Tag Archives: Move

A video walk-around of the new Manchester apartment!

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We were given the keys to our new apartment up in Manchester today, and so a rather excited me decided to do as video walk-around for all you nosy folk hehe!

Property came furnished, so nothing that you see is ours. We intend on making some cosmetic changes, and hiding away a lot of the stuff that came with the apartment hehe!

Do bear with me, I am VERY excited in this YouTube, haha!

I have a gigantic…

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… CD collection! :P

Prior to the move, I have decided that I need to get rid of most of my CDs in order to free up dead space, and am currently engaged on a mammoth project to try to rip them all to my iMac’s hard drive (I am doing it at the highest possible quality to rip an .mp3 to – we’re talking 50MB a file – so I am also trying to future-proof this massive collection). Thus far, it has taken about 10 hours, and I am around a third of the way through.

Whilst I am keeping anything that relates to musical theatre, or anything with sentimental value, there is an awful lot that I am getting rid of, as I am something of a music buff (music is genuinely one of the most important things in the world to me, and I strongly believe that the concept of ‘music’ is Man’s best creation!). I will probably, and with a heavy heart, chuck my CDs out at the end of next week (around Jan 7), however, if anyone that I know wants to come round one evening and poke through my collection and salvage anything that they want, then you’d be more than welcome to let me know and we can see what we can arrange.

Going through my music collection, there are so many fantastic songs, albums and memories – I have the usual albums, and then quite a lot of singles, and a lot of promo CDs from promoters and radio stations, some of which didn’t even get commercial radio play – so it really is a treasure trove! I can remember back in 1996 getting my first CD and CD player for my birthday and it was a fascination that has stuck ever since.

It’s also something of a time-vortex, as all of the singles and albums are FILLED with inserts begging you to get your WAP (ha!) phone out and download a picture of the star by texting a number, or, worse, to receive a monophonic / polyphonic ringtone – HA!

Liberty X even had their own hotline!! :o

 

It truly is amazing to think of how far the music industry has come in the last five or six years, and how much more sophisticated both the market and the technology has since become. Never mind the switch from records to tape, or cassette to CD, I would say the shift for survival between early CDs and the CDs we get today has been the most noticeable change in music provision in recent history, and shows just how much technology has exploded in the last few years.

What is scary is that once this is all done, I will have around 50 continuous days worth of music on my iMac (around 1200 hours), and with my Spotify subscription and massive playlists that I manage, that becomes simply limitless! All that I can say is that it’s a good thing that I have eclectic tastes!

Now, where did I put that Vengaboys album…?! :P

A first peek at our new gaff, and a HUGE plea for help!

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So, for all you curtain twitchers out there, here are some pictures of our brand new apartment in Manchester City Centre! :D

Should probably add that the apartment isn’t quite as ‘brown’ or ‘peachy’ as these pretty naff estate agent’s pictures make it look – it’s very light and airy too, and incredibly spacious! Hurrah!

Best yet, it’s just over the road from where I used to live, before I moved to London, and only 10 minutes walk to work each morning.

Now, here’s where Max and I desperately need some help, and though we’re not expecting anything to come of this, we’re desperately trying any avenue possible to try to sort out the actual move itself. Below is what we really need, and if you feel that you would be willing to help, you would have our eternal gratitude, as well as a bottle or two of something nice!

  • We are moving on Saturday 28 January 2012, and this date is fixed.
  • The cheapest way appears to be to hire a van from Europcar, and go from London to Bristol, from Bristol to Manchester, and then for the driver to go back from Manchester to London. (or any other variation of this twisty location map – starting in Bristol or Manchester actually makes it a lot cheaper for us).
  • Ideally, we’d need the person to check out the van at, say, 11am on the Saturday, and return it back to the same depot by 10am on the Sunday.
  • Annoyingly, it is the law in the UK that the person who books the van has to have a credit card, and has to be in the name of the driver. I would happily send an same-day bank payment to the person who agrees to do this prior to any payment being made on their credit card – for this reason, we’d prefer to find someone who we’ve chatted to or known for some time if possible…
  • I imagine that you will need to be able to drive a van / have the necessary bit on your license.
  • We will also cover the insurance costs, which prevents an excess charge, but the Europcar may ‘pre-auth’ the card for £250, which does not get taken from the card at all, and is ‘released’ as soon as the van is returned unharmed.
  • We’ll pay via same day payment for the petrol costs too, as they provide a full tank, we just need to ensure there is a full tank when it goes back. Any re-fulling on the way will be paid for by us directly at the pumps.
  • We calculate this as a round trip of 500 miles (let’s all sing The Proclaimers! heh) and appreciate that it could be a long day. We are more than willing to build in plenty of rest stops, and for the person who drives to crash at ours for a few hours on the Saturday evening before heading back on the Sunday morning.

I know that this seems a pretty awkward and unattractive deal, and it is rapidly becoming a HUGE headache for us. Simply, we cannot afford £900 to get a man and a van service to move both of us, and at around a third of the cost, this is really our only option, and is actually the very last hurdle between us and Manchester! It would absolutely kill me for the wheels to fall off (no pun intended) just as everything’s fallen into place so well!

Failing that, if anyone fancies letting us rent their van, or can put us in touch with any non-exorbitantly priced movers, we’d love you long-time too!

If anyone is feeling generous, please do feel free to contact me via email, Twitter or Facebook.

Thanks for reading folks!! x