Reality Bites

Even though we're on holiday (having now moved north to Brittany for week 2) we're making mental lists of what needs doing at the house in Ålen.

Now I realise we haven't actually said very much about it.  It is up a private road which is already pitted, so goodness only knows what it'll be like in the winter, it has no running water or drainage / sewerage, there is no bathroom, or electricity or roofing insulation. Only the downstairs windows have secondary glazing, the steps up the veranda are rickety as is the main staircase, and I'm terrified that one of the children will fall down down them! And it only has 3 bedrooms, so I'm not sure where visitors will stay!

However, it has character - bag fills of the stuff, it has an amazing view along the valley in both directions; the rooms are huge with log burners in every one. The kitchen such as it is, is lovely and a good size.

And once it is finished it will be beautiful and make a great family home in the long term, and short term a great holiday home.

We've also just booked flights to go out in October to do the paperwork things and register the house. Well sort of. As it stands Jim and Maisie are flying out together, as I don't have enough holiday to take the whole week off (and someone else has some time booked the same week) but all 4 of us are flying home together.

The plan is that Ned and I fly out later in the week. To pitfalls of living in the south west and needing to be near a large airport are becoming increasingly obvious. No matter how I look at things it's not going to be an easy journey. Late night drives and early starts, or early starts and late night train journeys. You probably all think I'm a wuss, and in a sense you're probably right. But the last few times we've flown from Gatwick, the journey has been hideous and I'd need to leave as early as possible to make sure I got there on time and oh I won't go on, but I'm stressed thinking about it and it's making me grumpy.

Jim has gone out for a run with promises of hot chocolate and cake goodies we bought from an artisan baker earlier, much to Maisie's upset as they didn't get anything! Well Ned can't as all the lovely cakes and pastries are made with butter, and we tell Maisie that everything else is made with caramel as she doesn't like it! She was a proper grumkins - wish I'd had a photo!

Night night.

Things I have learnt # 104

Ikea kids lamps, without the shades, make good camping lights.

Camp Gardner

We made it!

After leaving home at 4.30 am Sunday morning we arrived in Royan at 4.30 Monday afternoon. We had a little stopover in Carhaix on Sunday night, which was welcome as I don't think Jim or I could have gone much further!

However it did rain. Boy did it rain!

When we were planning this trip we (meaning me!) thought it would be a good thing to go further south than Brittany, although we love it, the last few times we've been, the weather hasn't been much better than Devon.

So you can imagine the comments when we drove down here in the rain.

Still the sun shone as we arrived, and although we had a slight detour, we eventfully found our campsite; set up our camp; cooked dinner; had a walk; kids to bed we are now settling down with chocolate.

Big sighs of relief all round.

French France

So today we are on our way to France for our long awaited summer holiday.

Jim and I have gone from being very giddy and excited, to slightly, over awed which a fair helping of WTF have we done!

This is the second time Ned has been to France, and last time he was too little, so was easily contained. This time he is nearly 3 and in to everything, so I have had a few interrupted nights sleep panicking that he will fall over the side of the boat. 

We were pretty much one of the first vehicles onto the ferry this morning which normally is a good thing, as you tend to be first off.  Not today.

Today we were directed to the very bowels of the ferry with other T4 & 5's into a smallish space with only one way in and out, next to a table tennis table.  We were then escorted to a lift in the service area. Of course this means that not only are we going to have to perform vehicle gymnastics trying to get our long wheel base van out, but we will be the very last people off the ferry!

Thankfully we don't have too far to go tonight! 

Some news!

We got the house.

We've just bought a house in Norway!

Oh my goodness!!

I feel slightly sick now.

Need a lie down.....

Toll Road

This is the toll road that goes across the mountains from Ålen to 

It's amazing, even in the rain! 

Houses

So the whole purpose of our trip to Norway this weekend is to look at some houses.

If I may I will tell you about the second one first.  The estate agent was busy and couldn't show up around, so he said he would ask the owners to leave the keys hanging up for us.

We drove around a beautiful lake where we could hear the gently singing of some huskies, which believe are trained by Mel Andrews, who competes in the Femund Dog Sled race which starts down the road near Røros. 

We found the house which was a little uninspiring, very open and straight onto a busy main road which wouldn't be great for the kids.

The house itself was a bit bigger than the the first house (more later), but as there were no keys anywhere we couldn't really see. Bit disappointed, and very pleased that we didn't come all the way to see that one house. The agent will be getting a bit of an earful on Monday morning!

I think it's safe to say that, even despite me wearing my 'sensible hat', that Jim and I have both fallen hard for the first house we saw.

It's in a village called Ålen, up a private road, with an amazing view. It needs work, quite a bit in some instances, but it is lovely.

This is a view from the little veranda.

Whistling nostrils

Sorry, I have to share this.

About 2 weeks after we moved into our new house I woken up by a strange noise. It sounded like a smoke alarm battery running down - you know that kind of incessant high pitch noise - it had me crawling around the floor at 2 in the morning trying to find it before it woke anyone else up. 

Eventually I found d the noise.

Jim's nostrils.

I am sitting in Trondheim airport waiting for our flight home and Jim is napping.  And again his nostrils are making the most amazing sound! 

No one else seems to have noticed; or they are very well mannered Norwegians who are turning a blind eye, or ear I suppose!

My lovely running shoes

 So Friday morning was a whirlwind of, well, just stuff to do before Jim and I headed off to gatwick.

My to do list looked a bit like this:

1 - dogs to Stuart and Gina's house

2 - quick trip to supermarket to get cash and lunch

3 - register at new doctors surgery

4 - get Ned's prescription filled

5 - peg out washing as tumble dryer thermostat has died

6 - finish my packing

7 - finish sorting out lunch for the kids

8 - drop kids off at Ruth's

9 - take drill to Jim's office

10 - collect Jim

11 - drive to gatwick.

12 - park at gatwick, check in, have some food and go duty free shopping.

At no point did my list include retrieve charging iPad from home after driving to Jim's office and delivering drill, or again later when we were just about to go through security. Fail!

Thankfully we were parked in the short stay car park at the airport, and I was wearing my lovely running shoes (which glow in the dark!) so I didn't have to run too far!

Was knackered though by the end! And I added on an extra 40 minutes to our journey, which would have been fine had the traffic not been bad on the Link Road, the M3, the A358, the A303 or the M25!

My lovely running shoes.