So....yesterday was the second and last farewell party for lots of very dear friends.  The sun shone and it was really glorious luckily.  When so many lovely people are gathered together it brings home quite forcefully what you are leaving which we chatted about this morning as we walked the dogs.  So an enjoyable time was edged with a little sadness, but at the same time we rejoiced in this age of modern technology and social media where it is so much easier to keep in touch with people and what is going on in their lives.  And some people will come out to visit us - we hope!  We also know so many lovely people in Puerto Pollensa so we feel very lucky.  Recent PP citizens and dear friends Ray and Sandy who have just moved back to the UK came to our party, as did another dear friend Mary who is back and forth to PP a very great deal and who we will, in fact, meet up with in the Port just after our arrival :-D

Here are some pics from our party (and if you aren't sure what we look like, we're the couple on the right in the first picture).

Following our previous post about the last time for things, we're now having meals at our favourite restaurants/pubs one last time and trying to cram in all the things you suddenly realise you want to do, for example I'd love to go on the newly opened i360 in Brighton and we've also just booked to see the Absolutely Fabulous movie.  It's the little things that you just take for granted that sneak up on you.  The major things you think about, but it's those pesky small ones that are in fact the bigger reminders of what you are about to do.  So our move is concentrating the mind wonderfully on all we've not done/visited/re-visited and so on!

Other reminders of our move (which is now just over two weeks away) is at Tesco - other supermarkets are also available ;-)  Recently I bought one of those large 3kg bags of pasta and the thought occurred to me that we wouldn't still be in the UK to finish it.  And I'm now buying 'normal' sized items such as ketchup or a box of washing machine tablets and knowing that we won't be here to finish them which is as good an indicator as any of the swift passage of time towards our departure date.

In the meantime we are hugely looking forward to a family wedding on 10th September and our last Saturday in UK.  It will be such a happy event and a lovely way to mark our last weekend here and as I love a good wedding I couldn't be more excited.  Then on Monday 12th our possessions are collected and start their journey to Mallorca and we leave on Wednesday 14th.....

There's always a last time for everything

So.....with less than four weeks before we leave we have moved into a reflective phase where many things we do make us think "This is the last time I will be doing/seeing etc this".  And it's quite a sobering thought.

I have been involved in scouting for many, many (oh so many!) years and had a wonderful time :-)  A couple of weeks ago I attended a Cub Scout camp for over 2,500 Cubs + all leaders etc to celebrate the centenary of Cub Scouting.  I have qualifications in air rifle shooting and abseil/climbing instruction and I went knowing that this would be the last time I used these hard-earned qualifications.  I instructed shooting all day on the Saturday and abseiling all day Sunday and as I instructed and enjoyed the day, all the time there was a little voice in my head saying "This is the last time you will be doing this" and it was quite bittersweet.  

We experienced the same feeling on our wedding anniversary which we always spend in Arundel (our special place) - it was the last time and we will miss it.  But we will create new traditions such as this but in Mallorca instead.  We already have a few ideas :-)

It's not even the more memorable moments like these.  Some everyday items such as large bags of pasta, bottles of shampoo and that sort of thing - it just suddenly registers that we won't be in the UK to finish them.  We've had to be careful that some things we've ordered will arrive in time and Ian, who wanted some non-emergency dental work done, has been unable to do so as it wouldn't be finished in time.  It's those sorts of moments that make us realise that we really are doing this........   It's not unsettling as such but a reality check nonetheless and probably one of the times that you could feel a bit wobbly about taking such a huge step.  Luckily - so far! - we've found it sobering but not worrying and fervently hope this remains the case.

In other news, we're making good progress with the packing and there's not much left all things considered.  I had a girly panic last weekend when I thought I'd packed everything appropriate to wear to a 'glamorous' themed hen-do but I managed to find something in the end.  The house has gradually been taken apart around us to a large extent and it feels like we're living in a perpetual state of departure.  

Overall, time seems to be flying by and we're trying to keep up with things like cancelling the various utilities, all of which seem to have different notice periods, and also sorting out our wills.  TOP TIP: make sure you have a will if you own property in either country.  We have had a Spanish will for a while now to cover our apartment in the Port but hadn't yet sorted out wills to cover our property etc in UK.  Apparently a lot of people don't have wills, perhaps because no-one likes to think about the fact that one day we won't be around any more!  But there is no getting away from it and you can get wills done in the UK really quite cheaply.  

In the meantime the clock keeps ticking.........

OK, so who put time on 'fast forward'?!

Well the truth is dawning - we're moving to Mallorca NEXT MONTH!!!!!  Cue running around in small circles like demented chickens.......

Not sure where the last month just went but wherever it went, it went there very quickly!  I've been teaching English to foreign language students for the last few weeks which was great fun and as quite a large number of them were Spanish it gave me a chance to practise my listening skills ;-)  So now I can join Ian in the box packing and general kerfuffle at home. 

So, we move next month and things are getting really imminent now.  We're both in the process of cancelling mobile phone contracts, utilities etc.  This has proved pretty frustrating as they all seem to have different notice periods varying from 3 months to 30 days to a week!  We have therefore diarised the different dates so that we don't forget anything.  Life is never simple is it?  We've also been getting in place all the necessary paperwork for our residencia application and re-registering our GB car in Spain.  It's an old but very reliable workhorse and worth us doing so in case you wonder!  We plan to use it until it falls apart so no plans to re-sell (and there's no market for RHD cars out there which we know).  Unless you are in the same position with an old, reliable and therefore cheap to re-register car which you don't plan on re-selling, our TOP TIP would be to buy out there although cars are not that cheap so do take that into account whilst budgeting for any move. 

On the subject of budgeting, whilst we were able to pay in full for the hotel in Zaragoza and the ferry from Barcelona to Palma ages ago when we first booked, this was not the case with the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao where you cannot pay that far in advance and you only pay a deposit.  They take the payment six weeks before travel so although Ian realised this and put a reminder on his phone, it still comes as a bit of a shock to have to find the best part of £500 so TOP TIP do bear this in mind if you are making similar travel arrangements.

In other news, oh dear the UK weather :-(  At the moment - and let's remind ourselves of the date of 2 Aug - it is grey and very blustery and has been wet all day, in fact this morning the rain was relentless sooooo..... whilst this is all very depressing, it is in fact quite helpful as it spurs us on, although to be fair we have had a few decent days - aren't we all lucky ;-o  Ian looks at the webcams on Puerto Pollensa seafront daily which is not necessarily what I want to see when it's chucking it down in UK but he finds it keeps him going - each to their own!  If you would like a daily live 'fix' of Puerto Pollensa, just click on this link and away you go 

http://www.seemallorca.com/webcams/port-de-pollensa

And if you want a quick look at what it looks like out there on that webcam as I type then we hope this makes you smile:

So to summarise, the closer you get to a major, life-changing event the faster the time goes by - fact!  As we get closer to the actual date (14th Sept) we will post in this blog more often and during the actual journey it will be every day :-D