Cornwall

The Dark Moon

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

I don’t like to do a post without a photo or a drawing but there really isn’t the time at the moment to do it.

Moving house is stressful and trying to do it from one country to another with dogs and a piano is even more so.

Added to which is the weirdness of spending almost every waking hour doing construction work on the place I want to leave my furniture – what is left of it after selling or giving away so much!

What I did today – or part of it!

*took van for MOT which could be the last one if I manage to get it registered in Spain when I get there
*trip round builders merchants looking for Allen Keys (to dismantle IKEA chairs which I can’t get out of the house whole) and a nail punch for the new wooden floor which is being laid
*pause in Newlyn to buy fruit and vegetables as we must stop eating so many cakes and biscuits and eating out all the time as we are too tired to cook
*phone calls to BT, chimney sweep, banks,window cleaners, letting agents etc blah blah blah
*make tea for the workers
*play with the three dogs trying to stop the very hormonal Duna (3)  humping poor bemused Blue (15) and growling at nervous confused Bonnie
*sell my old iMac
*research international removal companies
*research hiring vans for DIY removals
*frighten myself silly over the risks of moving your own piano
*fight off phone calls from various currency brokers who are responding to my enquiries about how to send money to Catalunya without paying huge charges
*make tea for the workers
*try to get bloodstains from chair cushions after Duna sat on them. (Reconsider the Catalan belief that dogs shouldn’t sit on chairs….perhaps they have a point?)
*drive to the village of Paul to buy several jars of marmalade. How many exactly will I need to get me through a whole year?  I wish I could find Seville oranges in Granollers.
*in the midst of a happy moment watching a friend hang the new door on our cabin I am told it must be stained NOW, TODAY!  So I made my third trip to the builders merchants in Penzance to buy woodstain.
*there is a beautiful sunset as I work quickly to get the stain on before we lose the light in the ‘new’ building. We are still only getting electricity from one extension lead that snakes down the field to the main house and the days are getting shorter.

I expect you are tired reading this. It’s good to write it down as I can see I am doing a lot although many days seem to pass without too much being visibly accomplished. But little by little I am sure things are falling into place. Only I need to trust.  And to enjoy the process.

Photos or pictures next time, I promise.

Not so easy as they say on the packet

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

Perhaps it’s because we are amateurs but we discovered that Self Levelling Cement doesn’t!

You have to push it around a lot with a long thing like a rake which gets all clogged up in the process.

Tips for Spreading Self Levelling Cement

1. Add more water than they suggest
2. Never try to mix and spread more than two bags at a time
3. Buy the special whisk fitting for the drill.  It’s  worth the money although we did have a very cathartic fit of giggles as three of us tried to smash up the lumps and stir with long sticks like the three witches in Macbeth.  There is a 20 minute window before the stuff starts to set.

No pictures yet – we’ll see how it looks in the morning and perhaps I will take a photo…..

Meanwhile I am very pleased to have solved one of my long standing problems – at least in theory.      I am going to register my UK camper van in Spain and it will join the club of right hand drive vehicles which have Spanish number plates. First step is to get my registration document here changed to show it is no longer a panel van. Second step – or steps as I imagine it will involve a lengthy bureaucratic journey – is to get it approved in Catalunya.  Then at last we will both be able to drive it (UK insurance won’t cover a Spanish national driver) and most importantly I won’t have to travel back every year to get an MOT.

I will report back on progress but for the moment I am so pleased to have found a solution.

Update on the RHD van decision

Another thing which is not so easy as they say is dealing with car registration in Spain.

It is now 2015 and I never did register the van in Spain.  The following year we took a long journey up through France to Scotland and then back down to Cornwall.  Because I was never able to get my partner’s name on the insurance I did all the driving and ended up with tendinitis in my ankle from too much clutch control on the Scottish mountains.  I couldn’t drive back to Spain so we bought a LHD car in the UK and drove back together in that. Since then, the van has been garaged in Cornwall and we only use it over there.

I had such a lot of trouble getting the LHD Spanish car into my name once we got home that I would never recommend you try to bring over a UK car. The system here in Spain is much more complicated and bureaucratic and unless you enjoy the adrenalin rush of endless stress and uncertainty then I suggest you buy a car over here.

Workouts in Cornwall

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I hate to leave it so long without writing but it’s been crazy here. We have been working hard all day and every day and there is little time or energy to do anything else at night but eat and drop into bed.  My new friends are Mr Bosch and Mrs Makita. I now know what an SDS drill is and why you would want one when you are drilling into concrete blocks.
Getting ready to leave my house here means clearing rooms, letting go of stuff, making decisions about what to take to Catalunya and what to leave in Cornwall. And leaving things in Cornwall means finding a place to store them.
So this is the current project, making a place dry and secure and suitable for putting my stuff while I am out of the country.
I have three drills on the go at the same time which feels tremendously energising – the baby one does the wood, the bigger Mr Bosch does the marking out and the indomitable Mrs Makita makes short work of the blocks, cutting through them as if they were Cornish clotted cream. What with that and the concrete mixing I have constant aches in my shoulders but at least I sleep well at night.

Pictures of nice things today

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Less words today – just some images from my day.
At last I put together my broken head!

Very friendly cat outside the Newlyn Art Gallery

This is for me the best bit of a Jelberts ice-cream. the flake has disappeared inside the cone and is coated in wonderful home-made vanilla ice cream

The Newlyn Gallery cafe is new for me. It was closing at 4.30!!! But he let me have a coffee.

 Last time I was here we were putting up tango pictures drawn with dancing feet!

The memorial statue to fishermen lost at sea – Penzance looking dazzling in the distance.

bits and pieces from our Cornish life

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

The garage sale wins the prize for the best way to get rid of things you want to sell. In spite of not doing much publicity we had loads of visitors – some were friends and neighbours making it a social event as well as a business one, and some were strangers who it was lovely to meet. It is much easier than doing a car boot sale as there is no early start, you can pop home when you feel like it, have nice music playing in the background, offer tea and coffee, let people try on clothes in private……and have dogs milling around checking out the customers. Bonnie only let herself down once and I have to admit that man did look shifty and he didn’t buy anything!

Now we are getting busy with home improvements and thankfully the mist has cleared – physically and mentally!

There are four baby swallows in the little garage who are preparing to set off for Africa. It’s the first time in over ten years they have successfully nested at Dolphin Cottage so it is a great pleasure to see them trying out their wings. And also an inspiration to think of the great journey they have in front of them

Duna is still scratching as the British fleas continue to win the battle  against two major chemical attacks. It all started after she saw the vet in France before entering the UK.
Apart from that she is loving being here in the countryside, rolling in fox shit, burrowing through brambles, and going to birthday parties which include 6 dogs amongst the guests. Two bearded collies, three border collies and one excited springer spaniel!


There are brambles ripening along the lane and raspberries out in the field. the full moon was hanging low over the field this evening and we are hoping for the sunny days to return so we can have a swim!