Hi, everyone.
This isn't a normal language lesson today.
It's an apology.
We haven't been able to produce a new language video for quite a few weeks now because we've
been very, very busy.
And what have you been busy with?
We are moving.
Yes.
We're selling our house and we're moving somewhere else.
So, Vicki, why are we moving?
We need to downsize.
Our house is too big and we can save a lot of money on the mortgage if we live somewhere
else.
But now we have to give up a lot of our stuff.
Yes.
That's really hard for me.
And a lot of this month, we've spent our time decluttering.
We are throwing things out in big bags and leaving them out for the trash collectors
or, as Vicki would say, the dustman.
Yes.
And Jay finds throwing things away very hard, don't you?
I do.
I've been trying to tell him about Marie Kondo.
You know, the wonderful Japanese lady who says, you have to pick up something and say,
'Does it spark joy?'
And if it doesn't, then you throw it away.
You know, first of all, you say...
Thank you for your service.
That's right.
A lot of that's been happening.
The thing I find hard to throw away is books, but I've managed to get rid of about four
so far, and I've got a place that will accept donations.
I've had to throw out all my college books, and that was really hard.
Yeah.
And sorry, I meant four boxes so far.
Uhuh.
A lot more than four books, four big boxes.
But in fact, I've calculated I've got about another 20 boxes to go.
And luckily, these days, most books you can buy as e-books.
So I'm reasoning if it's important and I really want it, I'll go and get an e-book version.
Now there's something everyone out there is going to want to know.
Was that?
Where are we moving?
Oh.
We have no idea!
We are moving to wherever Vicki wants.
So we're looking at lots of places.
We haven't made a final decision yet.
We'll let you know when we do.
Yeah.
And it takes me a while to decide to make a big decision like 'where'.
So I've been doing lots of research into that as well.
I was supposed to be doing that.
But what one thing we have learned over the years is that when I have to buy a house,
I'll find the first one I like and buy it right away.
Yes.
So this time I said, Vicki, you find the house.
That's right.
I think it'll cause a lot fewer arguments.
Less stress.
Yes.
Now the other thing that's happened recently is in our brutal winter here in Philadelphia
is our heating system stopped working properly.
I know just at the time when we needed to do lots of repairs around the house, whenever
the temperature went below zero, it packed in.
It stopped at zero centigrade or zero Celsius.
Of course, in America, that's 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
And whatever it goes below 32, it gets really cold in here.
So that's why we're all wrapped up warm today.
Actually, this is the warmest I've been for ages because we've got some lights on here
and they're generating a bit of heat.
The studio is always warmer than the rest of the house.
Yeah, my nose is cold.
We have a new heating system that's already been delivered and it will be installed in
a couple of days.
But in the meantime, we have space heaters, electric heaters around the house to keep
us warm.
Yeah, it's been a very difficult couple of weeks.
Yeah.
And another thing that's going to be happening on Monday Jay managed to sell his sound booth.
What is it?
Well, it's a whisper room, isn't it.
A whisper room is a soundproof booth.
It just is big enough for me, and it has a wonderful microphone in it.
And I do lots of voiceover recordings and narrations in it for, not only our YouTube
channel, but for many other programs that I work on.
And we can't take it with us because it's way too...
This thing weighs nine hundred and eighty pounds, almost a thousand pounds.
And it's pretty big and we're going to be moving to somewhere smaller and you don't
use it as much as you used to do, do you?
No.
Most of our most of our work is done right here in front of the camera now, so we don't
use the sound booth very much.
But I've sold it and there's a guy coming on Monday to pick it up and we have to take
it apart over this weekend and we thought we'd been so organized because we have a friend
who is a sound engineer, and he was going to come and help us dismantle it tomorrow.
Except for we've had a blizzard in the Philadelphia area and all the streets are covered with
ice.
So it's very possible he won't be here.
Vicki and I have had to study YouTube videos on how to dismantle this thing.
And we're going to get to work on it tomorrow morning.
And we've got the piano movies coming on Monday morning.
It's not because we have a piano anymore, it's because we realized that they would have
the big equipment.
You need to move the heavy base of the sound booth.
The base of the sound booth weighs four hundred and eighty pounds, and it's too heavy for
us to carry down a one and a half flights of stairs.
So basically, we've sort of been beset with problems all month, haven't we?
So we apologize that we haven't been able to get a new video out on language.
However, we promise that once we're set up in our new digs, wherever that is, where is
it or we don't know wherever that is, we'll start putting out more videos.
In the meantime, of course, we have over three hundred videos on our YouTube channel.
And if you want more specific videos to look at, go to simple English videos dot com where
they're set up by category.
Right.
Yes.
What are the categories?
Oh, we've got vocabulary, British and American English, grammar.
You'll find different sections there.
Simple English videos Dot Com has the same videos on our YouTube channel, but it may
let you look at them in a more orderly fashion while you're waiting for us to come up with
new ones.
Yes.
And because I don't know when we're going to get the opportunity to make another video
or to make more videos yet, I thought that I would start posting photos and things like
that on the Community tab on YouTube.
So please keep in touch with this there.
And please bear with us.
We will try to get back to you as soon as we can, and we'll tell you on the community
tab or somehow or the other, how it's going and what's happening.
And we can tell you about the process of buying and selling a house.
Well, it's starting on Tuesday.
We have someone coming to do what.
Oh, they're going to stage the house.
It's like a set decorator on a movie set.
Yes.
So that's coming and there will be photographs.
And then of course, we had to hire a real estate agent.
They're very expensive in America.
They take six percent of the sale price.
And in the U.K., it's normally much less than that.
I mean, if you have to pay three percent, it's a lot.
So we interviewed what, four, five, six?
Yes.
Six real estate agents, something like that, until we made a decision about who we felt
most comfortable working with.
And I think she's going to be great.
She's really good, I think.
I think so, too.
Then, well, we'll see what happens after we sell the house.
Now, here's the thing.
Sometimes houses sell quickly and sometimes they sell slowly, and we have no way of knowing.
But apparently there's a graph like this.
A lot will sell in the first 10 days.
And then if you haven't sold in 10 days, the graph drops and you have no idea how long
it would take to sell, but you have to be ready to move pretty quick.
It's not like the U.K.
In the U.K., house purchases often fall through.
Things go wrong and you can't sell your house.
Well, we're hoping will sell this in the first 10 days after it goes on the market.
Keep your fingers crossed for us.
It's interesting.
Here in Philadelphia, housing prices have gone up by 15 percent over the last year,
and the number of houses available for sale in Philadelphia has dropped by nine percent.
So it's a seller's market and that's good for us.
Not so good for the buyers, but...
It won't be good for us when we're buying.
You're right.
OK, so apologies for not having a language based video for you this month, but wanted
to tell you where we were and what we were doing,
And we'll see you all soon with the new language video as soon as we get set up.
Contact us.
We always look at the comments on the YouTube channel and we respond to them whenever we
can.
So we'll be glad to hear from you there.
Look at the community tab and we'llrespond to comments there as well.
OK, guys.
Bye bye now.
See you.