The Journey

10th July 2019, the great departure.

The house seemed remarkably quiet when we got up with only Harvey downstairs. Heidi, Bella and Warrior left ahead of us yesterday with a pet courier company. The idea of that was to make the move less stressful for all, but of course that would never actually be the case. Warrior had decided to stay out all night which wouldn't have been an issue if the courier had arrived at lunchtime as planned not 8:30 as they did, after delaying him with a cup of tea, searching the garden, outbuildings, street etc she marched in about 9:30.

So at about 8:30 the movers arrived; quite a lot had been prepacked over the last 3 weeks so we were confident that we would be out by 2pm. Our movers were great and very careful wrapped everything and as 2pm came and went I found myself sneakily packing boxes when they weren't looking, which speeded things up a bit, but does mean we will be playing guess the contents in a few weeks' time. 

Half way through the process I discovered that my GoPro and sound recording kit was somewhere in one of the vans, not on the 'do not pack pile' in the living room. After a frantic search of the van and the opening and resealing of five boxes we found it. Other useful items from the 'do not pack' pile are however now in storage:

Watercolours and pads

Sun hats

Large scale road maps of France (why would you think we didn't need that?)

Two bath towels left over the bathroom door for the last minute post cleaning, pre journey shower

While the packing was going on Sharron was continuously taking car loads of rubbish to the tip (obviously hadn't decluttered as much as we thought we had - or maybe we were just increasingly desperate for the removal to finish?) and trying to clean the house, the latter activity being frustrated by the random way the vans were being filled, almost everything was removed then left while they moved on to another room. The other issue that needed handling was Harvey; already confused by the absence of his mates he now had strange people removing stuff. For everyones' benefit we moved him in and out of the garden and isolating him from the workers.

Finally about 5pm the last van left, that gave us an hour to clean what we could, shower and get away, we did what we could but not as much as we would have liked.

The drive down to Folkestone and on to Le Shuttle went well; Harvey particularly liked the dog exercise area... so many unfamiliar smells.  

Now by the time we got to France we had been on the go for 18 hours non stop, so we probably weren't as careful as we should have been entering the destination in the sat nav. But we knew it would be about a 6-7 hr drive and the time and distance looked about right, so off we went. At about 2 am we pulled over for a couple of hours sleep. Trying to sleep in a car so full you can't recline the seat and vibrating for the snoring from the large dog in the back was impossible; I think we slept for about 30 minutes each. 

So on we went, reaching our destination at about 09:30 which was good, as we were meeting the owner of the gite at 10:00. The gite in the beautiful Indre countryside, not the equally beautiful Indre et Loire countryside - which was where we actually were. Who knew there are at least a dozen hamlets in France with the same name...

We were at least three hours from where we should have been. After several panicked phone calls to the gite owner and the notaire to reschedule, and the animal couriers who we we also meant to be meeting, we found out - thankfully - that the other two dogs and the cat would not be arriving til the next day

Three hours of driving later, we finally arrived. The gite is lovely and the location perfect; really quiet and green. However we didn't have much time to enjoy it as we had a 4pm appointment with the notaire in Bellac about an hour away, so off we went again. This was the first time I had met our vendors; I still haven't seen the house we are buying. Documents signed using an electronic signature pad, unlike the paperwork we'd had to initial every page of at home, we set off back having officially bought a house. 

Satnav hiccups meant a 1.5km off-road section on the way home;  not what we expected but it got us to where we wanted to be.

We got there via a stop for provisions in Eguzon. I actually managed to buy a loaf by myself only using what I think was French - I hate to think what the man in the shop thought.

Finally after a delicious bowl of pasta and a couple of well earned drinks, it finally felt that we have arrived.