Arriving hopefully

We - which for the time being is just me and durham_rambler, but tomorrow there will be Bears - are in Pittenweem.

We didn't - now, there's a surprise - set off as early as I had hoped, but we got away, and if we left anything essential behind, I haven't found out yet. We had lunch at a garden centre in Ponteland, and then shopped for essential supplies at Waitrose. The road up through Redesdale is beautiful, there were distant views from Carter Bar, there were green hills and different shades of yellow a scattering of dandelions, the deep gold of the gorse, the acid day-glo yellow of the rape fields - and an occasional clump of bluebells quite shocking in contrast.

On the outskirts of Edinburgh we switched on the sat-nav. She's quite old, and getting a bit cranky, but since there were warnings of delays on the motorway we followed her instructions. So we were rather taken aback when, half way across the Forth Road Bridge, she broke her silence with "Recalculating."

This is our house. It is, as you can see a fabulous location, and an interesting old house with lots of character. This is the sort of sentence structure which anticipates a 'but', isn't it? Ask me again at the end of the week: by then I'll have got used to some of its foibles. At the moment I'm thinking that there are things that aren't ideal, but that are inevitable given the shape of the house and the nature of the conversion: the big first floor room has to be the sitting room, with the sea visible through windows on three sides, so if you want to fit in two double bedrooms one of them has to be on the ground floor, which means the kitchen is tiny and food has to be transported up to the sitting / dining room... And like that. And the way to make me feel that it's quirky, but never mind, is to make sure that it's well-maintained and supplied. Perhaps there are more towels than I have so far found; there are, after all, additional dishcloths, and I have substituted one for the pillowslip which was hanging on the oven door. Maybe there are some matches, but it would be helpful to leave them by the gas hob with a note explaining that the ignition doesn't work and you'll need them - we eventually found this information in the folder. "We use a lighter or matches", it says. So will we, when we've bought some matches. Fortunately I like my broccoli crunchy.

"Don't you like it?" asks durham_rambler, and in many ways I do. But I'd like to have fallen in love at first sight. And of course I found the house, so I feel resonsible, and what if the Bears don't like it? And did I mention that having arrived first we have pinched the nicest bedroom, upstairs? I suppose we can offer to swap at half time!

Oh, it'll be fine, and we are right on the harbour, and there are lots of things I'm looking forward to doing and places I'm looking forward to going, and we'll have fun together...

And now is not the time I want to wrangle with a new-look LJ!