Bonjour mon amis

Well here we are on 17th August, just over a week from landing permanently in France, a mess everywhere, piles of rubble in the field from drainage trenches, wood (good and bad) from the now dismantled log shed, boxes everywhere in the house and that niggle in the back of the head that whispers – what the hell have we done!!

The actual move followed 3-4 days of what to us was extreme stress, basically we were not ready for what was required, moving in the UK would have been bad enough but to move lock, stock and barrel to France as well as try and sell a flat and make sure the new tenants for the house we’re renting were sorted, well obviously things didn’t get done, utilities have not been notified, etc etc – too much to mention. Still as we are getting used to the well used French term – there is always tomorrow!!

We started on the Wednesday evening 7th August loading the 7.5 tonne van my brother brought up from Hastings with the hot tub in it and carried on loading Thursday.  Just in case, I had arranged to take the van to a ‘local’ weighbridge (30mins away) before setting off mid afternoon for the ferry. Opps first problem – overweight by 1.5 tonne!! – back to the farm to unload some of it but also conscious that we are running out of time. Took some of the heavy stuff out, including our recently purchase 270 bottle wine storage rack (nearly cried) and got the van on their way at 3.00 – restricted to 56mph means they will take a while to get to Portsmouth.  Viv in the meantime is sorting the rest of the house out. Come on got to go – I kept repeating, still surrounded in boxes and bits that would be going in the car. In the end it was ‘thrown’ in the car and what would not fit went to neighbours for collection another time and 4 trips back to the farm for Keith.

The van already gone, Keith set off in his car that was being garaged in Portsmouth now FULL with our clothes that would not be going now and anything else that would fit (including a sealed bottle of 44!!), followed closely by Viv in the Citroen FULL with stuff that was going. By now we had no idea of what was on the van or in the car and what was left behind for another day.   I had to pass some keys to the estate agent and would follow on the bike. Leaving only a few minutes after the loaded cars I thought (stupidly) I’ll soon catch them up – oh how wrong, down the M5 off on the 417, still no sign of them – onto M4 at Swindon, they must be here, maybe they went a different way?? Onto the A34, time to ring to find out what’s wrong, I was now doing just slightly over the limit and sometimes (quite a bit) a little more !!

Finally caught up at the end of the A34 thinking – they must have been naughty this afternoon (or something like that!!), Keith thought Viv wouldn’t keep up – oh how wrong, really messed up the good mileage returns though. This temporary relief was short lived, a phone call from my brother in the van, brakes have failed, they are on the roadside waiting for the breakdown !! – stress levels up a notch. I’m now thinking, vans not going to make it, we’re not going to make it – merde. But we all did somehow; admittedly we made it with only 20mins to sail!!

So we have arrived, sampled the bread and cheese lunch, drunk copious amounts of wine, relaxed and started to understand the meaning of the word retirement – it’s great!!

First bit of news from my brother and the van when they arrived at the cottage on Friday afternoon, as they had to travel on a different route so we didn’t see them from 3.00 when they left Tewkesbury till they arrived, ‘we were weighed and measured at the port  – very close to the limit  – more opps but hey we got away with it –

Lots of work is ahead of us, inside and out but we are gradually emptying boxes, clearing the mess (admittedly some of it has gone into the neighbours shed for later). Computer is up and running – telephone line installed last Monday 12th, should receive the modem Monday 19th and hopefully up and running with broadband, e mails and Skype from mid-week.