Skeleton Keys Galore

It's been a month since we first moved to the UK and today, we got the keys to our house! It's interesting how rental properties are handled here--the owner pays for an "inventory" when you move in, and you have to pay to have an "inventory" when you move out. This is performed by an independent inventory clerk who takes pictures of just about every aspect of the property, notes any and all defects, and sends both the landlord and the tenant a 20-page report with all of his findings. At the end of the lease, the inventory clerk performs another inspection and is the only one who can determine whether or not any money needs to be deducted out of the tenant's deposit--what a nice system! 

Anyway, we were happy to see the house again and reassured that even though we were spending way too much money, we were getting what we paid for (sorta). We got to meet the owners for a few moments on the driveway (such a sweet, old couple!), and found a special note from them in the kitchen:

We should've done this for our tenants too!

 We toured the house with the inventory clerk, and signed for our keys...our skeleton keys! Stegen got a good kick out of these:

After we finalized our walk-through, we were left to soak it all in--this is our home for the next few years! Stegen found his favorite spot (and mine!) in the beautiful conservatory. 

This will be the kids' play room

Now that we officially had a place to call home, we decided to take full advantage of our last few days with a rental car and booked it over to Costco to stock up on essentials.

Since it gets dark at 4:30pm these days and the UK seems to have something against street lights, we drove home in total, rainy darkness--scary. If that weren't scary enough, our new rental van was a manual, with gears still in the same placement as they are back home, but on your left hand side! When we finally pulled into our parking space, Stegen and I had to sit in the car for a few extra minutes to decompress. Will we ever get used to the driving??

 We have a few more errands to run before our air shipment gets delivered tomorrow...and we fully plan on doing it all before it even gets remotely dark!