August 2018

Well it has finally begun, all of the months of waiting for time to pass so we could really start organizing and getting ready for our move has finally arrived and there is lots to do! Our first job that we thought was the most important was organizing the shipping for our furniture and this is where my blog starts.

August 12th

I feel that my week has been a bit stressful this week as I had to sort shipping the furniture out to Cyprus on my own, I was hoping Nick would find time to get involved, but as he is still working and then he had a night out for his leaving party, he didn’t seem to have the time, so I called all the people we had quotes from at the beginning of August, they were just rough quotes based on a two bedroomed house, I did face time video’s with them all, walking around the house so they could see the furniture we have, each one took about forty minutes to do and I found it a bit stressful talking so much on the phone, and each company of course wants your business so they put a bit of pressure on, anyway all of that is now done and sorted, I got all the final quotes in and we chose the cheapest one which was Chudleys Shipping, this particular company also stores your furniture if its needed for a month in Cyprus at no extra charge which is good…so another job done.

So things are starting to come together a bit more, we have booked the shippers to come on the 18^th/19^th September, we have planned our flight  26^th September, and if the furniture takes 5 weeks it should be with us in Cyprus around the 14^th November, giving us roughly three weeks from when we land to find somewhere to rent long term.

I then had to sort out a crate and flight for our dog Maggie, she is a German Shepherd and coming up to the grand age of 13 years, it seems there are a lot of companies online who want to pick the dog up a few days before you fly to Cyprus, they board your dog at their kennels, give the last treatment they have to have and then take the dog to the airport, then transfer the dog into a crate, it did sound like less hassle but the prices they quoted were quite high, also with Maggie being an older dog I wanted us to be able to keep her with us for as long as possible and transfer her to a crate ourselves at the airport, anyway in the end it wasn’t as complicated as I thought after speaking to the people at the airport. We tried to find a crate online to make it cheaper but after lots of searching we gave up as we couldn’t find the extra large crate which they said she would need, so they made a custom crate for her and the total cost for her flight and the crate was £1,250, of course it’s much cheaper if the dog is smaller and if you can find a crate yourself.

 I have to say that my poor head has felt a bit done in this week as there has been so much for me to do and think about with trying to get the dates sorted properly, but I think the worst is hopefully over as I have now sorted out Maggie’s flight, mine and Nicks flights, the car is also booked to go from Southampton docks, (thankfully Nick sorted that out) and now the furniture is booked for shipping, my next job is to find us somewhere to stay short term for when we land in Paphos, and I also have a list to work from for cancelling things like utilities etc. and also changes of address for some things which I started at the beginning of the week, I think I am going to need a holiday soon, I would like to say I feel excited but stressed is maybe the word at the moment, but now all the major things are done maybe I might start feeling some excitement in the next few days.

20^th August.

This week has felt like another busy week as the company that we rent our house through had made lots of appointments for this week to show the house, which I also found a bit stressful, my goodness it seems everything is stressing me out at the moment, all I had to do really was keep the house spotless and then leave the house with Maggie when there were appointments, so not a lot of anything really, but I kept having to hide all my junk and then couldn’t find things again, I think the main problem was that I had started to sort out cupboards etc. and so I had piles for the charity shop, piles of different things for my sister and daughter, then of course my usual junk that I leave lying around, so everything had to keep being hidden, anyway thankfully it took less than a week for them to get the house rented so that was pretty cool, but it took me days to get over it lol.

22^nd August

Finding somewhere to stay in Cyprus has been more difficult than I thought it would be, we actually wanted a short term rental which would give us time to do some exploring and find the right area in Cyprus to live, and of course not having been to Cyprus before makes it more difficult, did we want to live in a city like Paphos or Limassol, or one of the villages and more Cypriot people, and at that point we hadn’t got a clue……I wrote emails to all the rental agencies, they all did get back to me but it seems they only deal with long term rentals, so then after spending ages thinking and researching I came up with Airbnb, I emailed lots of people who were advertising houses around the Paphos area to check they were ok with us taking Maggie, some were and some weren’t, I think September must still be a busy month for tourists in Cyprus as there didn’t seem to be too much available with a dog,  I finally found somewhere fairly close to Paphos airport, the village is called Kouklia, it cost a bit more than we wanted but at that time there wasn’t too much else, the village looks really nice though, so we now have that house for twenty days and we are hoping during that time we would have found a long term rental, we shall see…..

25^th August

Well this week there isn’t too much stress thankfully, I am just working on the list that I have which is nothing to bad, and now I have Nick to help me as he officially retired a few days ago, we did send off for our medical cards (S1) for Cyprus and we have been told they will be sent to us in Cyprus so we gave our Airbnb address, so another thing done.

Maggie our dog now has her own suitcase as we want to take Maggie’s bed with us to save having to worry about getting her one over there, it works out that our car is not due to arrive in Cyprus for three days after we arrive, so the expense of catching taxies to try and find her a bed will all add up, I do feel happier that her bed is coming with us so she won’t have to spend that first night lying on a cold tiled floor, which with her arthritis wouldn’t do her any good, I have read there are no carpets in Cyprus due to the heat in the summers, so we are going to have to get used to cold tiled floors.

The electric blankets arrived today, I had read so many times on different forums to take electric blankets with us, as some of the houses aren’t insulated or have central heating and I read that the beds can feel really damp during the winter months, I do find that odd but to be on the safe side we took everyone’s advice and bought two…..so tonight I  decided to try one out to see if it worked ok, and I am shocked at how amazing it is, I really don’t know why I didn’t buy myself an electric blanket years ago, as I was warm instantly and it was lovely, it was definitely a good buy, I think everyone that lives in a cold house should buy one and I wish I had thought of it while living here in Ryde, I really didn’t know they were this good to be honest.

I am quite amazed how quickly the time is going by at the moment and there is still quite a lot to do, but I am trying not to feel stressed, although I can see I am not sleeping as well as I normally do, I wonder if it’s an age thing…either that or I am just not as organized as I used to be….the good news though is that our three pages of things to do is now down to two pages, hopefully at some point everything will be crossed off and the pages will be in the bin.

This weekend I defrosted the fridge/freezer and gave it a scrub and put it up for sale, and also put my wardrobe up for sale, the wardrobe sold within an hour of me listing it so that was pretty cool….then I spent the rest of my weekend scrubbing the cooker as my neighbour needs a cooker so we are giving it to him.

This week we have to sort the garden out, re paint the bathroom and a few doors, take all the pictures down, fill  in holes, clean the couch and chairs and hundreds of other little jobs that need doing…but I am a list maker so we are slowly going through the list crossing things off as we go…hopefully it will all be done by the weekend….Wednesday we have to go to the tip and also stop off at the vets to pick up all Maggie’s medication to take with us, we think a few months’ worth should be good and it will give us time to find a vet over there.  Thursday we are going to Southampton to take the car to the docks for shipping and in-between tackle all the jobs on the list, so another busy week, I would like to say I am losing weight but having Nick home has not done my waist line any good as he likes to have cake or scones with his coffee when we are out, so I have to learn to have some will power and start saying no lol.

Well we are now at the end of August, it’s funny to think that we only have one more week left in this house, the time seems to be racing along a bit too quickly at the moment and we are virtually in September already!