It's all happening a bit fast for me!!! 5 more sleeps to go and the house still looks like a bomb has hit it. Mr A Right keeps saying that I'll get there but I'm not so sure.
A bit of a result, our tenant is returning to England after several years working abroad as so we're letting it furnished and in fact almost completely equipped. So we haven't had to clear everything out.
I love my house and I have loved living here in the house and also in Fillongley so although I do want to go off into the sunset in a stonking great motorhome it will be with some considerable regret, not to mention stress. I've never been emotionally attached to a house before but this one I'm struggling with. We both feel privileged to have been able to live in such a piece of history - it's now over 400 years old and is a prominent feature in the centre of the village. We have been planning this for 7 years and although we always knew we were going to move on, we have become quite settled in the village - not to mention the 7 extra years of tat that we have accumulated.
Every year we have said to the family - "Come to us this Christmas - this might be our last Christmas in this house" and we have had a fairly large and consistent family gathering. It did make me laugh when we told some family members that we were finally off on our travels that they actually said "What are we going to do at Christmas?"
Getting back to moving - we had already planned to go away next week to visit Mr Right's children and as our tenant wanted the house immediately we decided that we would pack everything up and get out sooner rather than later. A week away would have just pushed the date out further and our tenant was eager to move.
By next Wednesday evening we will be in Cheltenham at Briarfields Campsite (a well used and loved campsite) and we will have our van serviced on the Thursday at Motorhome Medics while we take the car and go to Cheddar to visit Mr Right's son. So Jan the Van will be having his bits checked over ready for our big adventure down South.
We're then back a week later as Mr Right still has the onerous duty of going to work until 20th December and we're eyeing up campsites near to where we currently live. Luckily as we are moving out very quickly our tenant has agreed that we can keep the studio for a couple more weeks so that I can get all the
Yesterday I was going through all my "toys" (which is what Mr Right calls all my crafting stuff) to decide what was coming with us as I'm terrified that I'm going to get bored. Not only when we finally go south, but also in the three weeks that we will be camping locally while Mr Right goes off to work. I selected a couple of "pretty" boxes and decided that my "toys" have to fit in there, once they are full then if I want anything else, something will have to be removed. I've also got a box for haberdashery items such as needles, cottons, elastic, a few fabric pieces, Velcro (both stitch on and stick on) and some very useful parachute cord - well I said "you never know when you need a strong piece of cord, I can make a dog lead out of that if necessary" - but I can't class these things as "toys" these are essentials of course. The surprising thing though is that I haven't yet managed to fill my two boxes - does that mean that I can take yet another hobby with me?
Actually yes, I've decided that I'm going to become a domestic goddess when we leave and I'm going to bake cakes and decorate them. It must be cheaper than buying and will give me something to do. I have never been much of a one for baking but I have heard a rumour that you can knock up a pretty good sponge in a Remoska. I did have a go the other day at fairy cakes and they were a complete failure, they didn't even get iced but were eaten almost immediately - unfortunately mainly by me though - but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. I've decided that if I'm going to take up a new hobby then at least if it's edible then we won't have a lot of tat gathering around the van - I can eat all the evidence!!!!!! Think there's potential for me to make a lot of mess though and I'm sure there will be a lot of icing sugar around.
Every time I take anything out to Jan I do make the effort to put it away and not just leave it in a pile to sort out later. This is to make sure that when the day comes I don't find that there is no space for all our stuff. Actually although our van doesn't have much in the way of "big" storage areas there is quite a bit of space in it. What I am concerned about is all the tins and jars in the kitchen cupboards, it seems a shame to throw away food and I'm wondering if there's a food bank around. Mr Right did point out that we didn't need to carry very much as that tin of emergency Corned Beef had indeed already been to France - three times and Germany twice.
We also must have forgotten how much there is to do when you move, just with the change of address and stuff - it seems to be a never-ending list.
One shock we had this week though - I contacted our motorhome insurers and advised them that we would be Full Timing and they advised us that it was an EXTRA £300 for just 60 days until our policy ran out. WHAT!!!!! I exclaimed. Then she advised that it will be about £1,900 a year to insure the van.
We were expecting about £1,000 so that's blown our budget just a bit, it's almost double. HOW CAN THIS BE? When are these insurance companies going to get real to the idea of Full-timing. Just because we want to sleep in our motorhome every night, they believe it is at more risk than being parked on our drive (empty) and they hike up our insurance from £750 per year to £1,900. Where is the sense in that? I suppose they just sting you because they are jealous that they have to work when we can "swan" about all over Europe!! I suppose when you put it like that I do feel sorry for them.
Anyone recommend a cheaper insurance company? This is through Aviva.
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