posted on 11 October 2006 08:12
by
Ejc
Trying to work things out
Well - after a mainly positive meeting we're moving ahead. We have a move date set for 25th January and the company will have sorted out my contract by mid November - hopefully to everyone’s satisfaction as I don't want to be unfair. I guess I'm lucky if that if things go pear shaped - I can easily find another PM role with someone else though - but the last thing I really want to have to do is be starting in a new country, settling our son into school and also starting a new job. Although as my hubby said - if all else fails 3 months at home on garden leave wouldn't be too awful...... but I don't want to think about that just yet.
We're struggling a it with our 10year old and his language lessons - he simply doesn't see the urgency yet and it's rather frustrating at times. We don't want him to be a complete novice when we get there but it looks as though he'll still have only VERY basic knowledge.
Other plans for the move are starting to firm up – we’ve pretty much settles on a removal company who will pack and export wrap our stuff and we’re using what they call a “part-load” removal. That is all our stuff will be packed up and collected from the house on the 25th and taken back to the company’s depot. Then at some point within the next couple of weeks – it will be re-packed into a large lorry and will be brought over to France. This has saved us a fair amount and in fact has allowed us to opt for the export packing. Fortunately because our home is a holiday home – it’s already furnished – just about – so waiting for a week or two for the rest of our stuff to arrive won’t be a problem. But we will have to take the pot-plants ourselves though.
We’ve also learnt that we can’t take our pet chickens – we’ve a dozen and they’d need blood tests and vets inspections – and it was all hugely costly, so they’ll stay with us for the winter and will then be going to their new home – our local pub that already keeps rare breed sheep and pigs and was looking for some chickens as well. They’ll be spoilt and looked after very well. I don’t suppose they’d have liked the journey anyway…… The cat on the other hand is vaccinated, micro chipped and about to have his rabies blood test – which will be fun – he runs a mile if he sees that cat box – and trying to actually get him inside needs at least two adults because he seems to grow in size and manages to get all 4 paws on the edges of the box. I do have some pheromone calming spray to use on him that might help. He also seems to know when a visit to the vets is in order and manages to get extremely muddy and dirty in the hours before we go –so he looks thoroughly disreputable and he’ll sulk for days afterwards and make me feel like a complete rotter.