Exodus in duplicate

Want to start by saying how sad we are that Terry Pratchett died this month after years of battling the early onset of dementia, which he faced with courage and humour. He is quoted as saying in recent times..
“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.”

 We have read and re-read all of his books and have most of them in our library. He was one of our favourite authors, loved his humour, insight and creativity. We wait with anticipation and much sadness, his last book which culminates his 'Tiffany' series.

We will continue to remember him and talk about him ...“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” (from Going Postal)
We will read and re-read his books hopefully for some years to come until we get to meet one of his greatest characters DEATH who speaks in capital letters ......
“HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)”
― Hogfather.

Back to us... we are packing and sorting and then packing some more and then moving the boxes around and then repeating all the above  from the start. Will it ever stop?

Hopefully it will in a week or so. Below is a photo of our progress so far! About 18 cubic metres!

And the Minotaur and Tiger are coming too!

 We plan to use the same removal company as our buyer and do a turnaround with the vehicle, which will save us a few hundred quid.

We are also getting our newly acquired UK registered Honda CRV (swopped for our Portuguese Honda Civic Aerodeck).. rigged to safely carry the dogs during our 3 day road trip back to the UK in April. We are getting them used to being left in the car for 20 minutes or so at a time and have been taking them out for longer and longer trips.

So our exodus from Portugal is now only a few weeks away. More news before we finally leave, so stay tuned.

On 20th we stood outside and watched progress of the solar eclipse (given that it will be the last one we ever see) using our medical xrays to be able to view it safely. Fraser got some great shots. It was a great experience and the light was weird but beautiful!

Hope you got to see it too.

Goodbye Number 5..Hello Number 27!

We got a nasty shock when we received the surveyors report for the house we had hoped to buy. There was so much wrong in fact that we decided that we would not proceed with the sale. It is a shame because the accommodation was perfect. So I left Fraser in charge of the dogs and flew back to the UK and the IOW to reject the property and look for another one. As usual cousin Deb and her husband Dave were brilliant hosts and Debs came viewing with me on three of the days. 
Luckily I found a lovely bungalow just a few doors up from the original house. The accommodation is smaller (only two beds and one loo!) but it has been beautifully restored. Photos below.

 

 I managed to spend some time back in London but not much really. Managed to meet up with James and stayed with Rich and Jo.

Saw Lexa swim and met up with Adela for coffee and then it was back to Portugal.

Yesterday our 6 Perspective exhibition opened to run for a month. Masses of people came and it was buzzing. Thanks once again to Ton and Astrid pictured with the 6 of us below for hosting our work. It's great to celebrate the creative stuff we have been doing for fun and share it with others .

Well the dogs and I survived. The ponds are now bereft of any goldfish...Otters, Herons and who knows what, so I'm not restocking the snack bar...

I started rebuilding the fence below the field gate with willow that Mark, Nick and I sorted from our pollarding work. It got finished when Sylvia came home and we think it looks pretty good now and should stop any visiting small persons from going over the edge.

And... Found a nice clear few Mongoose tracks by one of the wells. Elusive little characters, not often seen, but they're there.

Exhibition

I am going to exhibit some of my abstract fabric work in a joint exhibition with 5 female friends. It's a first for me and the only one that I will do in Portugal. We decided it would be nice to celebrate what we do to get our creative juices flowing. So here is the poster and flyer and a couple of images of some of my most recent hangings.

New Year....New House

Having spent another two weeks in the Isle of Wight we have finally found our next (and hopefully final) home.

We ended up viewing 48 properties over the two visits, bungalows, semi-detached and detached, rural, urban.... looking all over the island and finally decided we wanted to be in Freshwater Bay on the West Wight coast.

The west coast is rugged and amazing.

It is a 3 bed Victorian semi, 5 minutes to walk to shops, pub, bus etc and 15 minutes walk to the beach.
 

Our 15 minute walk

The house is on The Avenue a fairly main road, but all in it is not too bad, considering what we have been used to. It is on the cusp of Freshwater and Totland and has a comfy lounge, large kitchen diner, conservatory, downstairs loo and great garden.  It is all up together, freshly decorated and cosy so all ready to move into.
So here are a few pictures of the place..

 All we have to do now is keep our fingers crossed and start shelling out the cash! 
We are already packing and hoping to be in by the beginning of May so watch this space!!!!!!!!

Year's End

December already! And the Christmas tree is up.

 It's been a busy year all told. Looking forward to more fund and adventure in 2015.

But as for December...

We spent 5 days on the Isle of Wight looking for properties. Stayed with cousin Debbie and her husband Dave who were wonderful hosts and incredibly helpful. Lots of advice and support and enthusiasm for our venture.

It was an interesting experience and we managed to view 19 properties in all. Many were simply not up for consideration but a few had a lot to offer. However there was always something missing or not quite enough for us to jump to making an offer.
We do know though, that this is where we would like to be and we did around 150 miles so feel we pretty much covered the area we would consider living in.

So now we are getting more properties lined up for our trip in January and hopeful that we will find something then.

In the meantime we spent some real quality time with friends and Family.
Fraser was back before me and managed to see friends in Bath and Swindon, before meeting up with me in London.

We spent three days in London over the two weekends and did lots of festive things with Rich, Jo and Lexa. We set up their advent calendars ready for 1st December. 
Saw the Paddington Movie which I would recommend to everyone..it was great fun. Bought and decorated their Christmas tree and paid a visit to Santa. I guess we haven't been good enough because he didn't have a present for us. 

 

We watched Lexa in one of the two Christmas plays that she is in. She goes to a Stagecoach club and they did a great performance where she was an elf and had 4 lines to say too. It was wonderful.

 The Christmas Raffle for the dog sanctuary raised 1,350 euros and our Christmas Quiz fun day here collected 13 bags of dog food too. Plus everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.
So we are all very happy about that. 

Much to do in the next few months but in the meantime we are having a break now until the new year when we travel back on 9th Jan to view more properties.

We hope all of us will have a Happy and Healthy 2015. Take care of yourselves and live each day as if it is your last.