On The Move

It's been a strange couple of months. Entirely unexpectedly, the house we're living in has been put on the market. The reasons don't matter. Our friends the owners have their own crises to face in their lives right now, so it's the way things have to be. After the initial moments of shock and disbelief, we decided to think along the lines of a 'glass half full' and set about making plans for the next phase of our lives.

We've had 14 eventful years here on Rhodes. It's rather disconcerting to look back and see that friends who had toddlers when we first got to know them, now have kids in their late teens, even early twenties, and that seems to really underline how quickly the years have flashed past. I know, I know, everyone says it, because it's true I suppose.

Anyway, looking forward, we're now truly excited about our new life in the south of the island of Crete. We went over there (as you'll know from such posts as 'Up, Up and Away' and 'Falling in Love Again?') in August and, after becoming rather disillusioned at first with the properties we were shown, eventually found something that could not have been more perfect for us. So, for the first time in over 14 years, we shall once again be living in our very own home. 

Right now, though, it's like being a couple of squatters, students even perhaps. We're reduced to sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a bedroom devoid of furniture. Today, as I type this we're waiting for the truck to arrive to take our 'stuff', hopefully in order for us to be reunited with it early next week at the new house. Yesterday a couple of really good friends, and I use the word 'really' advisedly, came over to help us pack the pallets.

Do those two pallets really represent all that we are in this life?

That's Vagelli on the right. Our 'salvation' in human form.

Back in the UK we were no strangers to moving house. In fact, we were musing on the fact this past day or so that we'd never lived in one home in the UK for as many years as we've now lived in this house in Rhodes. In Blighty, I'd hire a 'Luton' van more often as not (what the Americans would more likely visualise as a U-Haul, I'd guess), a few mates would turn up, and we'd run in and out carrying boxes, lampshades and coffee tables and all the paraphernalia that we humans feel the need to gather around us to make us feel comfortable, to feel at home in our nest, as it were.

Here it's nothing like as simple. For us there are two reasons. The first is we're moving islands, so that makes it more complicated. The second is that you just can't go hire a box van here like you can in the UK. We found out when we first moved here that you're not even at liberty in a 'free country' here in Greece to buy a van or a pick-up without having the paperwork to prove that you have a trade that requires such a vehicle. It's true I tell you. To make the move from the UK to Greece, I bought a Mitsubishi L300 van from a roadside used vehicle dealer not far down the A38 from Bristol, we kitted it out and drove all the way. Well, OK, we let the ferries do some of the work. All the gen on that is to be found in my first published work, 'Feta Compli!' - as if you didn't know that already.

Here, even if one could hire a van (which one can't), it would still be a non-starter, because the ferry timetables would mean I'd have to keep the thing for a week before I could bring it back to Rhodes. Oh, there will be some out there who live over here (or who wear anoraks and study the Greek ferry system) who'll point out that one could get back to Rhodes by going from Crete to Piraeus, then from Pireaus back to Rhodes, but that would not only be a helluva grueller, it would also cost the flippin' earth!

So, no, the only choice is to hire a moving company. That was where our good friends Vagelli and Ioanna came in. Unlike a lot of Greeks, they've moved quite a few times and know all the tricks. Thus it was that, after I'd turned up a price of over a thousand Euros to move our stuff from Kiotari to Athens, then from Athens to Crete and on to the new home, Vagelli said he'd do a little research for us. With a few phone calls he brought the cost down by hundreds! Plus the company who are taking the stuff to Crete from here are a Cretan company and they scoffed when we asked if they'd be taking our stuff through Piraeus. No, no, they go straight to Heraklion. A result.

Not only did he sort that out, but they also spent a long day helping us pack stuff and, whilst doing so, revealed the most important secret one has to learn when moving house in Greece. Don't ask the company to pack everything for you, get yourself some sturdy wooden pallets (which grow on trees around these parts!) pick up a roll of heavy-duty pvc membrane (cling-film) from the local DIY store (€8.50, and worth every penny) and stack and seal the pallets yourselves. Thus it was that yesterday they came over once again and Vagelli took charge of stacking the pallets, which he called "playing  '3-D Tetris'."

Were it not for them we'd never be ready. But we are. The house here is almost empty, save for a mattress that the local Dimos will (I hope) take away for us when we leave, and the stuff that's coming with us in the car.

A new era is approaching. We're living like squatters for a few more days yet, but it's a busy week this week responding to the many invitations we've received to have 'parea' with old friends, so it will pass quickly. Just like the last 14 years, in fact.

The new blog is here: "Accretions." I do hope you'll come along with us. I'll try and make the posts fun and informative. So, if you have a little time to waste, you can keep us company on our new adventure. There is only one introductory post over there at the moment, but that will soon change once we've got the internet sorted out in the new house.

"What about Brexit?!" I hear some of you cry. I'm sure I'm not alone in responding, as would thousands of other ex-pats who've made their home here in Greece, "This is our home. We've chosen to adopt this country. We'll still be alive and breathing on November 1st."  Y'know, to me the whole thing's liable to be a damp squib for those such as us anyway. I well remember the soothsayers telling us how the world's computer networks were all going to shut down on January 1st 2000, owing to the fact that the Windows operating system had some essential flaws in it that would cock-things up royally. What happened?

Nothing that's what. What will happen here though, is we shall go on living in this wonderful climate, making new friends and enjoying the life we've chosen, warts and all.

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PS. RFR will stay 'live' for the indefinite future, because of all the info it carries for fans of Rhodes.