It's all booked!

We're really going though I do keep pinching myself in case I am dreaming!

We depart this green and pleasant land on May 6th, boarding the 12:15 ferry from Dover to Callais in a Rover 75 with our most treasured possessions parted from the majority of our belongings as they will hopefully turn up at the appointed time and place.

We decided a while ago we would take a few days to drive over, having driven across most of France a couple of years ago, we want a relaxed journey with time to explore a few new places. So we decided that our first stop would be Rouen, then onto Bordeaux for the night, the third stop will be Salamanca in Spain which looks like a beautiful city for a wander round. The final two nights we're going to Elvas, a lovely hotel, a converted convent in the medieval walled town. Then three hours on the road and we'll be home!

Time to start sorting things out.

Well sooner or later it's down to what to take and what to offload, first on the agenda was my clothes. To simplify I brought the clothing down stairs (easier not to put things back on the rail). Three considerations, is it worth keeping? Will I actually wear it again? And is it suitable for Portugal? With this in mind I ended up with three quarters of a bag to throw away and I bag for others to pick through anything left goes to charity.

That tackled it was onto books, mostly the big books shelved downstairs, it worked out about a fifty/fifty split, so we have a unit of books for people to take if they want all others will go to our local charity book shop. I have a huge pile of paperbacks to wade through but once again I have a criteria, would anyone one really want to read it, we want to have some that people can borrow, have I got a duplicates on my iPad and is it in good condition? Pretty much all the books we're taking have been packed up, many of those we're not taking have been dispatched elsewhere.

Another weekend (we only have about 6 more free), another bout of clearing and packing. Saturdays job was the spare room which has been sorted and cleaned, partly for moving reasons but mostly because we have a friend staying over next weekend. Today we cleared the shed, dumped the crap and I packed up two more boxes of breakables.

And so the mountain of boxes grows as our life in this house diminishes, I wander round with a song in my head "Should it stay or should it go?".

Just a fabulous week!

Or how to get a water account set up in your name on a Tuesday when the house has two names and you speak little Portuguese!

But I'll start with Sunday, we arrived at the hotel a little later than planned as I managed to give wrong directions to it again, so after a brief tour of the less salubrious part of Faro we got back on the right road. While I was checking us in Phil got the drinks and being a little hyper we slightly over did it and paid for it the next morning.

Breakfast done we headed out to the shops to buy essentials for the house, new bedding, a TV and DVD player, wood, charcoal, food and other odds and sods. It was a good job we bought the bedding as our house has no air bricks and no ventilation (Portuguese houses just don't have them). When we opened up the house which had been sealed windows and shutters we found the condensation had played it's hand, all the bedding was damp and a pervading smell of damp ran through each room. Never ones to be deterred on went the heaters we'd bought last visit, windows thrown open, bedding out onto the line, mattress onto the veranda, lavender incense set to burn. We put our tea maker on and as I unpacked Phil lit the fire in the kitchen. All too soon we had to bring the mattress back in and set it close to a heater as the temperature dropped with the sun. Time to eat so we lit the BBQ (churrasco) and had a burger and some salad before pressing on with sorting the bedroom, we got the bed made with the new bed linen, set up the TV and DVD as our good friends arrived with an indoor table and chairs along with a couple of bottles of wine, well it would be rude not to drink it, so we sat and chatted for an hour catching up on our lives.
We sat out a little longer before snuggling down to our first night in our new home.

We got up to see the sunrise, I admit I went back to bed for an hour as it was pretty chilly. Waking up and being able to sit out on the veranda first thing is something I have dreamed of since we decided it was the house for us, the reality more than matched the dream.

First morning

So up and about early we headed off into Odemira to sort out the water account and pick up the keys for our postbox with a bit of a detour via the beach at Zambujeira.

Beach in the morning.

On arrival in Odemira we head to our favourite cafe there and have second breakfast and coffee, first being a small bowl of cereal, before walking up the hill to the Water authority building, which proves how unfit we both are. We know where we're going having been before, when they couldn't transfer the account because it was paid up to the end of the year. I have all the right paper work ready and with the help of a translation app we hand it over and wait, and wait, and wait. The ownership document and last owners bill are passed around many people several times, after around three quarters of an hour it is gestured that we should follow one of the women, I suggest to Phil on the way upstairs that the problem is the last owner renamed the house. After fifteen minutes in another office Phil puts this suggestion to them, both women nod profusely. The correct paper work is found and we head downstairs again, one of the women has decided we're ok and tries out her English on us we have a bit of a giggle and converse as much as we can. I pay and they ask me if I have met the water man who operates the irrigation system, we thought we had but had been misinformed, finally a man who speaks English turns up and we conclude business. We decide on another coffee before heading to the Correios (Post Office). This is relatively simple but involves waiting, we hand over our €4.50 and we have keys to our post box. We head to the supermarket for bread, cheese and ham before returning to the beach.

The rest of a week is dream like, breakfasts on the veranda, days wandering from beach to beach. On the Wednesday we had a lovely long lunch with our friends, Friday we went out for a stone steak, they bring you a hot stone and a raw steak which you cook at your table. Saturday we reciprocated and had our friends over for an afternoon of nibbles, spaghetti and wine. All too soon it was time to pack.

Saturday morning we stripped the bed and put the bedding into ventilated boxes, shut up the shutters but left a window in each of the four main rooms slightly open with cardboard to stop them flapping around, hopefully the house will be dry and aired when we return in twelve weeks time! It was sad to have to leave and come back to the UK to pay more rent when we own a house, to not seeing Egrets from the veranda in the morning, not hearing the ocean crash in the distance or the goat bells clunging. But our heads are full of what we want to do, ideas, plans, plots, strategies, marketing...

And after all we have but twelve weeks to sort and pack and do innumerable, well stuff!

And we have this to look forward too!

Our last visit to Portugal...

This Sunday we will have our last visit before we move full time. We're being brave and going to stay at our house despite the weather being pretty miserable and the house will be cold to the brick. However we do have two electric heaters and a fireplace in the kitchen. We're going to buy a good quilt and new bedding on our way down, oh and a couple of sun loungers for evening use.

We've been getting some prices for removal firms and it has now become apparent that my car will have to be sold to keep the costs down, hey ho I love that car so much but it's time to be growed up and realistic, their will be other roadsters at a later date.

We're both looking forward to getting back over, to actually staying in the house and plotting and planning and planning and plotting and getting more and more excited! Yes there were a lot of ands in that last sentence ~grins~, I have that child like and, and, and feeling like a six year old who is asked what they would like for Christmas. I can't use the words 'our house' enough.

Many practicalities lie ahead but I can enjoy the bits inbetween can't I?

So what's happening...

I guess we're in limbo right now, plotting and planning things we want to do with the house, that new kitchen I have never had and like wise new (indoor) bathroom, more of a very stylish wet room really and the out door bathroom, shower with a slightly sunken pool/bath built in a garden setting, possibly Moorish in style. Ideas galore for the landscaping of the 'field',the yurts and facilities, ideas for outdoor kitchens, planting fruit trees. Deciding what goes where, which bedroom to have.
I have (I think) decided on which kitchen I would like, we have decided that after a month of settling in (could be less) that we will repaint the house exterior, I'm toying with the idea of painting the shutters blue, then a repainting of the interior. We have to find a way into the roof space to see if it is insulated, where the wiring is (I need lots of sockets in the new kitchen). What solar power too, we know we want a water system but how much energy will we get off solar panels? Is it worth the outlay? What is the outlay? Can we get a grant? The front edge of the veranda will be a herb garden, the fence will be planted with climbing flowers, vines and vegetables. The veranda it's self will be adorned with wind chimes and hanging fish and guarded by Gabriel.
Veranda

Fish

Gabriel

As you can see I have ideas for making things attractive thank goodness Phil has more of a leaning toward the practical details ~grins~.
So much to do before we can go, lots of things to arrange, a van for moving the household stuff that Hazel is having, a carrier to take our stuff to Portugal and possibly my car too (does it stay or does it go), an exit strategy for the house, cleaning, carpets cleaned etc, sorting through clothes do I need or do I get rid of... I'm sure I'll get brain ache at some point!

It's official...

I'm bad at blogging! And I now, officially own a house in Portugal!

I promise to try and be better! So November 12th arrived and we drove down to Odemira from Alvor, admittedly slightly hungover due to late flight and being a bit hyped. We arrived at the allotted cafe and true to his word (which we never doubted), Tom met us at 11 pm, we sat and drank coffee and caught up, trying to be very Portuguese and not rush things. Then it was off to the local council offices to pay stamp duty (around €900) and transmission tax (around €800). Next stop was the notaries office where we had not one, not two, not three but four Remax representatives. Tom because we were his clients and our translator, Valdemar who was the representative for the property, a woman who was in charge of finance (because we arranged for Remax to draw up the cheque) and the owner of the franchise to oversee! Less than an hour later I was presented with the key to the house in a box with a key ring and the deeds to the house. More money changed hands and I had payed the notaries fees (around €360). We then all shook hands and exchanged chaste cheek kisses. Off we all went to Monte de Estrada where the old owners introduced us to our lovely neighbours, Luis (pronounced Looish) and Sylvia (pronounced Sylvia). We were shown the button for the water pump, the key box of many keys (goodness knows what they are all for). After much more cheek kissing we were finally alone in our house, with all kitchen crockery and cutlery, white goods and a made up bed, whoop it was ours.We also met our neighbours cat, very vocal, very friendly.

'She' came to call with each visit we payed to the house. We bought some bits and pieces to make the house feel more ours, a couple of rugs, a couple of heaters and a tea maker (we couldn't find a kettle). We met up with Tom again to sort out the changing over of bills into my name, the woman at the electric company was on strike, the water board could not change the name over until January, pure bureaucracy, the bills were paid to the end of the year and no system is set up place to do anything in advance! We did however get 3 years council tax free, as is our right. On the Thursday I opened a bank account. The first bank tied themselves into a loop. They insisted that I be able to prove I was either employed or retired, proof of house ownership, proof of fiscal identity seemed irrelevant, we gave up and went to another bank. BPI gave me an account (though they wanted to know my mother and father's name despite me being 50), they also didn't ask for a deposit! Figure that. We managed to change the electric contract into my name despite our lack of Portuguese and the electrical woman speaking no English, waving of bits of paper and gestures accommodated us well. Nicola and Phillipe not only celebrated our purchase on the Monday night but came over to see the house on the Wednesday which was lovely, to share the house with friends was lovely. On Thursday a foal was born next to our land which was quite profound, to us anyway, a new life born where we will be starting a new life!

And to top all that we saw some cracking sunsets over the Mira at Milfontes!

Tomorrow..

Tomorrow... Tomorrow evening we fly out to Portugal, staying over night in Alvor befor driving down to Odemira to pay taxes and hand over the cheque for the house. We also get to meet the vendors who want to go to the house with us and introduce us to the neighbours. Later in the week our lovely real estate guy will help us set up our electric and water accounts and ask for a 3 year dispensation on 'council tax' Excited... Much!