into the Diesel Volvo ooops. Heigh Ho!

So we obviously missed the viewing and as it was a bank holiday called the office but no one was there to take our call or to cancel with the lady who was waiting for us at the house and by the time we arrived there we'd be 3 hours late and probably wouldn't be allowed in so no point in going :(.

Anyway at 6ish we finally arrived at Felixstowe to little man saying "we go to seaside NOW!!" so that's what we did.

TTFN!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It's a new dawn, It's a new day, it's a new life for me & I'm feeling good!!!

Yes I know, I know it has been 1 year and 4 months, that is 16months, that is approx. 480 days, that is 11,520hours I have had in which to write the simplest of words, Hello no doubt would have done but............................... in my defense until I came on my blog tonight I had NO idea it had been so long since I'd last put finger to keyboard!!

I had a lovely email from a fellow mumsnetter tonight asking about Norfolk, did I make the move, did I make friends etc and I thought yes now is the time. Well ok I've been thinking about it for the past couple of years the thing is with my illness now (Fibromyalgia for those new to this blog) my brain goes full steam ahead and my body lags like a slug behind
but although I haven't been posting about my new search doesn't mean it hasn't been happening and in true MY style no trip with me is without problems & simply we really do get our moneys worth out of the RAC, god bless them and all who drive in their recovery vehicles I salute you and thank you for the numerous times in different cars (don't ask) that you have come to my aid.
So apart from the odd nurse agency still trying to get me to do shifts (my details must be in some secret database of forgotten nurses) the inbox all full to chockka of houses & I look at a lot of houses per day now. The majority get discarded very quickly either through area or size, the nice ones get discarded because they won't accept, pets, children, sometimes adults the list is endless...

Then there is my list


ok that's not my list as the garden is toooooooooooooo big!!

Our "top ten" dream house checklist is

1. 4 beds, 2 receptions min, will look at 3 beds, 3 receptions (but you get the gist it has to be of a good size our business has already taken over the living room).
2. Good schools, within walking distance.
3. I would really like to have a big house with a white picket fence but I think I'm in the wrong country  in fact I would move in there but hold on, that isn't one of the houses from the walking dead is it???!
3. (because the other one didn't really count) we need shops this time, in particular a post office.
4. Superfast broadband (for our business but also for our zombie children)

5. 30 minutes to the sea (this is a new one for our escaping to the country checklist & poises a new challenge can you get the country & seaside??)
6. 2hrs - 2.5hrs back to London (family, friends commitments etc, Scotland & Cornwall are both out :) although is still on our viewing list. Will go into detail later.
7. Good community, ie woman's institute, vets football team etc - my blog depends on it :)
8. Willis friendly walks, there's nothing worse than googling dog friendly beaches and then arriving there and signs painted all over the pavements - no dogs allowed (not even a summer thing) Southwold you know I'm talking about you.
9.Gosh I don't even need 10 points, this should be easy hmmm. Easy to maintain garden but I do like a lot of flowers.
10. Lastly not essential but obviously I spend 80% of my life now indoors so a nice view would be good, I know what I'd like



Just not .....
..

So that's our checklist, well I haven't conferred with the family so that's my checklist.

So like the rest of the world on New Years Eve I make my New Years resolutions, normal things
remembering it is already 6 months into the New Year.
Lose weight  - um loss a bit then didn't so not yet!

and look for a new area in which to live in.............

So on the 3rd of January I had booked a trip in February to Minehead, Somerset, April a trip to Looe, Cornwall, May a trip to Felixstowe & July a trip to Hastings was Christchurch but got changed but still vaguely in the same area & then back to Looe (well we didn't get there in April) in October. From these places we're closer to look at certain areas of interest to ourselves. Now this is where I have to be careful as I have had photo copywriters (rightrattybutmyNO1emailermove) on my heels about sharing houses so will have to view them myself in order to take my own photos in order to be able to blog said photos aargh!!

Ok mini rant over!

So back to oh ooops should have thought about a major thing on my top ten , price renting no more then £950 pcm & £250,000 buying although would very much like closer to £175,000.

And............................ there was one other minor MAJOR point I need some warmth, now I did a search on google courtesy of www.currentresults.com

The Isles of Scilly have the highest mean annual temperature in the UK of 11.5 degrees Celsius (52.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Not far behind are coastal parts of Cornwall, where many low-elevation sites average above 11 °C (52 °F).


Cornwall and Scilly maintain the UK's highest year-round average not by getting really hot, but rather by not getting really cold. Nighttime lows at Scilly throughout winter typically stay above 5 °C (41 °F).
The ocean moderates temperature extremes and keeps these places warm during winter. Cornwall juts out into the sea at the southwest corner of Great Britain. The Atlantic Ocean borders Cornwall to the west and north, and the English Channel to the south.

Hottest place in the United Kingdom – Isles of Scilly.

The Isles of Scilly rise in the Atlantic about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the tip of the Cornish peninsula. The ocean around Cornwall and Scilly has the warmest temperature of any water off the UK coast.

Hot Places in Great Britain During Summer

Although it averages out as the hottest place year round, Scilly is not the hottest place in the UK during summer.
The highest that summertime temperatures usually get on the Isles of Scilly is just 19 °C (66.2 °F). Meanwhile, some inland parts of southern England average highs of over 20 °C (68 °F) in summer.
Among the hottest are the city of London and Wisley, a small village in Surrey. Both places have average maximum temperatures above 22 °C (71.6 °F) for July and August. Greenwich in July has an average daily maximum temperature of 22.8 °C (73.0 °F). In both London and Wisley the temperature has risen above 35 °C (95 °F) on more than one occasion.
Other places in Great Britain that regularly reach above 21 °C (69.8 °F) during summer months include Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Yeovilton and Cardiff.
London's temperatures get a boost from the dense concentration of large buildings that create the city's own climate, making London an urban heat-island.
But even London's green oasis at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens can get really hot. Kew Gardens is one of the few places in Britain where the temperature has gone above 100 degrees F (37.8 °C).
London's urban heat-island effect is most noticeable at night from late fall to early spring. During cold spells with little wind, the nighttime temperatures in central London can remain 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) above those in the surrounding suburbs and rural areas. The buildings soak up heat during the day and release it back into the city at night.

Warm Places in the UK During Winter

Places along Britain's coast, where the ocean moderates air temperature, stay the warmest in winter. The warmest waters off England lie along Cornwall and around the Isles of Scilly where the sea has a mean annual temperature of 11 to 12 °C (52 to 53.6 °F). Winds blowing in off the ocean heat Cornwall and Scilly during winter.
The Isles of Scilly have the balmiest winters in the UK, typically getting air frost on just two days a year. Weather stations define air frost as when the temperature at 1.25 metres (4.1 feet) above the ground falls below freezing. Air frost usually occurs on the Isles of Scilly when an easterly wind overrides the ocean influence by bringing in cold continental air.
Places in the UK that also get through winter with little frost are the coastal communities of Tenby in South West Wales, which averages 10 days a year, and St. Mawgan in Cornwall, where normally 14 days a year have air frost. Other sites commonly having less than 20 days of frost in winter lie along Britain's south and east coasts, and include Teignmouth, Eastbourse, Aberporth and Valley.
London's warm city air is no match for winter's warm Atlantic winds. The city gets much frostier than the coast. Greenwich reports an average of 29 days a year with air frost. Other places that get hot in summer, get even colder than London in winter. Stratford-upon-Avon and Yeovilton have over 50 frosty days a year



So you have some useful or useless dependant on where you'd like to live but either way some interesting facts there.
And back to my journey.

On a very very cold weekend in February we braced the weather to get to Minehead, to me quite a long drive as I struggle to sit for long periods, in fact I struggle to stand or lie for long periods in fact I'm pretty much pooped ;).


If it did tell me anything it was that living by the sea in winter would be no easy feat! Me and the little one went onto the beach, we're crazy that way and if you can imagine snot coming from our noses flying into the sky it was that bracing. But very lovely, it had a bit of a charm about it, in fact hubby said he would move there tomorrow but the journey for me was probably a bit too much.


It had all the usual shop, tea rooms etc and unlike most seaside places in winter the majority seemed to be open to business.

I swear by the Guardians Let's move to ..................... series so will add the link for each of the places to make your own minds up. Minehead. By the way driving up the cliffs & into Exmoor which is even in winter stunning its also like being in your own version of a rollercoaster, scary stuff I did shut my eyes on quite a few occasions luckily I wasn't driving hee hee ;) .


Despite the cold a lovely weekend was had.

Ok I've been writing for an hour now & it took me and hour to logo on. Forgot my email address , password, username you name it I lost it and the thought of writing a blog from scratch filled me with fear although its title should now be changed to movingtothecountry2015.

So I will bid you farewell now and will continue with Looe or not to Looe and Felixstowe on my next blog & this weekend I'm going to Bournemouth with my son to look at the uni and they are doing bus rides around the area! He would hate it but yay such fun can't wait so will add Bournemouth to the series.



TTFN!!