Settling in, slowly. I was talking to Fox a few nights ago and we both marvelled at just how long it's taking Paul and I to unpack all the cartons (unpacking cartons=settling in and we don't unpack until we work out where the unpacked items go). Fox remembers all the moves we made with Crusty's work assignments and how quickly I would get the house organised and feeling like Home.

Of course, Crusty 'let' me do all the packing, so everything was boxed according to an un-boxing plan and all that was required was for the person bringing the carton in from the moving van to read the huge label stating room to deposit said carton into so I could very quickly put things away and get the house running along well.

Paul, well, let's just leave it at Moving House With An Aspie means he/she will unpack everything the non-Aspie spouse/partner has carefully packed, disregard the labelling system, and lob everything at the moving van...I open a carton thinking I've found the bed linens and instead find antique bottles wrapped IN BITS OF MY BLOODY FABRIC STASH! grrrrrrrr

The shed arrived last Friday (19th). By the end of the 20th Paul had 4 coats of stain on the exterior (looking very good!). By yesterday afternoon he had the carpet tiles we lifted off the kitchen floor (placed there by the previous owner in an effort to prevent her slipping on a slick kitchen floor, not glued down so recycling the tiles was possible) down on the shed floor. This morning we're moving ALL the unboxed to the shed - I CAN'T TAKE THE SENSE OF LIVING IN AN OPENING FRAME OF A HOARDERS EPISODE ANY LONGER - and of course my personal Aspie (Paul) can't take it any longer either. Besides, I've found the essentials so I can now go out to the shed every day and un-box one or two cartons until the job is well and truly done - no rush. I hope.

Yesterday while Paul was carpet tiling the shed, I was washing up the kitchen items going to the charity shop this morning. I was telling Fox the things we're sending to the charity shop and that list got him reminiscing - 'You could cut up and get two whole chickens in that electric skillet!'. He's right, the one I left behind in the USA when I came to Scotland was huge, and the one I bought to replace it was actually a bit more huge - I probably could have got three cut-up chickens in that thing!

Right, here is where I confess I make a really-really-really good fried chicken dinner. The chicken rolled in seasoned flour, mashed-butter only potatoes, and plenty of sweet corn (on or off the kernel depending on the time of year). Nothing says 'Hang in there, summer will come again!' in the dead of winter like a huge plate of fried chicken, buttery mash, and sweet kernel corn.

I'll be sad to see the ginormous electric skillet go but I've been using the normal sized one (nicely fries up one cut-up chicken OR six thick breasts OR six pork medallions...) and it's easier to A-find a place for in the downsizer kitchen and B-handle, especially when washing up after.

And the 6.5L slow-cooker is also going this morning. Man alive was washing that behemoth a pain - weighed a tonne and couldn't be put completely into the sink or dishwasher! The replacement/downsizer 3.5L one does as nice a beef and veg stew/chimiladas (refried beans, left-over and shredded roast beef rolled in fried corn tortillas on top and all of it smothered in extra-mature cheddar) as the gigantic one ever did, and is SO much easier to wash up. And bonus, the 3.5L takes a roast easily as well as the 6.5L one did, I just have to make sure the cut isn't as big as the ones I used in the larger pot. Jonesin - a smallish pork roast a tin or bottle of sauerkraut dumped over it for eight hours on low or a silverside beef with a nice pepper rub...dang, I'm drooling all over the keyboard here!

Several items like the two mentioned above are being 're-homed' today, and I can't wait to see the back of it all. We did a very real 'clean-out' before moving but found on arrival to the downsizer that we'd lugged along things we've no room for, or are inappropriate to our new lifestyle in other ways.

'Bye-bye-bye, baby, bye-bye!'

Winter cometh - we've been feeling the temperature steadily dropping the past three weeks, and we're just now in Day2 of a howling wind thingie - putting washing on the line is just not sensible as I don't want to be chasing my laundry through the village. Saturday was bright but not warm; Sunday it bucketed down rain all day - cold, near-icy rain. The forecast is for sleet-light snow by Saturday lasting into the coming week - so we won't be going down to Glamis Castle for the 'Bewitching Woods' light show walk, and we won't be taking the 'Ghosts of (insert town name here) walk Halloween Night, either, as neither of us wants to drive OR walk in the dark and icy weather.

If it helps any, dear reader(s), Paul and I both have never been big on being out in the dark and icy - ever at any age. I love a snowy day as much as I did when a child but I never-ever-ever liked being out in it after the sun went down. Ever. Nice that Paul is the same - his statement was 'Snowy-icy, day nicey but nae lark in the dark!' and included the admission he's held that view since childhood.

Honestly, I think Paul and I were both 'born old' - we're settling into our 60s easily as we've always been this way, really. Yeppers, cardi-wearing, sensible shoes, and nothing too 'flash' has always been both of our way so growing older just ain't a thing:)

We're going down to Dundee at the weekend to buy some new duvets for the bedroom. Now, I loathe duvets ordinarily but I now am the proud user of a 9kg washing machine that will happily wash a 15tog duvet and that makes all the difference. Before moving here we would have had to take the duvets to the laundry at £15 per duvet per washing-drying-fluffing. ERK! £15 a week to have hygienic duvets, I bloody well do not think so! I moved us to hand-crocheted blankets and bed sheets thinking I'd never agree to having another duvet again...until I got my new washer and now duvets are looking pretty much required now:) We're buying three so I can spend the winter quilting one whilst alternating the other two on the bed.

I still really hate duvet covers. A lot. I just don't have what it takes to change those covers (residual and likely life-long mobility issues after the fall in the front hall nearly three years ago). So we're buying three duvets and plain covers and I'm going to quilt the covers to the duvets - one duvet at a time. I love to quilt and the machine will take the quilted duvets as well (if not better) as if not quilted together. Win-win-win. We do have proper central heating in this house but we also live a bit higher in the glens than previously (we were in the vale in the old house so it was marginally warmer down there) and Piers Corbyn is predicting a hellacious winter for us this year - better prepared with warm covers should the cold make the central heating anaemic, or worse, the power to go down.

Mobility. As the cold settles in around us faster than I am so far settling us into this new house, my collarbone, biceps, and elbow ache unless I am very careful to keep warmly dressed. But I can ALMOST tie an apron behind my back now - well, ok, that's probably never going to happen but I can move around well enough to grab the tie-ends so I can slide the apron to the left and then tie the strings at my right side. Not that is going to be all that important soon as yesterday I got my sewing machine up and running so new tie-less aprons are soon to be hanging in the kitchen and off me:)

Mobility. I realised, yesterday afternoon as I stood in the back garden admiring Paul's hard work tiling the shed, that I've been outside more the last month than I have in the last several years (too embarrassing to count but it's more than the three since my disastrous fall in the front hall).

WOW - WOW - WOW is being able to 'nip down the shops' or across the street to the library a fabulous thing for so many reasons! First, I'm losing weight. Second, owing to the level nature of the area we now live in, I can carry home a sack full of moderately heavy shopping without worrying the pain in my chest is signalling imminent heart attack. No more breathlessness unless I try to walk too fast before properly warming up. Owing to the only two easy steps out the front and back means I can go in and out of the house just as much as I want - I love being able to get out to the washing line with a basket of washing, I love go outside at night and look up at the stars.

It is just now 0745h and still dark out.

Winter cometh.