Kahawi was 'officially' sold on Saturday 31st
August, when Colin signed the Bill of Sale at the
boatyard.
She successfully made her own way round to the Medway, in
the week of 18th September and was then shipped
by low-loader to the Norfolk Broads, so we won't be seeing
her on the Thames anymore. However, nearer to the sea will
give her a chance to 'stretch her legs' a lot more than she
has been able to under our ownership.
We wish her new owners; Fred and Margaret Churchill, as
many happy years aboard as we have had.
Simba went with Urszula, to the Vet this
morning; was Micro-Chipped, had a few injections and
started on the road to gaining his very own 'Pet
Passport'. This will allow us to move him freely around
Europe, also enabling us all to return to
England, as and when needed. We currently have to wait
for the results of his blood tests and then we can take
him out of England immediately. He is allowed to return
at any time from six months after his last successful
blood-test. For more information on the 'Pet Passport' Scheme see PETS - the Pet
Travel Scheme which can be found on the UK Department for Environment, Food and
Rural affairs Web-Site.
There are some restrictions on the routes, carriers
and 'Port of Entry' to both Europe and England, which we will
have to adhere to. At present you are not
allowed to bring in any animal by private boat, or
plane. No doubt there are a few other pitfalls for the
unwary, which we will fall into, we will let you know in due
course!
We are rapidly tiring of this 'plastic-bag' way of life.
Although not technically homeless we are finding it
impossible to feel at home whilst living with others - No
matter how welcome they try to make us feel. Far from giving
us some breathing space, we find we are rushing back and
forth in a hectic round of meeting up with friends, chasing
our forwarded mail and simply trying to keep in touch with
relatives, whilst still holding down our jobs, searching for
our dream-boat and more recently looking for a temporary
'home of our own'.
Buying a boat in Holland is taking a lot longer than we
thought, mainly because everything we want is priced way
above our ceiling. Rather than bore our readers with the
minute details, suffice to say we travelled a lot of Holland,
looked at seemingly endless boats and got very good at
rapidly dismissing the obviously unsuitable ones. As of
today - Monday 14th Oct - we have two offers out on boats,
which we think will suit. Both offers are well below the
asking price and we have also had to re-think the finances.
The good side of this being that the quality and equipment
specifications offered are well above what we had expected,
so that our fitting-out budget will therefore be considerably
reduced - We hope!
We are back in Holland in the week of 21st October.
Hopefully we will get nearer to knowing; which if any, of our
'chosen' boats, we are going to buy, then.
A home of our own?
Having driven the length of the Great Western Railway,
from Paddington to Bath; looking at both old and new housing,
we have concluded that the price of properties seems pretty
much universal, along the whole of this employment corridor -
If that is, there is a railway station within easy reach.
We are currently looking 'locally' at 2-bedroomed
properties, mainly flats and maisonettes; we really do need a
place we can call home until we finally quit
our jobs and leave. The house was sold and we had to clear
out so quickly that we never had the time to look for an
alternative and so we are taking this month to find somewhere
applicable to our future plans. The main idea is to keep a
foothold, here in the UK, whilst we are gadding about in
Europe. We have an offer out on a flat and have engaged our
Solicitor, to start the many, and costly 'searches' involved
in leasehold purchasing.
After a very 'hectic' return trip to Holland, Germany and
Poland, we are now 10% owners of "Freedom". We were able to
fit in yet another visit to the boat, a short trial
and then; rushing over to Germany, picked up a marine
engineering friend, came back to Holland and had a full
survey done on Friday the 25th October. The
surveyor recommended that we get some (minor) repair work
fixed and so we have put down a deposit and this week -
11th November, the work will be started.
There are a few other items to sort out but, essentially
we have finally bought ourselves a Dutch 'small ship' and
what a boat? We are very pleased
with our purchase.
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