The journey back from the wedding was thankfully pretty uneventful and again we managed to drive ahead the worst of the weather, the ferry crossing was smooth and we arrived mid-afternoon, looking forward to seeing what extra work had been done during the three weeks we were away. The main guy, Ross, was also away on holiday in this time so we were unsure how much would be done. We walked into the new kitchen area and ….. It looked much the same… The painting had been finished which was promised to be done but I have to confess that we were a little disappointed that it was not obvious that more had been done, not quite sure what to expect but with Christmas looming it looked like things would be tight.

We needn’t have worried, good old Ross had everyone organised to be on site the next day and they worked hard over the next few days. A couple of weeks before Christmas we were able to ‘move in’ even if we had to make do with the folding chairs from Badger as armchairs in the living area. On the way back from the wedding we called again in a Vertigo Interiors in Loughborough to order our new very modern furniture. It was arranged that the removal specialists on the island , McAdie & Reeve, would collect these items as Vertigo’s courier does not deliver to Orkney. All was set until the day before collection when we were told that because of a large delivery coming in we could not pick up until next week ! Our lorry was already on its way and reorganising a thousand mile plus round trip would not be possible.  After a lot of fairly fraught phone calls, the next day we managed to get the very sensible Hanna from Vertigo on the phone, and she arranged with our couriers that Vertigo  would courier the items to Glasgow to McAdie & Reeve’s depot and then these would be picked up and ‘come home’ ( The Orkney term for stuff arriving on the Island ) the day before Christmas Eve.

McAdie & Reeve would then deliver our chairs and dining set on Christmas Eve. We thought this was cutting things a bit fine, but they were totally confident that all would be fine. Apparently every year they do this run and use it to ‘hoover up’ any deliveries for Orkney that might be waiting in other couriers depots so that those last minute deliveries get there.

Come Christmas Eve our furniture all arrived in the morning, also the shop in Kirkwall K2 turned up to fit the blinds in the master bedroom and I spent the rest of the day unboxing and assembling the furniture, at last it started to feel that we had finally moved in! We are so grateful to all the trades who worked so hard to get everything sorted. There are a few extras to do, most of these are on the outside but these can wait until the better weather.