Never let your Husband load paint in the car whilst distracted by the thought of an icecream

And other lessons learned while moving house...

• Dulux Once is a misnomer
• Getting three coats of paint on three rooms in three days is possible but not recommended
• Removal men are worth every penny
• Two year olds never fail to surprise you
• No matter how organised you are when you move the phrase 'where's the tin opener' will always strike fear into your heart
• Other people are skanky
• And strange

So we're moved. Finally.

Friday dawned bright and sunny and the removal men arrived half an hour early. Which was fantastic apart from the fact that they couldn't drive the very large lorries up our very narrow street... Many attempts were made (that thankfully did not end in destruction of other people's vehicles) and just when it seemed we were going to have to admit defeat the owner of the offending truck/jeep/huge vehicle in the way appeared and moved the huge thing out of the way.

As I said the removal men were worth every penny of the many, many pennies they cost. My parents were great - they took Lia out for the morning so we were able to get on with the business of emptying the house without having to worry about where she was. The packing up took just over four hours and the unpacking about three. Not one thing got broken (I was hoping it might slim down our mug collection a bit but no such luck!) and although we were tired by the end of the day at least we weren't exhausted as we would have been had we had to do it all ourselves (in fact I'm sure we wouldn't have managed even with all the friends that volunteered to help).

I picked up the keys just as the last few bits were being loaded up and we were told that it would be another two hours before our vendor was gone. We headed round to the new house with me worried we'd have to camp outside the place but there was no sign of her so we just got on with moving in.

Unfortunately she had completely failed to clean anything before she left. My Mum (bless her!) rolled up her sleeves and cleaned the bathroom (although she refused to do the shower, that involved bleach and re-grouting!) and then the kitchen. I got the job of cleaning the fridge which stank due to the crusted milk products on the shelves and also the oven which wasn't pleasant either.

I knew the carpets needed a good clean because I'd noticed when we looked round so I'd booked professional carpet cleaners to come in the following tuesday and thank god I had. Once the furniture had been removed they were even worse than I remembered!

The dirt wasn't 'I've sold the house I won't bother cleaning' it was 'I generally live in squalor because I'm a skanky cow'. Now I'm the first to admit that cleaning isn't the top of my agenda but I don't leave spilt food on surfaces, stains on carpets etc. I'm more of an ignore the dust and mess kind of home owner.

Still, we'd have cleaned the carpets anyway as well as everything else - what bothered me was the need to disinfect and 'deep clean' because she hadn't bothered. I felt bad because I didn't get to hoover round the whole of our old house before we left but I'd cleaned the bathroom and kitchen.

We'd also planned on painting rooms as soon as we moved (before they filled up with furniture etc). Lia's room was an attractive darkish blue, ours a darkish peachy/orange and the lounge had one wall that was eau-de-nil (ish) which wouldn't go with our bright red sofas that are on order...

So brush in hand I tackled the rooms (DH hates painting) and I managed to get three coats on all three rooms leaving just the skirting to do. I've suffered for it ever since as my arm has ached constantly for the last 10 days but it was worth it to see the rooms finished.

So with a thorough cleaning, carpets cleaned and walls freshly painted the house is now almost pristine and is great to go home to.

Lia's been a total champ. She kept herself amused most of the first weekend when I was painting and DH was pootling about doing jobs and she's slept just fine since we moved in - I was worried that she'd have problems adjusting but she's been absolutely terrific. She seems to be happy in the new house and will be even happier when she finally gets let loose on the garden (at the moment it's so overgrown that we'd lose her!)

Unpacking wise we're getting there. We need our friendly neighbourhood electrician to do a bit of work before we can put up our wardrobes and sort out the lounge so a lot of stuff is in boxes. Thankfully the kitchen doesn't need any work so we're living in there for now.

I'm trying to unpack at least one box a night at the moment and we should have Lia's room finished by the end of this coming weekend so all her stuff can get sorted and put away. The electrician is coming in early next week which means we should be almost sorted by the following weekend (although DH's parents will be here that week so I'm not sure exactly how much work we'll get done).

The only other saga with the house is that all we received were two back door keys. No keys for the front door or the patio doors. After much chasing the vendor told us that she'd never had keys for the front doors - they hadn't been supplied when she bought the house!!! So not only did she fail to mention this to us, she didn't chase it up at the time she bought the house AND she didn't get the locks changed during those three years.

As I said, people are strange...