Idle Thoughts

By summer 2006 all the building work had been completed - more or less. The wiring was a lot less likely to kill someone and not only was there places to sit and sleep, but you could eat at a decent sized table too. When I returned to the UK I hadn’t made any plans for my next visit to Spain, just a vague notion that it was time to start moving my telescopes over, so I could use the house for the purpose I bought it. Given the hassles I’d had getting just some basic furniture, I wanted to ship over a double bed, a decent sized sofa (to go with the 2-seater I had bought from IKEA) and a few other bits and pieces too.

To that end I started getting quotes from shipping companies. I wanted one where I could pack my equipment safely and have them transport it all to the house, while I catch a plane over and am there ready to receive it. As I phoned around, a pattern began to emerge with the removals and shippers. They were all happy to take a consignment but none of them were willing to guarantee its safe arrival. Especially, once I mentioned glass, or telescopes the tone of the conversation would change from a run-of-the-mill “just another removals job” to a sharp intake of breath and all the disclaimers and limitations of liability about damage and loss became much more part of the conversation. I got the impression that I was in risky territory.

So, plan-B started to take shape. The best quote I had got had been for nearly £2000 and the company would not guarantee safe delivery or even be able to give me a specific date (see I’m a buyer, not an orderer for my views on that). I reckoned that if I could get a van for about a grand, then I could drive it over to Spain myself. I’d be aware of the delicate nature of the contents, so care would be the watchword. Even better, once I got back I could resell the van and get my money back, plus I wouldn’t have to hire a car for my stay in Spain. As with all good plans, it started to take on a life of it’s own. Get a bigger van and I could take more stuff with me (bigger vans cost more, but no matter as I’d recoup the costs by selling it afterwards). Stay longer in Spain - afterall the cost of the trip remains the same, so more time costs nothing.

Buying a van was an eye-opener. I now know where all the dodgy car-dealers have gone: they’ve graduated to commercial vehicles. Most of the £1000-range vehicles I saw looked and sounded as if they were on their last legs. Some had been clocked so often they chimed the hour (e.g. an M-reg Transit: 91,000 miles!!!) while others looked OK from a distance, until you noticed that the side-panels didn’t quite line up, and that there were irregular gaps around the doors and bonnet. Hmmm. One dealer took pity on me and revealed that a lot of his trade now came from eastern-europeans who came to Britain and bought vans for wads of euros, then drove them back to Poland or Estonia or wherever they came from - that was why there were so few good vans in my price range. In the end, the only way I could find a vehicle that looked like it would survive the trip home, let alone a few thousand miles to southern Spain and back was to spend more money. But as explained above, I’d get it all back later. The best one I saw in round-two of my search was a long-wheelbase LDV, the kind the Post-Office used to use. Only in white, naturally.

And so I became a two-vehicle household.

While the great van search was underway, strange things were happening in Spain. For reasons that have never been made clear, the previous owners of my house had not notified the utilities they had sold the house. As a consequence they were still getting bills, which they just ignored. As you would expect, after their summons had been ignored, the electricity company cut off the supply, followed soon after by the water company. When the next summons came in, they got in touch with the estate agent and complained that they should do something about it. The agents decided the best thing to do was phone me.

This forced some changes to my plans to bring the van to Spain. Since I would now arrive at a house without power or a water supply, I decided that I should add a generator to my list of things to take. During the summer I had decided to take a satellite dish, too. The “take” list was growing as after I bought the van, I had found a good sofabed on eBay, that would go nicely into the ground floor of the extension. I was planning to use this room for the TV, rather than as another (unnecessary) bedroom. Other things that would make the trip were british sheets and bedding, as spanish duvets and pillows were not quite right for me and I really don’t like fitted sheets, which seem to be the norm over there.

Although I had bought the van at the end of August, I realised that before I took it to Spain, I would need to have all the paperwork in order. So although it was insured and MOT’d I needed to get the V5 document transferred to my name before the trip. Otherwise I might have to explain to a spanish policeman why I was driving a vehicle that the documents showed was registered to someone else. It took about 6-7 weeks to get the new V5 from DVLA, so I by the end of October I was ready to go back to Spain. This time with a vanload of telescopes, bedding and furniture.