We made it.

When I asked people here how their move went they all sighed and said pretty much the same thing. "Well we made it". It's only now that I can fully appreciate what they meant!

We made it but the journey was long and stressful! We were still packing the trailer at midnight on Thursday and putting the last things in the van as we were due to leave the following morning but somehow we made it onto the ferry and heaved a sigh of relief. We drove in convoy with Ian only managing 55 mph (less uphill) and me behind with the cat. We kept in touch using walkie talkie radios. Friday we stayed in a nice hotel but collapsed into bed and passed out. We overslept the following morning but continued our drive southwards by mid morning and got here, finally at 8.00pm.

So we are here and keep having to remind ourselves that we don't have to go back

I will write more details as the days progress but for now we are resting!

One step closer

Today we drove up to London to collect the trailer. The snow here has gone but from Crowborough northwards it was still there beside the road with a most spectacular hoar frost through the Ashdown Forest. On the way there we stopped off to get rid of some scrap metal we had collected in the course of our work. I have never been to a scrap metal yard before and it felt very much like a scene from Mad Max minus Mel Gibson. The old copper and lead pipe paid for the fuel we used today.

The car park by Ian's garage was covered in a thick sheet of ice, so prising the trailer from its cave was a long job, involving a lot of digging, scraping and heaving. It was a hectic day but eventually we got here with the trailer and managed to park it outside the house. Tomorrow we start packing!

D (for departure) Day

Well, we've gone and done it! We've booked the ferry crossing for Friday morning. Over the past week the house has got emptier. Yesterday I gave away my bed frame and now we are sleeping on the floor. This evening the dining table and chairs went to a good home.. The kitchen is half packed, most of my clothes are in a suitcase and the cat has definitely realised that something is up!

We have no snow here but tomorrow we are driving up to  London the get the trailer, and that is still snowed in. I think we will have to do some digging.

I still don't know whether everything will fit in the trailer, van and car but I suppose we will sort out that problem if and when it happens.

Am I exited yet? Well, I don't really know. Sometimes I feel a twinge but then I think of all the things to do between now and getting on the ferry and I have to put my excitement to one side. Maybe when we are driving to the port I will feel a bit exited?

The journey down will take two days as we are driving slowly and in convoy. Thursday night we are having fish and chips at home, Friday night we are eating in a hotel. The hotel is cat friendly and will let us keep Mandi in the room in his crate.Mandi has a very special travel crate designed for a small dog so that he will have room to move around a little.

By Saturday evening we should be in the house..

Halted by the cold

The limbo continues and our progress has been slowed further by the coldest December that I can remember; with no sign of a let up! I went into town today and was stunned by how cold it felt. I had underestimate the weather and did not have nearly enough jumpers or socks! Tonight the temperature is -8 and there is still 10cm of snow and ice everywhere. We are making good progress with the jobs in the house but desperately need two snow free days to do the necessary outside jobs and then to get and load the trailer. We have not booked our tickets yet but hope to go next Thursday. I have now got rid of most of my furniture and we have packed most of our things. Last night I almost felt exited. If we have a thaw tomorrow and manage to get on with things I will more so.

Limbo

We are still heading forward, inching towards leaving..but with no definitive end in sight. Our first date was to be 1st December but that edged towards the 5th, then the 6th and now maybe sometime the week following. We still have a lot of jobs to do and our progress has not been helped by a sudden early snowfall. Snow by the coast is an uncommon event (although we seem to have had a fair bit over the past two years). Autumn has only just gone and suddenly we are in the middle of winter as this street scene shows.

This rose is doing its best to survive under the heap of snow! It's the earliest snow for 17 years but at the moment in the South East seems to be confined to Eastbourne for some odd reason, as Hastings and Brighton are clear.
 I must admit I didn't think we would have to deal with snow again and it has thrown us a little. Never the less we are getting there although the logistics of loading up, tidying, cleaning, handing the keys to the estate agent, manhandling the cat into his crate; and driving down through France through what is likely to be winter weather does fill me with some panic! Ian's IBS has started to play up in anticipation.

So, I am half moved out and half here. I am in limbo. My mail is now being redirected, my car is currently on EBay looking for a new home, we had farewell drinks with friends here on Thursday and have a family Christmas tomorrow and then technically we are gone..only not quite!

Onward

The strangeness continues as we progress slowly through the process of packing and decorating. The work on my house consists of two steps forward and one step back. The backward step involves Ian finding some electrical or plumbing abnormality that  requires fixing at once. The latest discoveries have been a leaking lead water pipe, a leaking radiator, an unearthed lighting circuit.. the list goes on. I go out to Screwfix or B&Q to buy more plaster/electric boxes/plumbing bits etc and Ian continues with the repair. We are progressing but I can't predict what we will uncover next and what other jobs we will need to do so although the day that we depart for France is looming, D day is still uncertain!

Disorientation

There's something about working 9-5, five days a week that means that you never have to think about what day it is. Life follows its regular, routine pattern; you get up, go to work, your day is organised for you, you come home, wait for the weekend, when your time is your own, but mostly you wake up around the same time anyway. It is quite freeing not to have that structure anymore, but yesterday I truly forgot what day of the week it was and although tomorrow is Saturday, for me it will be the same as Friday,

Ridding myself of possessions

I remember now why I haven't moved house very often; at least not since I started acquiring things! I actually find the process of sorting, packing and moving quite stressful, and not being one for creating lists, I wake up at odd hours with a long list of must do's circulating around my brain and hence find myself blogging at 4.45 a.m. in a vain attempt to make myself feel sleepy again! I suspect that today it is not going to work! Just to add to my sense of unreality it just worked out that this highly complicated and stressful move coincides with Ian and I finally living in the same house at the same time! For me, at the age of 51, this is a first! How mad is that! Actually, I think I might quite enjoy that bit if we weren't having to focus on a whole other life project at the same time! So, this is a time of massive transition for me and maybe I need to allow myself a few sleepless nights to help me cope!

The end effect of all this sorting and packing and trips to the dump is that my life should be lighter and less full of clutter. That's what I said last time I moved 8 years ago and I made a resolution not to acquire so many things and to be more organised. I must have forgotten that somewhere along the way!

Moving

The Universe works in mysterious ways as no sooner had I changed the banner at the top of the blog to demote the llamas to a less prominent position, they suddenly re-inserted themselves into my consciousness! I occasionally do a Google search of 'llamas for sale' and this time I spied someone selling a whole herd for a very reasonable price on the condition that the herd stayed together. Obviously an opportunity too good to miss and a quick email established that they had not been claimed. However, here is where the present interfered with our plans for the future as this news coincided with the weekend that Ian was finally moving out of his flat.

I arrived at his house on Friday evening. "I'm nearly packed; just a few bits of wood to remove from the loft tomorrow" said Ian; so with that I drifted off to sleep imagining some light packing, moving and cleaning the following day! Well, the few bits of wood turned out to be a loft full of tools, boxes, old cupboards etc and with 20 minutes to go until the new tenant arrived, we were still removing them from the loft! It really was like a scene from one of those DIY programmes where they are finishing off as the owners walk up the path!
Like one of those programmes we made it by the skin of our teeth, drove back to my house and were so tired yesterday it took us all day to recover! During our recovery we looked into the how's of transporting llamas to France and considered how we might  do it and whether it would be possible! I eventually phoned the seller of the llamas in the evening only to be told that someone had bought them that afternoon! Well I was a little disappointed but also relieved as logistically it would have been a nightmare!  However, what it did was re-ignite the llama flame and for that I am grateful!

Last minute panic

Suddenly I feel that the speed of events is picking up way too fast! Of course this is not true as we have been planning our move to France for more than two years, but all of sudden it is within touching distance and in some ways I can't believe we are there. It feels a little unreal and all those feelings of excitement and hopeful anticipation are being swept away into a tide of uncertainly and doubt and to make it all worse I am beginning to realise that I will miss my job and work colleagues! It's a strange feeling. I don't get it all the time but I am glad it is there as to really leave somewhere hating every last minute would be a bitter experience. At other moments I can get a sense of a new life ahead and an uncertain but exiting future. How great to still be able to have adventures when you are the wrong side of fifty!

Very soon there will be no time for these feelings as we will be totally caught up in the logistics of packing and moving. Ian is there already. Olga, a Russian woman from his previous workplace, was interested in his flat and she moves in next week. She is exited and Ian is rushing round trying to pack up his things. Tomorrow he drives down to the house with a full van of boxes and plasterboard, hoping to finish the ceiling in the kitchen before the winter starts. On his return we will start the final countdown.

Merging lives

Apologies for the lack of posting. Contrary to what some think I did in fact make it back from France but was thrown immediately into work without time or energy for a moments reflection. However, this period of my life is now coming to an end.

This time I have returned in a different mood. Of course I will not miss the frustrations from work, but at last, thankfully, I am beginning to appreciate the things that I will miss. The colleagues who I can chat and joke with over lunch, the way I am challenged by some of the things I have to do (in a positive way) , the grateful students, and the not so grateful and the students that I know I have made a difference to! I can finally say that I am glad and sad to go. This trip was different to the others. Up until now I have had my time in France; a working holiday, my work life, and home lives here and at Ian's place in London and I have managed to keep them in separate boxes. Now, they are merging together, and my 4 lives are becoming one. In a couple of weeks the London life will cease when Ian rents his flat; and I already have some potential tenants for my house and I can see a real end to these lives soon.... and in the not to distant future my main life will be in France. This is important to realise I think. One thing I learnt over the summer is that for our change to work we must make a 100% commitment to it. There can be no going back and forth to England every month because we feel like it (although some trips will be necessary at first); we need to work hard to make sure that we integrate into our new life in France and not spend most of our time with other English people, I need to work the two days a month that I have been offered in Bordeaux and maybe look for some other work to keep me interested until our B&B is operational; I need to try to learn to be French for a while even if, for a while, it means putting my English bit on hold. (I can easily revert to it if necessary).

Some you win and some you loose

I have been trying to buy an ice cream maker for ages. I started by scouring eBay, but missed out on a few bargains. I bought a Magimix one from John Lewis but decided that it was rubbish (and it didn't work properly) so I sent it back and today I saw quite a nice one on eBay that was local, so would save me the £8.00 postage normally quoted. Ian  suggested I bid with 20 seconds to go with the maximum price I was prepared to pay. With 6 seconds to go I was the highest bidder, but in the end I lost out!  Never mind! I'll get the ice cream machine one day!

In the meantime Ian bid on a second hand dumper truck somewhere up near Birmingham and he won it, so is driving up on Tuesday with the trailer and then we are taking it down to France on Friday. That marks the start of our three week trip. I no longer call it a holiday since we spend most of the time working. The good news is that we should be getting our WiMax connected on the 9th August so no more walking up to the neighbours' garden to use their wireless network!

Trendsetters!

We edge slowly towards France. Thinking about everything that needs to be done in a short space of time fills me with panic but each day more jobs get done. Ian arrived at the weekend with 30 packing crates and insisted that I start packing so that he has somewhere to put some of his things when his flat is rented. I went a good way to filling them up with my books, photos, and contents of some cupboards but Ian is most concerned that I start on my wardrobe! That is a job for later!

Today I took Mandelson the cat to get his pet passport. He was micro chipped, given two rabies jabs, and had a blood test (that can only be done at a government approved, i.e. expensive, laboratory) and today I had to go to pick up all the documents. Total cost was approximately £200  which makes it more than double the cost of my passport! There is a space on the document where I can put his photo but as I can never get him stay still long enough to take a photo of anything other than  his a*se I don't think I will bother!

My mother told me that she is waiting until her 80th birthday (in two weeks time) before renewing her passport, as then she won't have to pay.

Talking of Mandelson (this time Peter), I saw an interview with him the other week about his memoirs where he confessed that he wants to be a farmer. This is a quote from an interview with him from the spectator:

If you ask me where in 15 or 20 years' time I'd like to be, it will be probably on a farm somewhere close to the land, getting up early in the morning ... I want to be near land. I want to be able to grow my own food. Look after my own farm animals, worry about the weather and get the timing of my harvest right.

Where we go Peter Mandelson follows!

Moving on

Ian is now back from France and taking stock before he finally finishes off his flat and rents it out. Of course he spent Thursday and Friday of last week looking at more pictures of heavy machinery. This time it was a dumper truck which he assures me he will need and an old ride on lawn mower (although we have no lawn yet!) Fortunately he missed out on the bidding which was a relief as I am not sure what we would have done with them between now and our next trip.

I got some ideas for out logo last week from my graphic artist neighbour, so we played around with them a bit and made a decision. All will be revealed when we have the final drawing! We are edging forwards slowly! Tomorrow I have my last French class.

Decisions

One of our neighbours in France said to me a while ago that when the time is right to come to France you will know it in your heart and you will have to follow your heart. My heart has been clear that I am going to live in France for several months but it has not been totally sure about when exactly and so although I have been telling everyone that I am leaving soon I have not given my notice in at work in a formal sense. Today my heart became clear. A couple of mildly irritating things happened at work but nothing out of the ordinary. However, this prompted me to think and this time the answer appeared as if a final switch somewhere in the back of my mind had suddenly been turned on. It happened sometime this evening and when I spoke to Ian tonight I told him that I am going to hand in my notice when we get back from France. His heart had also been telling him the same. The only thing I don't know yet is whether I will go at the end of September or October and to decide this we need to have some serious logistical thinking when we are away but the final commitment in my head has been made and I will not go back on it. I am sure I will have plenty of doubts and second thoughts and worries but my heart has decided.

Adjustment

I am still at work and Ian has now escaped. I am really jealous and realise that staying at work for much longer is going to be a great struggle. I was cross  today and the temptation to hand my notice in there and then was quite overwhelming; so much so that I came home to avoid any more confrontations. I think this is not going to get any easier! However Ian has not found the first few days of being unemployed that easy either, as his friends and family seem to think that now he is at home he can spend all the time helping them. Adjustment is going to be hard work!

One goodbye will lead to another

Ian's work colleagues gave him a toy tractor, a book on llama breeding, some sheep shears and some money so that we can buy some trees for the land. The land has been heavily farmed and has no hedgerows or trees. We plan a small fruit orchard and would like to plant as many trees as we can to help us to subdivide what is at the moment an enormous field. He has two more days to go.

I also spoke to my managers at work about leaving and I think for the first time they actually believed that I am definately going. Hurrah!  As the time passes I feel more and more that it is the right decision and my days of doubt get less. The don't go completely but then I think if there was no doubt it wouldnn't be so exciting!

Moving forward

I met the new owner of my old bike at the station and handed it over. He was a young chap who had bought the bike for his girlfriend. I handed him the original receipt from 1985, which of course was written before he was born. That made me smile! I walked back, bikeless. The sun felt warm for the first time in weeks and as I walked back past a large tree a bird was singing so loudly that spring felt just round the corner.

This afternoon we listened to Joan Baez and I commented that we are so retro we are now trendy! Ian is advertising all his old racing bike bits on Ebay. His old, dented racing frame fetched £41. It feels quite nice to get rid of things that have been hanging around doing nothing. I am also sitting looking at virtually a room full of beer and wine as Ian has his leaving do at work next week and he is expecting about 100 people. It is a strange time for both of us. Sort of the beginning of the actual physical transition between here and our new life.

We also bought a bed, washing machine and a really fancy oven from ebay. It worked out well as Ian's friend is over visiting his parents in Derbyshire, which is just down the road from the showroom. He has also just purchased a new van and so was able to collect everything this weekend.

Happy Burns night

This weekend we put down the laminate floor in Ian's living room. The actual floor took about 4 hours to do, but clearing out the room, removing the carpet, taking it to the tip, levelling out the floor etc, took three times as long. At the tip, we were getting rid of our old carpet and another couple were throwing away their laminate floor. As I have said earlier, we are now thinking of our homes in terms of their rental potential as opposed to personal preference.

As the potential date for moving to France moves nearer and nearer and the plans become more and more real people keep asking me 'what are you going to do over there?' The honest answer is that in the short term I don't know. We have plans for the llama farm and bed and breakfast but they will take a year at least to get off the ground. I have also made some tentative contacts with regard to some possible teaching work that may or may not materialise. Ideally I think I would like to find a part time job locally in a clinical capacity as I think that would be the best way to integrate with the French community and would improve my French greatly. I am qualified but I have no idea what work is available and whether anyone would be interested in emplying me. There have only been two other times in my life when I have not had a job to go to. One was when I started work and the other was when I returned from travelling. In both cases I found jobs pretty quickly. When I was travelling I really enjoyed the uncertainty of not knowing where I was going to go the next day and what I wanted to do. The whole world was ahead of me and didn't scare me a bit. When I returned to the England I got more senior jobs, got a mortgage and although I didn't have children to tie me to one spot I did what most other people do; stayed put and settled down. My big move was when I moved to the coast from London 8 years ago although  the move was dictated by the job and not for any desire for a seaside retirement.

So now at the age of 51, I am off on another adeventure; the like of which I have not had since my 20s. I am a little anxious but really exited by the idea of the freedom . (I may not find the reality so great but watch this space!)

Tonight is Burn's night and I am off for a Burn's night celebration and to eat my first ever haggis!

(Overheard in Tesco: Couple buying lottery ticket. Her to him "if we win the lottery today maybe we can find somewhere nice to send your mother!")

My heart is changing

When we were in France we were talking with Hazel and Peter on one of our many visits and I was saying how, although I was sure about my decision to give up my job and live in France, the process of doing it from both the physical and the emotional point of view, was quite difficult. I am fed up with my current job but I still have a belief in the career that I have done for 30 years and unlike Ian, who contracts and has no great emotional attachment to his work, I can not say exactly the same. Hazel understood this and offered these words..

"one day you will just know that your heart has changed and you know where you want to be and then it will be more difficult to stay than to go"

I think I am beginning to understand what she meant. Getting back to work this time has been excruciating. Even tales of health and safety man can not lighten my mood enough or enable me to take my current job back into my heart in the way it deserves. I know that this will change to some degree as I get more into it but each time I go away and more aspects of the life in France become a reality my life back here seems more and more difficult. So I think Hazel is right and in the end I will just have to go physically so that my physical body can be in the same place as my spiritual one!