Phew! It's been a rather fraught couple of weeks here in deepest Kent.
My Husband James has just left on a ferry to Santander in a van full to bursting with furniture and household goods, all his trade tools, and a black laborador. He forgot to pack the sunloungers, and packed the curtains destined for his office here, but never mind.
Getting everything done and making sure all our customers are reasonably satisfied before he left, made him so stressed he was almost climbing the walls, which in turn had an effect on myself and the dog who was very worried. She knew something was going on and has spent most of the last week in the garden looking aprehensive. The dog is currently 10 decks down in a cage on the ferry, she'll probably need councelling when she gets home in six weeks.
The idea of this trip is twofold. There is quite a lot of work to be done on our little bungalow, and it's the first time we have spent any more than a couple of weeks in Spain. We have engaged a talented Polish builder called Julian to do the heavy work, but Husband is going to try his hand at tiling amongst other things. We tried to get our friend Graham who is a professional tiler to come out for a few days, but no go!
I say 'we', but of course I mean himself as I'm still here.
I'm going for 5 days next week, but someone has to earn a living and feed the cat, so I shall be mainly sending instruction from here, although I hope to go at the end of May when our Son, his wife and 2.5 kids are going to rent a villa along the road with her Brother, his wife, and his FIVE kids. I'm so glad we don't have the room to accomodate them all!
The downside of self-employment is that James will not be earning anything for 6 weeks, so it will take at least about 3 months to get our finances back to anything like normal, it's a foolish thing to do, and the stress it adds to our life is immense but we only have one life and we have to live it even if it means doing foolish things sometimes.
I'm sort of half hoping he'll love it so much he wants to stay and decides to throw the towel in here. Half hoping, half scared in case he does.
I think women generally finding moving more difficult than men. We have our local support network, the familiar everyday people and places we go to that we don't really value until we are presented with the threat of losing them and then it gets scary.
I have an unexiting, but full life here. I see people in the street I have known by sight since I was a girl. I feel very comfortable when I go to a market and chat with the same people each week both buyers and other traders. I'd miss that life.
I don't want to have to make a choice.............