Wednesday, March 21, 2007

How we arrived France


Well here we go with the next saga – the day it changed the rest of our lives forever. The day we shall never forget and was controlled by happenings, which we could not have predicted. We say Fate !!

The established and well known removal company had informed us they would arrive at 9am in the morning, under no circumstances would it be earlier, the men did not start until 9am !!! So we had booked our crossing for 10.30pm on the overnight ferry thinking that they would take about 3 to 4 hours to load everything up, giving us time to gather our thoughts and the animals and drive to the caravan park, load up and do the five hour journey to the coast. So we made sure the previous evening we were all ready with cat baskets etc and made sure we got up at 7.30am to pack the rest of the bedroom etc. as one does, most people have moved house – has it ever gone to plan. We had just literally got out of bed when the door bell went and there were about eight young men at the door with the removal van… well, from that moment on – chaos reigned for about an hour – and that’s all it took, all these men running in and out – because they said they had another job on, so they had laid all hands on the deck for a quick job. (Shame they could not have informed us previously of this).

OK..9am and all is quiet, no furniture, no food, no nothing ! Everything had gone, including our breakfast.

So we commenced what became a slow and painful journey to the coast with many stops and breaks. Arrived at the port and was held up quite a time while they checked all the animals etc. (Cats were not amused at being hoisted out of their cages and pulled around, particularly as a couple of them had messed). OK..dealt with it and everything from then on seemed to go ok.. never towed a caravan before so it was a slow journey to our new home – and after some 26 hours on the road we arrived to find the area where we needed to place the caravan overgrown with weeds/grass, well over three feet high! How could this have happened from late February to beginning of May we thought…. we now know and understand…This is France !!

Slept rough that night with our caravan not positioned and next morning went and bought a heavy duty power driven strimmer with the recommendation of the chap in the shop. Two days later a section on the field had been removed and ready for the caravan. Oh…by the way….the power driven strimmer decided it was too much for it and broke down after the second day of use. But we had cleared enough to position the caravan and we slept like dogs in heaven that night – out of sight and completely shattered.

So commenced our renovation project…..

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