Where we are now

So it has been 8 months still our journey began. We found a house in Italy that we loved, it came with land and a second property purchase option that gives us a bungalow with which we can rent out for tourists as a means of income. It is nestled in the foothills of the Italian-French Alps on the boundaries of a Nature park and within 15 minutes of the ski slopes. Only 30 minutes from Sabi's family and closer still to the forest school we have signed the kids up to, it appears fate has stepped in to make it work. 

With a house found (photo below), offer accepted and deposit paid. Everything got real. We got our house sorted and put it on the market, a part of the process I wasn't overly worried about. We had a few valuations carried out and opted with Peter Alan as our sales agent. Within 3 days of the house going live on their system, Zoopla and Right move, we had accepted an offer on the house. Bam. This is going well. 

3 months later and we, after months of toing and froing, surveys, negotiating and getting unnecessarily stressed, have exchanged contracts and set a completion date (23rd July)! 

Cue a mad rush to organise everything on the Italian side (in hindsight we should have been doing this earlier, but y'know, life). Sabi is in regular contact with her dad and Italian agent, and in turn they are contact with the notary. All is going forward, though slowly.

The Italian house

I got multiple quotes for moving our valued belongings out of the country and paid the deposit (I highly recommend using Shiply.com for this as I had loads of quotes and was able to chat to them all relatively easily during the process of picking who we wanted). Then came the (almost last) major stress to date....Lobo. As a European dog, with an in date passport, I wasn't worried about the paperwork. So we went about (trying to) book our flights. 

One airline (British Airways) told us we had to use their Partner company to get him a place ticket. No problem, I went off and got a quote...£1900 for the silver package. So, plan B, AlItalia, who quoted the much more reasonable price of 75euros. We booked it up. Only to discover that Lobo is too long for the maximum sized crate allowed. 

*back to the drawing board*

Ok, so I was starting to worry and stress about this. I turned to the Expats in Italy facebook group to ask for advice and was almost immediately contacted by an Italian fella (Marco) who happened to be smuggling  transporting dogs back and forth from Italy to UK and vice versa. He told me he didn't have opportunity to take Lobo until the end of July, a full week after our flight. Cue further panic (so far, Lobo has probably caused the most stress). 

At this moment in time, we are reviewing our options for a week long dog sitter to look after him until he can be collected. While we do that, packing has started in earnest and the giving away and selling of crap we don't want has all but finished. The move is now 2.5 weeks away. Here's some fun things we have to do still...

• sort out our banks
• tell HMRC (probably)
• redirect our mail
• cancel insurance
• sell the van
• find the cat a new home (she isn't up for the move)
• shut down our utilities contracts
• cancel the milk
• cancel council tax
• organise a safe, secure and economic money transfer
• pack our belongings
• party
• Covid tests
• Covid vaccines round 2 (booked for this week).

That doesn't look as much as I thought when I started writing, but I guarantee there is something missing...17 days until moving day.

Here is Lobo, you can't tell from the photo, but he is apparently unusually long.