The house move

Just an up-date to let you all know that I've arrived safely in England.

The move has not gone smoothly, in fact about 20% of our belongings are still in the care of a removals firm, somewhere in Spain! These include my PC and a lot of items I use on a daily basis. So I'm using borrowed PC's to communicate, but I have no way of getting pictures up-loaded for this blog or for work.

Still, we are in our new house and looking forward to an exciting year. The journey from Spain to England was straightforward and quick, but very cramped with two adults, a cat a dog and enough clothes and essentials to last two weeks.

When we set off, Eddie the dog was in his basket behind a dog guard and Chico the cat kept him company in his locked travelling box. The cat isn't a good traveller so we gave him a tranqueliser pill one hour before we set off.

The first half hour of the journey was spent discussing and worrying about what we might have left behind, then we settled down to what was going to be a 19 hour drive, broken up with two overnight stops. Just before our first coffee stop I noticed something in the rearview mirror, something very, very bad!

The cat had forced his way out of his travelling box, and in doing so had caused his nose to bleed. What I saw in the mirror was an animal dripping blood with manic eyes making its way to the front of the car.

It wasn't that dramatic really and his nose bleed was brief, I pulled over and we put him back in his box but for the next 18 hours Chico sat in his box on the passenger's knee.

The only other incident was the cat (again) finding and disappearing into a small gap between the bath panel and wall in a hotel in France. I had visions of him wondering around the heating duct system. I used a key and a pen knife as tools to remove the bath panel and found him tucked into a corner.

At this point in my blog I'd normally add a few photos, but I can't.
My observations on the journey were that service stations have improved greatly since my last big journey 5 years ago. In a lot of service stations in France there's a franchise called "Paul" which sells fresh baked bread, pastries and very good coffee, quite a luxury on a long journey.

The hotels we stayed in, both in Spain and France en route were Ibis which are comfortable and pet friendly.

The highlight of the drive was watching the landscape change from the ruggedness of rural Andalucia to the Great Plain south of Madrid and then change again to the alpine landscape of northern Spain and the Basque country. All very grand and dramatic.

Driving up through western France there is no drama or hills for that matter. There are hours of forests that give way to the great wine producing regions, finally through the battle fields of the two wars. All very beautiful in the spring and summer but very bleak during the first week of February week. We were relieved and impressed with the Pet Passporting procedures at the Eurotunnel when both animals and paperwork were checked and OK'd for entry into the UK! Similarly, the entire Eurotunnel experience was quick and efficient for us.

We have had every type of weather known to man in our first week here, and today are looking out at what can only be described as a Christmas card landscape from our windows!

Join me again soon to see if our belonging have turned up!