3 weeks and counting

We still have some work to do on our house and garden but it was at the stage where we could put it back on the rental market. The photographer came on Wednesday last week, the estate agent put it in the window and on the Internet on Thursday and they had two calls that evening and another one on Friday for viewing on Saturday afternoon. I also had a text from a friend saying their friends were interested in our house and if they could come and see it on Saturday too. So, four viewings later, two offers on Sunday, a deposit paid on Monday and it looks like we will be leaving on July 15th.  

It all got very real quite quickly. After a couple of days trawling through properties on the internet, I had whittled it down to six possibilities. Time to bring in a relocation specialist to help me set up viewings and then get my bum on a plane to Barcelona.  I flew out Wednesday afternoon and saw 5 of the 6 houses on Thursday. I ended up cancelling the last one as having looked more closely at the photos, there was no way Tigger was going to get through the gate never mind onto the driveway. I amused a number of the estate agents and owners by measuring the width of the gates, driveway and height of the garages before even looking at the house. After a very long day, we decided on one of the houses. It's a little further out than I had hoped for but it's  within walking distance of shops and the beach (sorry JohnMill, no pool at this one). 

Here is our new home

Yesterday morning and early afternoon was spent dealing with estate agents/relocation specialist, agreeing contracts and paying the deposit, all of which turned out to be more stressful than anticipated. This called for a late lunch with wine to calm my frazzled nerves - might as well learn to live like a local as all shops close from 2 until 5pm there. 

I'm now back home for a rest  (read - carry on tidying the garden) and to sort out what we're going to take to Spain. Meanwhile as well as finishing all the other jobs on the house, Mark needs to build a large wooden box on the back of Tigger (no time to get the camper shell built) to take all our stuff.

The countdown has begun...

Back home - one month in

We moved back into our house on April 25th and were shocked with the poor state the last tenants had left it in. We hadn't expected to have to redecorate every room and replace carpets that had been damaged by the cats they weren't supposed to have. 

I spent most of the first week cleaning and got some professionals in to help. After 14 hours of Eastern Europe's finest just in the bathroom and kitchen, those rooms looked more habitable. We started bringing stuff up to the house from the shed and as crockery, cutlery, kettle and microwave were near the door we had the basics but by day 5, still no sight of my pans. If I couldn't grill it, oven bake it or microwave it, then we weren't eating it. I was so happy that our local M&S was doing meal deals so by adding packets of microwaveable veges we had tasty meals in the evenings without having to rely on takeaways. Later that week Mark had some help from a young chap in bringing the furniture up to the house so at least we had our comfy sofas to sink into at the end of the day, rather than just the two stools at the breakfast bar. I've just about found a home for everything but need to be quite brutal over the next month with the clothing and send bags full to the charity shops as we have far too much and we probably will never wear again. We had kept a lot of clothing just in case we had to resume the life we had before if travelling hadn't worked out for us, but I think we're past that stage now :-) We have no intention of going back to work EVER.

Mark spent most of the first week trying to get the main bathroom back in working order by removing all the tiles in the shower and installing showerwall boards instead. He needed to make sure there were no more leaks coming down through the remaining ceiling into the hall. He then spent the next few weeks treating the joists and repairing the ceiling,  stripping wallpaper from the hall, stairs and landing, and three bedrooms, re-plastering holes in the walls that had come to light with removal of the paper, sanding and painting woodwork, thirteen door frames, painting ceilings, replacing lights and light fittings in the bathroom and kitchen and a myriad of other small jobs that all take time and energy. 

I filled 3 wheelie bins just from the front garden and now I'm onto the back garden. We got a gardener in with all the power tools to at least make a start on it and get it looking tidy and now I need to cut it back even more.

Having cancelled the post redirection 3 times, we finally got the truck paperwork through to our friends Yvonne and Tony, so finally got to bring Tigger 2 home. Mark has had a couple of hours with spanners to take the bling off the load bed and he's now starting to work towards Camperlot.

Carpets and lino are due to be fitted on Wednesday and hopefully another decorator will also be in to help us this week so the house will be fit for photos to advertise and view to get new tenants in . Whilst we like being back home, we can't afford to live here without one of us going out to work (and that's not going to happen in the near future).

Maybe next month we can fit in a social life without falling asleep in our wine.