More Adventures in France Episode 15

Having arrived back in Garstang, we continued to battle with our internet connection, finally managing to get online on about Tuesday, when ,with great relief I could send off the next episode of the blog. From then on we were caught up in a whirl of activity! Although the house that sister Carol and brother-in-law Steve are moving into is not a new house, they have done extensive alterations and have turned it into a really beautiful residence, but the builders, who seem to have been on site forever, are still around but mainly working outdoors on all the finicky finishing off bits. Neels and Steve joined the crew of carpenters, plumbers, electricians and brickies and have been terribly busy fitting shelves into cupboards; moving piles of unused bricks and clearing space in the three-car garage to accommodate Steve’s pride and joy – his 1938 Rover car. Meanwhile Carol and I have had the easier tasks of deciding on colours and designs for window blinds and floor covering for the utility room! It is quite amazing how long such things take, leaving remarkably little time for browsing the shelves of the local supermarkets.
At the end of the week, we returned to the old house in St Bees in Cumbria to fetch some more things to be taken down to the new house, to cut the grass and to collect a trailer load of rocks for the new rockery. And, of course, the Rover. I can’t actually believe that so much has already been taken out of St Bees – enough to furnish the Garstang house – because there is still so much left. Having moved house several times in our lives, I am fully aware of how hard it is to find space for all one’s treasured possessions in a new house, but when down-sizing it is almost impossible, and this is the position Carol is in at the present time. I foresee many trips back and forth over the next few months as more and more gets transferred from one house to the other.
We were supposed to return to Garstang on Monday, in convoy – Carol driving one car towing the trailer full of rocks, while Steve follows at the wheel of the Rover, but if anyone was watching the news that day, you may have heard about the terrible gales in Scotland which flattened trees and left 40,000 people with electricity. So we decided that it wasn’t prudent to try to attempt the trip then so stayed over for another day. A heavy trailer would not make for fun driving in high wind conditions and the little old Rover prefers to travel in fair weather anyway.
I am unable to attach any photographs this week as I am using a remote computer to send this in an attempt at getting back into the old routine. Pictures will have to wait until next time.