We’re on the move again this week.  Seem to have done this far too often in recent years, and you think we’d have learned a lot from this.  Well, I hope we have.  Here’s some stuff we have picked up, generally the hard way…

•  If people offer to help, nail them down instantly to times and places, before they melt away.
• Don’t place anything, ever, in a black plastic binbag, that is NOT rubbish destined for the bin.  Do not be tempted to put bedding, laundry etc into bags that make them look like they need helpfully chucking out, especially when multiple journeys/helpers are involved.
• You can’t have in your possession too much bubblewrap, tape, boxes or marker pens
• Levels of dirt acceptable in your own home / your own dirt, eg inside fridge trays or bathroom drawers, are ‘eurgghhh!’ when you are moving somewhere new and they are someone else’s dirt you must get rid of first
• Labelling any box ‘misc’ because you just shoved any old crap into it instead of sorting as you packed, is just going to backfire on you when you are cursing through the unpacking later
• Do not label anything with post-it notes, they do NOT stick well to boxes, and leads to chaos.  ‘Does anyone know what this “FRAGILE!!!” relates to..?’
• When packing up clothes and day to day stuff, think about pulling out and putting aside the stuff you need for the last few days before you move BEFORE you start.  Even pack yourself as suitcase as though you were off on holiday - then shove the case under the bed and you can pack up everything else in the room for the movers.
• Removal firm advice leaflets recommend keeping an ‘emergency on arrival’ box at hand with you at all times, but think carefully about exactly what you need in YOUR box, for those first 5 minutes after getting to your new home.  Whether its firelighters, a screwdriver, a corkscrew or your mobile charger, what can you not live without/wish to avoid searching for at that moment?
• If you really were going to eBay it you’d have done it by now.  Go to charity shop, go directly to charity shop, do not pass go and do not move clutter from one house to another
• Same with anything you were going to alter, mend or repair.  Let it go.
• Finally, if someone kindly brings you a bottle of something bubbly to welcome you to your new home, don’t think you’ll just pop it in the freezer to chill down for half an hour.  Unless you *want* to spend your first morning in your new place clearing moet-et-broken-glass icecream out of your new freezer that is.

Half term this week - for English schools at least - but what a contrast to our fond memories of this time last year, when with visitors from the UK we went for picnics in the mountains and walks on the beach, kids playing and paddling, parties in the park… Today it was a welcome change to sit outside and have a coffee, for a scant hour or two before the sun retreated and coats went back on.  It’s slightly milder, and it’s good to have had a little taste of springtime to come, but sadly it isnt truly here yet.

It was a very pleasant morning though, first face to face get-together for our latest project, http://www.oldschoolgate.com… this site/forum is basically an attempt to create exactly I was looking for 2 years ago, when researching our relocation.  It’s such a challenge planning a move for a whole family from over a thousand miles away, with scant precious visiting time to check things out.  How on earth did people manage before the internet..?  Between google earth, agents websites, and expat forums, I was able to use our reccy time as wisely as possible and find out as much as we could before taking the plunge, but I still felt a gap for specifically kids-related things.  It was hard to find out information about schooling, kids activities, fiestas etc, and how to go about basic things such as registering for health care or buying PE kit.  It was fantastic to find some incredibly knowledgeable and supportive friends who helped so much with such things, and I wanted to try and channel that knowledge and make it more accessible for others in the future.

Similarly now we’ve been here for over a year, we still find things we havent a clue about because we havent had to deal with them yet, and being in the international school system it’s harder still to hook up with other parents  - the catchment zones cover huge areas, and many children arrive by bus anyway.  The ‘Old School Gate’ is symbolic of the ultimate hob of gossip and news that has sustained generations of Mums around the world, the folk wisdom that gets passed on to those in need of it, ready to pay forward and help out the next person who asks for help.

If you, or anyone you know, has kids anywhere near the Costa Blanca… or if you’re researching or considering a move to the area - please check out http://www.oldschoolgate.com. We’re a new community of international, diverse, friendly and interesting parents, and we’d love to chat.  More meet-ups planned soon… as soon as the weather gets better anyway!

And if you’re not in the area but like the idea of an Old School Gate for your own community, give me a shout about that too.

It was still dark when the alarm went off, but we didn’t take long to get ourselves up and look busy, we knew we had a long day ahead of us. As soon as I was dressed I ran out to check on the car, which was still there, so that was good. Breakfast was, like everything else at that place, basic, functional and sufficient.

Before we set off we lashed the roof stuff over again with the newsagent’s stringy stuff and tried to secure the useless plastic sheeting at the back. It was so cold that even if I didn’t have the residue of a chest infection it would have still, I’m sure, have hurt to breathe. The car made a scary whistling noise when we started it up, but that seemed to stop soon.

We set off toward the autoroute, watching the sun rise over a deserted landscape. It was clear as anything and the sun was blazing down, but when we looked at the shaded verge it was still thick with frost - the screenwash nozzles didn’t defrost until we pulled over and squirted deicer into them. We put on some music and our shades, and relaxed into having the motorway to ourselves. I was even thinking about trying some of the driving, even though I had never driven on the left and it was apparently really hard to get into gear… thankfully Richard seemed relaxed enough about it as the road droned endlessly on.

Suddenly a stench of burning rubber had us pulling over – oh god this is it, I thought, but Richard calmly complied with all European traffic regulations by popping his hi-vis vest on, unfolding a warning triangle and poking around under the bonnet to reveal the shredded remains of the aircon drive belt. Well we weren’t likely to need that on a day where there was still ice on the bonnet an hour after setting off. So we got going again quickly.

Circumnavigating Paris was fun but Basil (Fawlty, soundalike) the satnav did a good job in difficult times, despite our distraction by a badly-timed listen to the Now Show CD someone had thoughtfully placed in our family secret santa stocking (thanks, whoever that was!). After Paris France seemed pretty boring – flat, cold, sunny and with endless pylons marching across the unchanging landscape. We stopped for lunch at a service station somewhere – and bought new bungees and straps to replace the ones that appeared to have simply perished in the cold. Tyres seemed to be holding up despite the load, but diesel was very pricey.

Later that afternoon, as the road began to climb and the light to fade, we took back all we said about the boring flat landscape. As the snow began to fall so did our journey speed, and we realised our planned overnight stop in Bezier was becoming less and less likely to happen. Very annoyingly, we were unable to connect on the premium rate number to cancel the booking before being charged, but eventually stopping for the night became the highest priority – the road ahead through the Pyrenees was almost certainly closed anyway (trying to interpret French radio bulletins was a challenge but we got the gist), and we were going more and more slowly, becoming seriously concerned about safety. Richard had been driving for more than 9 hours, we were now averaging less than 40mph according to Baz, and we had to call it a night. So we ended up in a seriously grotty Travelodge-equivalent in the Auvergne somewhere. Room stank of a mixture of French fags and air freshener, no internet, and not even any soap in the dispensers. It also didn’t have anything remotely pretending to be secured parking, and we couldn’t see the car from the main building. We weren’t about to go any further though, and we figured any opportunist thieves – with skiis – would have to be pretty determined, to be bothered to risk hypothermia to nick our stuff. We had a dispirited meal in the services café downstairs then gave up. We had started so well, made such good time, but the weather had won this round.

The road goes ever onwards…

We’ll consider that the journey began when we actually set off, from Wales, on our journey to Spain. No one wants to read about the joys of living out of a few suitcases for Christmas with two young children, trying to finish up major projects at work through a killer virus, going from one relatives’ sofa bed to another, wondering if you have put the right stuff in the right box in the right place, holding a sick child who’s crying ‘I want to go home…’ as she throws up over someone else’s sofa. Nor does anyone want to hear about the sheer thrill of a gearbox seizing up and dying, nor the excitement and expense of finding a replacement, couriering it over Christmas, and the hard work of a team of heroic Welshmen in fitting it in one endless day’s work. We’ll gloss over all that and start from day we actually began the final journey down here.

It was touch and go from the start, whether we’d make the trip on the day planned. Richard and Mark went returned from collecting the car, complete with new gear box, around 1am! ‘There’s a few bits and bobs he hasn’t finished putting back’ I was told – and after all these amazing guys had done a 3 -4 day job in one very long one - but I wasn’t prepared for the state of the car the next morning… It was absolutely filthy, no front fascia, looked more like the tractors they are accustomed to working on. But it was too late to turn back, and it was driveable – so Richard put the bits back together (mostly – a few minor details like a gear selector plate, connecting the speedo or reversing lights were simply too complex to address in the time we had) whilst I sorted out all our clothes and Christmas stuff etc, and tried to find cleanish places to load it all in the car.

A final Wales breakfast saw us on our way around 11am. It was hard saying goodbye to the family especially the girls, but with all the uncertainties over the car it was good just too be finally on the road. The weather was clear and we made good time on the M4 back to what we used to call home – well actually Nina and Mark’s house. We found the satnav had a setting that displayed a full digital speedo, so who needs dials? Once we’d gathered up our bits and bobs from there, my Dad met us and followed us down to the lock up to help us load up the car. For some reason the pile in the lockup had expanded over Christmas, and the tarpaulin seemed to have shrank, it was also freezing cold and rapidly darkening, but between the 3 of us we got a whole load of stuff hauled up and secured on the chilly roof. Had to tuck a plastic sheet over the back foot or so of it as the tarp just wouldn’t fit, but we knew a similar arrangement had held up on the trip from Newcastle so we were sure it would be OK.

At last we were off towards Folkestone – for the only Eurotunnel crossing of the day that could take roofracked cars. We were a bit dismayed by the state of our roof load – the tarp just seemed to be disintegrating probably just from the sheer cold – but a nice guy in WHSmiths gave us a load of stuff they strap newspapers up with. At last we were on the train and going over to France, eating service station sandwiches and enjoying the glamorous side of international travel.

We rolled out of the train into a very cold and snowy Calais, and finally put the French Tomtom maps to the test in reaching our prebooked motel. The maps worked fine and took us to the door, but we were a bit dismayed to find how very not secured the parking was. Had to hope the landy with its shredded load looked like a heap of junk no one would touch! With fingers barely unfrozen enough to operate the automated check in we found out way to our room which was tiny, warm, clean and basic. We found the bottle of wine we had brought, and I think I was pretty much asleep before my head hit the thin hard pillow!