Erieversible

Tomorrow all post to the Isle of Man address starts being redirected by the Post Office.  Today’s delivery was the last post for us here, and marks yet another small step towards closure on the Isle of Man.

Apparently the mail deliveries here have been seriously disrupted by TT week.  The insurance broker has so far posted 2 copies of my no-claims statement, but neither has arrived.  Given the first was posted a week ago I suspect the story is not quite so simple.  Anyway, today I had to drive north to Ramsey to collect, by hand, a third copy of the letter.  Another small hassle sorted.

Tomorrow is Senior Race Day, the last day of the TT fortnight.  It is a Public Holiday over here, and unless any other small hassles rear their ugly head I shall be trying to have a relaxing day (NOT watching the maniacs on motorcycles) getting ready for the hectic weekend ahead.

Here we sit.  Homeless.  And waiting.  Two different realtors (estate agents) are trying to find us a short term rental.  At the moment they aren’t having much luck. 

It is quite understandable that home owners that are looking to rent out their property would prefer someone to sign a year long lease.  I understand and I would be completely the same if we had a property to rent out.

But…we need something for three or four months and don’t want to get tied to a full year lease on a property we don’t want to stay in.  We are hoping to buy a house in the next three to four months.  Now I could just lie to everyone, sign a year lease and then break it later.  There is a standard two month penalty clause for breaking a lease.  With all the other money we are spending, that wouldn’t be too bad.  But I can’t bring myself to lie.

Which means in a few weeks, when our hotel stay runs out (and we really don’t want to extend it, the hotel is lovely but it is expensive), we might just be more or less homeless.  (We have family in the area and can find places to stay, but we really want to get into something where we can start to feel settled as a family.)  Don’t suppose anyone out there has a lovely three or four bedroom house for rent in Millcreek for a short term only?

The kids seem to be taking it all in their stride.  Little one has decided she is glad we moved because she can get ice cream dots here.  (If you don’t know what they are, they are tiny little balls of ice cream that she just thinks are amazing and wonderful.)  Big one had a good day because he went to watch his cousin play baseball.  Which meant spending time with the extended family that he loves. 

It is harder being the designated adult.  There are so many decisions to make and so little time.  I am struggling to find a rental property.  No one wants to rent to us for less than a year, but even if we say we will go for a year, there doesn’t seem to be very much actually available!  I keep reminding myself that we have only been here for a few days and I shouldn’t panic yet.  But it is hard not to panic. 

We are going to tour a few schools in the next few days anyway.  Three appointments have been booked and we are all looking forward to seeing the schools and meeting the principals (head teachers for our British audience).  Not sure that seeing the schools will bring us any closer to actually choosing one, but I am optimistic (or trying to be).  I suspect we should at least be able to eliminate one from the list after the visits.  Any one of the three is bound to be unacceptable in some way or another.

The other thing to work on is job hunting.  At least if I can get a few interviews I could start to get back to thinking more like a professional person and less like a mommy/mummy.

But at the moment, I’m too tired to think about anything.  And I miss my sounding board.  Hubby and I spent two hours on the Skype phones today…probably talking to each other a lot more than we normally do at home.  But it wasn’t nearly the same as being together.  I’m in the weird position of wanting the time to go faster, so he can get here, and needing the time to slow down so I can get everything done that needs doing.

And tomorrow I have to find out all about mobile phones…