Day two: Congestion and a castle

I spent some time re-organising things in the car before we left, which meant that we didn't get away until after 9.30am. The morning went smoothly enough after that and we were very pleased when, around lunch time, Sally informed us that there was a shopping centre just off the motorway. We quickly grabbed some provisions, including a lovely rotisserie chicken from a little grill restaurant in the car park, and the girls had a jump around in a bouncy castle in Haribo Land, which is apparently located in middle-of-nowhere Gemany

We got back on the motorway and were just tucking into our salami rolls when the traffic ground to a halt – the beginning of a couple of hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic as we made our way through several kilometres of roadworks.

We lost so much time to the traffic congestion that it was getting pretty late by the time we made it to Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. As it was five euros just to park our car at the bottom of the walk up to the castle, and the hour was on the late side, we decided to forgo an actual visit and instead headed to the campsite that Sally had pointed out on a lake nearby. 

After putting up the tent, we sat and had a picnic by the lake as the sun went down and the bats came out to hawk insects over the water

  

Day one: Ferry, France, Belgium, Germany

What with all of the last-minute cleaning and tidying, we left the house about 20 minutes late, so the drive to Dover was more than slightly tense as we tried to make up the time (not to mention cramped, as all of my careful packing had gone out the window as I crammed stuff into every available space). In the end, we arrived pretty much exactly at the last minute and were the last car on the ferry.

We then drove through France and into Belgium, stopping for lunch at a random restaurant that happened to be adjacent to one of the most amazing playgrounds we've ever come across. Kate and the girls spent ages bouncing on trampolines and paddling around in the watery area. 

We then headed for the campsite, which was another few hours away. There weren't many petrol stations on the motorway, and as we approached our destination, the fuel light came on. Now, on the day before we left, on a whim, we finally joined the 21^st century and bought ourselves a sat nav, which we have now dubbed Sally. She more than endeared herself to us as she directed us through the forest to a town with a petrol station. The town was on the Mosel River, right in the heart of wine-growing country, and it tore my heart out to drive down through vines bathed in a warm, afternoon glow, so desperate to get to the petrol station before it shut that we couldn't stop to take photos. I snatched a few from the car, but they really don't do justice to the absolutely stunning view we had as we drove down out of the hills.

Thankfully, the petrol station was open and, car replete, we headed back out to the campsite, where we put up our new tent for the first time in the near-dark and then sat in then 'foyer' dining on crisps, dried apricots, cucumber and flapjacks.

Nearly there...

I'm cheating a bit here. We're on the road now, so I'm going to backtrack a bit to fill in the past couple of days.

The weeks before we left were one big faff. Because we didn't have a set departure date, we didn't really knuckle down and get right into it until the last few days, so in the end, we left more than two weeks after we had planned.

But, we got a new fusebox installed, so we got our electrical safety certificate.

Matt the electrician hard at work

And as we were leaving, the plumbers were installing our new boiler, as we continued to accumulate more and more stuff for the trip, so with luck, we should have our gas safety certificate soon.

Chaos!

I'm going to digress here and write the final chapter of the Baxi Bermuda Inset 2 part 239280 front coals story. Just after we booked the plumbers in the replace the boiler, we got an email from Bob in Wales, who said he had found our missing part and was just waiting for it to arrive. Elated, we rang the plumbers to cancel the installation. But then, just as Kate was about to go online to pay for the elusive part, Bob called, devastated. As he was double-bubble-wrapping the coals, he broke one of them. And yes, it was the left one, the one that we needed, so the installation was back on...

With time running out to get to Greece in time, we finally puled our collective finger out and got to work in earnest. On the night before we left, I was up until 3am building an Ikea futon and doing a bit more tidying – before getting up at 5am to do the final pack and empty and clean the fridge.

The good news is that in the last few days before departure, we got our first booking for the house – four builders down from London for a job – hence the Ikea futon. They're booked in for four weeks with a possibility of an extension, which is great, as the booking will almost pay for the sodding new boiler.

Boiling mad

When Sarah was two or three, she damaged one of the fake coals in the lovely gas fire that hides our boiler. Over the years, it sustained further damage, but as we never used the fire, we thought little of it… until now.

Yesterday, we had a couple of guys come in to give us a gas safety check. We failed. Because of those damaged coals. Those obsolete damaged coals that no-one stocks any more. And we checked – Kate emailed about boiler 20 spare parts companies, many of whom then contacted others for her, but everyone had sold out.

So now, for want of a £30 spare part (yes, they apparently used to cost at least that much, although that was for a pair), we’re going to have to shell out the better part of £3,000 for a new boiler.

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that today is the 17th and we haven’t left yet. Well, for a variety of reasons, we’ve said symmetry be damned and put back our departure date a bit more. We’re now hoping to leave on Monday – the 22nd. We are leaving soon – I promise!

The good news is that a courier came around yesterday and picked up 30 boxes of wine – 284 bottles, to be exact. So that side of things has now been taken care of. The only problem is that I’ve done such a good job of the selling and storing side of things that we’re now running out of wine to drink. Thankfully there are a few good bottles to drink – tonight we’re going to celebrate ten years in the house with the bottle of 1999 Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill and the 1988 Jaboulet La Chapelle.

Tick, tick, drip, drip, drip...

With the clock ticking, I’m doing my best to drink down the cellar and eat down the freezer, with mixed success. The contents of the freezer are weird and varied and not always conducive to a coherent meal. Last night, we had a lamb shank broth made from homemade chicken stock and flavoured with old lamb rack bones paired with a gorgeous bottle of 1989 Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou.

Wine-wise, we’ve been living pretty high on the hog lately, as the above probably made clear. As well as some lovely reds and whites, we’ve been using any old excuse to pop a Champagne cork. We had some friends around for lunch yesterday and enjoyed a lovely bottle of Jacquesson 736 non-vintage – a current favourite that went down more than well enough.

We had some cause for celebration anyway as we’d earlier had good news from the emergency plumber we’d had o call in. The night before last, while Sarah was having a shower, water started to leak from a light fitting on the floor below. This has happened once before, when our shower broke and water poured out and overflowed. The prospect of having the plumber dig through the bathroom floor to find the leaking pipe filled us both with dread, but luckily he spotted a split in the seal around the shower tray (yes, I know, we should have spotted that) and the problem was solved.

In between dealing with tradesmen (we also had an electrician come around to do some testing – we failed...) and entertaining guests, I spent the day cajoling friends to open their wallets and relieve me of some of my other wines. Thankfully, they’ve been more than generous and the cellar will soon be looking significantly less bloated. I’ve also got a courier coming on Tuesday to take away another 280 or so bottles, which will leave things looking positively Spartan. 

Burgundy awaiting packing

Some of them will go into storage for shipping to Australia, but there are a number of bottles that I’ll try sell on straight away – and the quote I received from the wine merchant was very encouraging. One bottle I bought for £65 is now worth more than £450! Nice.

The cases are starting to stack up

And with regard to the final element of the three-point plan, on Friday I finally got a realistic quote from a shipping company, so things are looking quite a bit brighter all round on the wine front.

Ahh, detritus

After dinner last night, Kate and I sat down with a glass of wine each and started going through a big box of the girls’ drawings, paintings and random school stuff. It proved very difficult to make decisions – in particular, there was a period that Zoe went thought where she would draw the most amazing (but often disturbing) pictures of people and other creatures. Sadly, she grew out of it, but luckily we had kept quite a few of her best works.
 

The big barbie

Yesterday we had a bunch of friends around for a farewell barbecue. Kate wasn’t convinced it was a good idea as we’re rapidly running out of time, but she managed to fit in a very successful trip to the car boot sale in the morning, so that mollified her. I was keen to get everyone together for one last bash as I thought it would give us all a bit more of sense of closure.

We had a great time – the deck was absolutely heaving with people, through whom I kept having to thread as I made my way between kitchen and barbecue. I was too busy to take any photos at the time, but got a few of the aftermath this morning.

The ulterior motive for getting everyone together was to get some help drinking down the cellar and from that point of view, it was a great success.  

A lot less wine to worry about

Of course, most of our Winchester friends are parents and the house and garden took a bit of a beating as hordes of children ran screaming from point to point. The poor old medlar tree ended up with one of its branches twisted into an odd angle. One of the ice tubs also got a nice big crack in it as the kids all nominated each other to do the ice bucket challenge (cue much shrieking and laughter).

Our newly twisted tree

Kate and I spent a lot of the time answering ‘I don’t know’ to people’s questions, causing more than a few concerned and even slightly panicked looks from our questioners. The most common question was, ‘When are you leaving?’ To which the short answer was the good old ‘I don’t know.’ The longer answer is that we were aiming for 15 September, but have now shifted that back by a few days, partly because we almost certainly wouldn’t have been ready by then and partly because we recently discovered that we moved into this house on 17 September 2004, so if we can get out on the 17th, we’ll have lived here exactly ten years.

The next question was, ‘When will you be back in the UK?’ Yep, ‘I don’t know.’ As we haven’t managed to find a tenant yet, we’re not sure how long we can/want to stay in Europe, so we don’t know when we’ll be back. The type of tenant will largely determine the length of our stay (six-month versus holiday let), although the availability of suitable house sits for us in Europe will also be a factor.

And the other big question was ‘Where are you going.’ Nope, don’t really know the answer to that one either. We’ve organised a house sit on the Greek island of Syros for the whole of October, and we’ll be staying with my aunt in the Swiss Alps over Christmas, but other than that, everything’s up for grabs.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

The girls have spent most of their school holidays sitting on their bums watching television while I’ve been trying to sort the house out, so yesterday I put them to work scrubbing the deck (don’t worry, I helped too).

Do we have to?

Cue squabbling over who was too close to whom, much moaning about green muck on their hands and feet, and squeals of delight as they were splashed when I hosed the planks down.

Getting there... slowly

The end result was most gratifying – now we just have to treat it.

My eyes, my eyes! It's so bright!

Done

We also had the Velux window in the study replaced – I was the only one who could close it and it sometimes took me several goes to actually get it closed. The new one is lovely – slightly bigger (which made life difficult for the guys who put it in) and you can see out of it (moisture had got in between the double glazing in the old one). Of course, our finances have taken a nasty hit, but it needed to be done.

Making the hole bigger

Kate’s last day at work today!