Man with a Van

Harriet arrived safely and without any problems at the Oasis Papagayo apartment in Corrolejo, Fuertoventura. She sent me a text to say she and Shane had arrived at Luton airport without any problems. She then sent me a text to say that they had checked in their luggage; A bit later I had another text to say that they were in the departure lounge waiting to board their flight. The next text was from Fuertoventura to say that they had landed and were sitting in the coach just waiting on their transfer to Corrolejo.

The following morning I had a text from Harriet to say they’d found a bar when they got to their resort and had both got bladdered and she was feeing sick. Apparently Shane was in bed nursing a hangover and she was going to the welcome meeting by herself. Much later in the day I had another text to say that they’d walked for miles and that it had rained all day. It’s like she still here! Kids!!!

Phil realised that it would be the last chance to have a meal at The Giffard and invited Jim & Shirley to join us. We had a nice time and it was good to catch up with them both. Of course it won’t be the last time we go to The Giffard, it just won’t be as convenient as it is when we are living in this house.

Yesterday we hired at van from a company called 1car1 who are located in Stacey Bushes. I accused Phil of being a cheapskate as I wanted to use Jon our usual ‘man with a van’ who not only has a big van but he’s also very strong. The van cost us £39 to hire for the day which wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as big as a regular a transit van. We moved our own mattress to the flat and brought the mattress in the flat back here and put this on Harriet’s bed, swapping Harriet’s mattress to the main bedroom.

I have been wanting to get rid of the old garage door which has been sitting at the side of the house by the back gate for ages. Unfortunately it wouldn’t fit into the van that we’d hired so Phil had to spend ages sawing it on both sides. His theory was that if he sawed it on the sides and in the middle we could bend it in half. I was very doubtful it would work but it did and we were able to get the door in the van easy peasy. Wouldn’t you the know, the very person we should bump into at Wolverton tip was, Jon, our regular ‘man with the van’. I was most embarrassed that we’d hired our own van and not used Jon and his van and we tried to avoid him. But it was no good; he spotted us and stopped for a chat.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the council offices to try and get our parking permits. In the past this has proved really difficult and we have been treated by Vinci parking admin staff with most suspicion, so we went in armed with all the evidence we could muster, prepared for a fight. The parking is now allocated by the council and the girl that we saw couldn’t have been more helpful. We came out with a permit for each car plus a visitor permit and a handful of scratch card permits. Phil was ecstatic; He hasn’t been this excited since we boarded the QM2 in New York. I am just relieved the parking is finally sorted; it has been on my mind.

Most of our stuff is now in the kebab flat. The Indian curry smell is almost gone but even with all the air fresheners I’ve set up, the flat smells of BO. I have cleaned, scrubbed and painted with all my might but the odour is still foul, it’s like its eking out of the core of the building like something out of a Stephen King book. If you see me or Phil and we stink of kebabs and BO, please know it’s not a personal hygiene problem, it’s the building where we live.

I can’t quite believe that today is our last day and night in this house. The dishwasher and washing machine have gone wrong and this morning I have to wait for Shenley Domestics to turn up and hope that they can fix them and its cheap. It’s just our luck that the appliances should fail just on the eve of our departure but we know from experience that it’s best to sort them out and not ignore them. If you ignore them, they just show their ugly face and bite you on the bum at the most inconvenient time. Phil has to work today as he has been called in for a team meeting but that’s okay, it will give me a whole day to clean the house from top to bottom. Tonight we shall party; I have a stack of chardonnay in the fridge and a copy of ‘Sex in the City’ DVD ready to watch tonight. All we need is some scuby snacks and we’re away.

What more could a girl want??????????????