I love this house, it just doesn't feel like it's ours. It feels too good to be true. It's as though we're in a hotel or self-catering and soon someone is going to come and make us check out and go back to reality and our tiny old house.

Today we even nearly drove to our old home by mistake. It doesn't help that they're so close to each other so it was an easy mistake to make, but I think it sums up the unreality of it all.

There are many things not right yet: still no internet, the washing machine exploded and has had clothes stuck in it for a week (the engineer can't come until the 10th January by which time I don't think we'll want it open) we still have no idea what on earth the previous owners did with the wiring, telephone cables, TV aerials etc, the decking is rotted through, all of the floor tiling needs re-grouting and many tiles need replacing and a million other things but thankfully so far they all seem solvable.

It's hard not to feel stressed about it all, especially as I am now feeling so behind on work and beading, but I'm trying to remind myself that I promised myself some hibernation time and I need to take it.

Poor Mr Jean Power has been slowly discovering all those crazy things I had hidden in the attic in the old house as they begin to creep out of boxes. Some are amazing such as a 1970s food display stand and some are crazy such as this sweet stand I once bought and promptly forgot about.

We had friends over this evening and I couldn't resist using the stand for an array of chocolate doing my best impression of Margo from The Good Life.