England 2009 - Day 3 Wednesday

On the Wednesday morning, we had to get up early and take the dog for a walk at the castle. It was a lovely morning – not very sunny, but bright enough and fresh. We had a lovely wander around, until my mate phoned Numpty to arrange to meet him. The plan was that we were to meet him at 9am somewhere in Portsmouth. But he had got off the ferry at just gone 6am and decided to head on up the road and meet us there. We knew that the earliest we could get there was midday, and we had to pick up the keys! Once again, he had managed to screw up. He was meant to follow us there.

So, we said goodbye and thank you to Grandma and leapt in the car and whizzed up the road to Cheltenham. We were talking and stressed and missed the turning off the motorway, and ended up going as far as Oxford before we could turn. Looking at it objectively, it was the only mistake we made in the entire journey north, but at the time it was just another added stress! We picked up the keys, and headed to the house, to find him outside, sitting in his van sleeping!

Another friend, Joocey, had come down to Cheltenham, partly to see me, but mainly because it was her Gran’s birthday. She got the bus to the house, and between all of us we unloaded the van in record time. The amount of damage found that day and since was incredible. The guy is no more a professional removal man than I am. I have seen excellent removal men doing their job, and this wasn’t it.

He buggered off up north to another job, and we got stuck in to getting the house straight with what furniture we had. We decided to get the beds made up, just on mattresses in the bedrooms, to discover that one mattress was torn and most of the bedding was not included in the packing. Typical. We managed to put together enough stuff to make up two beds, with various throws etc. We got the kitchen and sitting room sorted, with the TV and Sky etc all set up.

We went to the chippy for lunch – I had a Pukka Pie (Beef & Onion) with chips and it was heavenly!!

During the afternoon, the new owner of the dog turned up. My mate has decided that she can’t actually keep her animals here. She managed to re-home one of the dogs and the cat in France, and the other dog in England. The plan is that she will have a full time job, and to keep in three animals all day, when they have been used to complete freedom most of their lives, would just be unfair. The lady turned up with a massive bunch of gorgeous flowers for her, and I think the dog will be very happy with her.

We took Joocey back to Cheltenham, did some food shopping, and went out to a friend of my mate’s for dinner, which was lovely. It meant that we didn’t have to think about food, and was done so beautifully –a lot of effort had gone into it.