Come on in

Welcome to our new flat in Bristol.

I received considerable stick from colleagues because I described it as minimalist. What I meant to say was, there's nothing in it yet!

But I actually quite like it like this, so when we return there tomorrow, we won't exactly be loaded down with 'stuff'.

Having said that, we did spend a fair bit of last weekend buying new things for the flat. Trouble was, we discovered today that it already has most of that stuff. Good job we shopped at Wilkinsons! It didn't exactly break the bank.

The best bit of today was trying to turn the water on. A person with me, who shall remain nameless, told me it was switched off because the taps wouldn't work.

I squeezed my not inconsiderable frame into a tiny room-cum-cupboard to turn the stop cock (once I'd found it by using my iPhone as a torch!).

Still no water (apparently).

So I consulted the 'home owner manual' (yes, the flat even comes with its own easy-to-follow guide, including an interactive CD). It referred me to a master valve outside the front door.

So after perching on a chair, spending 10 minutes trying to lever off the cover to the master valve, another couple of minutes finding the master valve and then turning the master valve... nothing!

As I was about to deliberately break something, the unnamed person said, 'Actually, I'm not sure whether I turned the bathroom tap properly.'

So I put everything - stopcock, master valve, master valve cover, chair, blah, blah, blah - back to its original state, the tap was turned a 'different' way and...bingo! Water flowed.

So it hadn't been off in the first place.

Anyway, this is not a blame culture. So that's the last you'll hear of that. We are finally in our flat and we really like it - it's a modern, sleek place, but comfortable.

And it's a short walk to everything - work, shops, even a jive dance class that I've discovered!

Incidentally, sorry it's another grainy, soft iPhone shot, but I didn't have enough hands to take my Nikon.