A dream no more...

With so many of our belongings packed up it is no longer a dream, the reality is upon us. Addresses have been changed for bank accounts, reading glasses have been taken to be mended, carpet cleaner booked for the day before we hand over the keys, frozen food has been re-homed (I hate throwing food away), the change bucket has been cashed in into a more portable form, the windows have been cleaned, the milk has been cancelled and paid up to date, it's not the arriving that's difficult to arrange it's the cleaning up before leaving. On the to do list, chasing up some paperwork, printing out a tax form in the hope they owe me something, booking a van for short haul stuff and I'm sure there are things that haven't come to mind yet.

Phil is looking at his last couple of days at work, we have his works leaving do on Thursday night which may lead to little being done on Friday, we have our leaving do in the village on the Saturday night, then friends over to pick up our fridge freezer on Sunday with a bit of lunch thrown in, the following Saturday we have a family do, so a busy social time ahead.

So I guess the question is how do I feel? I admit to a couple of anxiety attacks but they are connected to what we have to do between now and when we leave the rented house we are in. The overall feeling is of great excitement and the desire to be there not here, I have had days where I could quite happily have just got on a plane and left everything behind. I want to be where I can pop out and walk on the beach, where it is warm, where the sun shines for more than two or three days in a row. I want to know what it is like to live in a different country as opposed to just visiting one and not wanting to go home, I will admit there are few holidays abroad that I have wanted to come home from for various reasons. It's like achieving everything I ever wanted, I always wanted to live close to the sea, somewhere, somewhere else. I look back and think how many years I didn't get the chance to travel outside of the UK, mostly for financial reasons, other people would tell me of their holidays to places that to me seemed magical, each story I heard I promised myself I would one day visit the countries I dreamed of. At the age of 40 I could finally afford to have a holiday where ever I wanted so off I went to Sorrento in southern Italy with my daughter and a friend, I loved it so much I went back on my own two months later, that was the start! When I met Phil in 2005 the travel bug became fully unleashed, Italy, the Island of Rhodes, Belgium, Spain, Turkey, Tunisia and of course Portugal, so many visits to Portugal, the country which will become our home in just 16 days time when we arrive at our house.

Of course it goes without saying I will miss my family and friends, but we worked it out that it would take longer for them to drive to Cornwall than it does to fly to Faro or Lisbon and hope they will come visit as we will visit them when we can!

And so...

The wheel turns ever closer to our departure date.

Monday I had lunch with some old school chums who I met up with last year for the first time in more than 30 years. Once again it was fun, we reminisced about our time there, recalled names from the past, some of the escapades we got up to and how we didn't send our kids to boarding school because we disliked it so much. The other notable thing about Monday was I had a little wobble about the move, inevitable at some point, all in my head but it went along the lines of "OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,OhmygodI'm50andmovingtoPortugal,eeeeeeks". It soon passed!

Tuesday I did a little more packing, Wednesday a little more, the boxes now number 30 and I can't find much more to pack that we don't use daily, though there maybe some kitchen bits in one of the drawers. Today I took my Mac in to have a new DVD/CD drive fitted, fortunately the Mac is still under warranty. Went to have a chat with the local garage about some bits I want doing to the car, it's booked in for Tuesday to have an MOT, then I need to source a couple of parts for them to fit, another tick on the list. Now to find and book a van to move stuff to my daughters and book a carpet cleaner to come in after we have moved everything out!

Just 25 days to go!

Just the one Mrs Wembley!

Just the one box packed this week, running out of things we don't need to use over the next 4 weeks. Some utilities spoken to, a few more to go, then the tax office to inform of our impending departure.

Today has been spent cleaning as the letting agents are bringing round some prospective tenants, deep joy. I'm quite happy to clean when it's my choice, but having to do it makes me grouchy. Phil has to work so it's not his fault he can't be here to help and he does plenty of other stuff, like dealing with the utility people which I am crap at as it involves using the telephone. I'm quite looking forward to spending 11 days in various hotels where I won't even need to make the bed!

This weekend we are off to Wales to see a few good friends before we go, a few birthdays to celebrate too so it should be a good Easter weekend, I'm fairly sure my head will be out of sorts on Sunday morning, good job we don't have to travel back until Monday ~grins~. The weekend will gives us a break from routine which I think we need so we can come back mentally refreshed to tackle the last few weeks before leaving.

When we swap this view...



For this one!

Oh dear...

My brain has melted! I went to tax Roger today taking just the letter and no documents, face/palm, fail!

The box pile grows ever bigger, the inventory longer. Any one who gets presents from me, needn't expect them to come wrapped any time soon, you'll be lucky if you get a fancy bag! I've done enough packing to last me a life time. I used have a bit of a love affair with bubble wrap, just let me at those poppy little pouches and I'll enjoy whole minutes of fun, I've even played with on line bubble wrap, now I look at it and get a vague sense of horror. We have gone through nearly two rolls and piles of second hand wrap, if I never see another piece it will be too soon. Though that said I might see things in a different light when it comes to unwrapping when I can pop away to my hearts content, a little stomping may also come into play!

Today we handed in our notice on the house we are renting, which makes it feel even more real, which of course it is, we also have to give notice to all the utility providers at the end of the month.

So step by step, day by day things are coming together. Tomorrow I am taking the day off from all of it and going into Rugby to do a little shopping with a friend, provided it doesn't snow too hard as promised by the weather people.

Come Monday we will be just 6 weeks away from leaving the UK.

So what's happening...

More packing and then some unpacking as the removal company (which may I add are now booked) want us to put a price on each box, well on an inventory anyway. So boxes will be unpacked so we can work out what's in them and a rough value calculated. This weekend we plan to dismantle the dining table so we can make space for all the boxes and then determine the cubic capacity. We have chosen to use Algarve Removals as they can collect and deliver just when we want them to, so no sourcing a van or further transport from a depot, they are also competitive price wise and well recommended.

The best news is that my lovely car, Roger the Roadster is going to Portugal, I don't know why we didn't think about it before! At the end of May we will be back in the UK for Vikki, Phil's daughter's graduation, we're very proud of her, she scored a first from the Open University, we wouldn't miss it for the world. So the plan is to fly back to East Midlands and pick up Roger from my daughter Hazel's house then we have transport whilst visiting friends etc, we will then drive him back to Portugal, so another road trip to be planned. I do need to source new springs and maybe shocks and possibly a new hood. I'm very happy!

In other news we're looking forward to dinner with friends in their new house tomorrow night and then a long weekend in Wales for Easter. After that we will have to knuckle down and finish withe the packing and sorting, it's only seven weeks come Monday (17th March), not that were counting down the last 52 days...

In the meantime here's a pretty sunset over the River Mira, with Vila Nova de Milfontes in the distance.

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?".