E minus 6 days

E-Day minus 6 and the big adventure is coming at us like a parachutist's ground-rush. We dogs have already moved, of course and can only see Mum and Dad left behind via the frequent video-Skype / Facebook chats which flow between Diamond's place and the Silverwoods here. Dad is working his way through the final scenes of the play tying up loose ends. He has to pay the Big Green Lorry guys and give them the "any time after" date. It looks like for that we have now run so close to Christmas that BGL is now likely to be after the Season but that suits us as it gives us more time to prepare a landing site for all the stuff.

Dad has been to see the house in Faversham which Diamond's John is renovating in a similar way to what we'll be doing in Roscommon. John is a very particular and painstaking kind of bloke, so his stripping back of brickwork for re-plastering nibbles away every last shard of old plaster leaving a very clean brick face to screed. He winkles out every last bit of old lead gas-pipe and redundant water pipe or electricity cable, pulling up floor boards to gain access and re-laying them properly.

He does all this little by little, clearing away the debris each day, never letting an awesome pile of rubble or old broken wood build up. Radiators are stacked neatly in the cellar and all open pipe ends are sealed off with cloth and tape. It is stripped back so clean, tidy and safe that you could almost lay out a sleeping bag and sleep there. He also takes plenty of photo's so that should his spirits ever flag he can look back at the old shots and buoy himself up by how much he has achieved. John also talks a lot of common sense about what he does himself and when he calls in the trades, and how the budget works as a result.

Dad is inspired by all this and can see his way through how it's going to work at Roscommon. He was going a little wobbly about the destruction phase, worried that we'd end up with one of the houses on D.I.Y. S.O.S. but with no TV crew and purple polo-shirted builders to rescue us. He feels a little bit more confident now, but it's still a mammoth beast. Bizarrely, he is also mildly concerned about what happens after, say 18 months down the line. We will hopefully have a lovely renovated farmhouse in the back of beyond to retreat to and hang out in after..... after what? Allotmenting? Work? A full and exhausting day involved in local projects and society? Volunteering?

Meanwhile, 2CV Llew is cutting it a bit fine (no surprise there!) building the promised 2CV trailer. Dad was down there yesterday to get the car wired for trailer-pulling and has seen the trailer such as it is so far - a wheel-less steel frame of angle iron and box-section about 6 feet long, 4 feet wide and 2 feet tall. No wooden panels, wheels, paint, light-bar, tow-hitch, cover or any other finishing touches. Llew is confident that it will be ready for Sunday morning. Mum is shaking her head and the look on her face says "why does this not surprise me. It's Llew after all!" We all love Llew to bits but he is a bit of a one for flexing deadlines.

His standard MO is to take a car off you to work on it while you go for a fortnight's holiday and then, when you get back indoors and phone him to see how it's all gone, he'll say "Ah yes, I must get started on that, mustn't I?" So he had the 2CV for all the three and a half weeks Dad was in Ireland, and did the wiring yesterday, almost a week after he got back. Still, the trailer, although it would be very useful in Ireland and has been paid for, does only contain the most non-vital stuff for our move (deliberately - we knew it was the least likely bit to get there!) so if it all goes Pete Tong and we have to leave it behind for another day, it's no great disaster. One thing it might prove to be useful for is if the famous BGL cannot be threaded out of the lane and up the drive of the Roscommon house, it can be parked a few yards down the lane in a lay-by and the 2CV and trailer used to shuttle stuff up to the house.

Exciting times

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E-day minus 9 and counting

As the date for the full and final emigration gets closer life is all about closing out loose ends and getting ready. Mum still has to work, of course, till the 9th, next Friday, so that's just 5 more working days as I write this. Dad rescues the 2CV from 3 and a half weeks of neglect down at the boatyard, by the caravan. The old girl does not like to be left un-started for more than about a week as the fuel drains back down from the carb, past the fuel pump and the pump will not drag it back up again and self-prime. You have to pull the fuel line off the carb and suck on it to draw the fuel up past the pump. Dad has a length of transparent pipe to help with this, so that not too many mouthfuls of petrol are quaffed (!). This is not a problem as long as the car is started every couple of days, so should be OK in Ireland where the 2CV will get plenty of use for as long as we can keep it on the road.

There is also post to be collected from the old address including Mum's tax disc, all of which has to be sorted and change of address letter(s) sent off if need be. Mid afternoon there's a phone call from 2CV Llew who has a problem with a lap top. He's not the world's most computer-literate person and is struggling to install anti virus. Dad to the rescue, driving the 2CV through the lashing rain thinking "Better get used to this!"

Dad heads for the barge and lets himself on board for a look round and a re-acquaint. There is no working heating on board yet so it's cold and damp. Still running a bit of a cold, Dad has opted to stay in Diamond's house where a warm, comfy, dry bed, Rags, good food and Mum, in no particular order out-weigh the attractions of living on Cambria.

Emigration Day (Dogs)

...and so we dogs make it to our emigration day. It's this afternoon Dad drives us all to North Wales and the Irish Ferries boat and tonight at silly o'clock we sail away to Ireland, headed for the welcoming residence of the Silverwoods. Dad will stay with us there till the end of November, but then he'll fly back without us for the final days in England before returning with Mum, the 2CV and trailer, and the Fiat in convoy. We are not involved in that bit, so effectively tonight is the moment we become Irish residents.

So we feel a bit like a secret radio transmitter behind enemy lines. This is our last transmission from Pud Lady's before we dismantle the 'transmitter', load it into the car and move it to a new location. We've quite enjoyed our stay here and all the nice new walks we have discovered; the Old Town, St Helen's Woods, the Fire Hills, Old Roar Gill, Alexandra Park and the Archery Field etc, although Dad has gone a bit barmy with the games of scrabble with Pud Lady (Series score 32:32 after 64 games. We suspect Dad might have 'thrown' a few games to keep it that neat but we don't want to get embroiled in another betting scandal like the Pakistani cricket lads, so we're keeping schtum.

We enjoyed our final weekend in the caravan with Mum and Dad together, which included inviting Diamond and John (and Rags) round for a supper of pork-bellies on the Saturday. Dad is now off the anti-biotics and has had his stitches out, so he could have a beer or two. Rags loves the caravan and the boat yard just like I do - plenty of places to amble about and sniff, so we're all allowed off leads and we still stick around the caravan as a base. John is especially taken with the place and has been asking questions around how do you come to own or rent a bit of it.

The weather finally gave out - our lovely succession of being able to sit outside of an evening gave way to wind and rain - but no worries. Llew has rigged up a wood burning stove inside the caravan with a welded tube chimney out the side and up to roof height. It even has an inverted saucepan on an aluminium tube bungee'd to the side which you can lower over the chimney when not in use to keep the rain off. Warm as toast, we were.

On the way 'home' we call by the Cambria and agree with Boss-of-Volunteers, Basil, that Dad can sleep aboard when he's back over in December. There is a possible issue with the timings of the sanding and varnishing of the hold 'floors'- actually bizarrely called ceilings in a barge; the floors are the horizontal frames running east-west under what you'd think were the floor planks (and galley floor). He may have to vacate the barge during that process, but there's always the caravan.

Ah well, time now to switch off and take the computer to bits ready to be packed into the car after breakfast for the trip back to Faversham where Dad, at lunchtime, is invited to a screening of the new Mike Maloney barge film "Red Sails" which the Cambria lot have been involved in the making of. From there. later on, the drive NW towards Holyhead and the sail Ireland. Next time I 'talk' I will be an Irish doggie!

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