First Night in a New Old House

As of yesterday, Masha and I have taken up residence in a new house. A new old house. Newer than the old one, but older than a new one. The owners decided they wanted their house back, so they booted us out, and long-story-short, we have a beautiful new house.

I had no idea a week ago that I would be living in a different house today, and I've been sort of going around feeling that I had the breath knocked out of me. But after going through half a bottle of Domestos cleaner, nearly rubbing through a couple of sponges, and scouring the place to bits, our house is looking better.

Yesterday the fire department (oops, Jono in a psychedelic yellow jacket and big red van) and Gaven came and helped cart our stuff away. Then Bruce and Rodgy came and heroically shovelled the rubbish out of the old bathtub outside into a trailer and hauled it to the dump. Rubbish is too tame a word. Rubbish is what my grandma has in her trash can. This stuff was definitely garbage. Garbage with an attitude.

As to the "stuff"- suffice it to say, moving is a good reminded not to buy, obtain, or otherwise find oneself in possession of more worldly goods, unless they are things to eat, which should also be kept to a minimum. I was able to pack up in a little over hour, because I've only been here a few months, and because having a weight limit on luggage is good encouragement not to get too much stuff. But Masha and I were both bemoaning her acquired clutter the night before we moved as she went around the house collecting odds and ends from shelves, cupboards, and corners, and looking for bags to stash them in. I said I would never buy anything again, and she scoffed. Rightly so, I suppose, because just this morning I bought a toilet brush at the market. It's shiny and sort of pink.

So we moved. A few hours later, Masha had swept and arranged the bedroom and lounge room, and I had the kitchen tidied and dishes organized in their cupboards, and was enjoying the luxury of a sink with pipes. There is indoor plumbing that works, and it is great. For some complicated reasons which I won't go into we can't have it running all the time, but we can turn it on when we need it and fill buckets.

We lit up the burners on the gas stove to offer a little heat, because the heating system doesn't work right now (and may not for a while...like, until we don't need it anymore.) When we moved in it was 4 celsius, which I think is about 42 farenheit. We were a little numb. I was washing some things in the kitchen and besides steam rising from the dish tub, there were trails of steam issuing from my hands and mouth. Masha laughed and we decided I was a dragon, minus the fire.

So last night was our first night at the house. By the time I went home from the Crowes' Masha had got the temperature up to 9, which sounded vicious to me until I thought it out in farenheit...50 degrees. Still cold, but we had hope. Bruce and Deb lent us a huge "ufo" heater, and downy duvet I've become fondly acquainted with on previous cold nights.

We plugged in the heater, hoping the electrical system would handle it in our funny little house. The heater has 4 or 5 levels, and we found it was fine on level two. On level two, we could have the fridge plugged in and choose one light. Two lights- POOF. All off. So all evening we played our little game.

"Can I turn on the bedroom light so I can put some things away?"
"Sure, I'll flip the kitchen off."
"Ok. Let's go eat." (she flips bedroom switch, while I hit the kitchen one)
"Um, I need the porch light to get my laundry." (Whole indoors goes temporarily dark.)

After our first meal in the cozy new kitchen, we were both exhausted. I was ready for bed. Masha wanted a shower, so she went down to Tom and Lena's because it was just too cold in our house for that.

We had agreed to spend the night in Masha's bedroom because my room is bigger and we hadn't even started heating it yet. Besides, two is better than one because if two lay down together they can keep warm...a bit of biblical wisdom from Ecclesiastes 4. No need to fight over the downy duvet. So I brought my stuff into her room and got under my mountain of blankets like a polar bear going into hibernation.

It was something like a glorified indoor camping trip. I've camped in temperatures a lot colder than 50, but this was a kind of dank, cold 50. I had bundled myself in a long sleeve, a short sleeve, a fleece jacket (thanks, Brie!) thick velour pants, cotton socks, fleece socks, two blankets, and half the duvet. The heater was full blast (full blast level two, that is) on the bed. We were snug as bugs in rugs. Half way through the night I kicked off half my half of the duvet and shed the fleece, and was quite happy. This morning I was pleased to find that I had survived.

We are doing quite well, I think. What a house. What a friend. What a life. I need to go eat supper now and get to Home Group.