Chapter 6: The mountain and getting ‘there’

We are stuck in traffic. The time we have to get to the airport and check in is getting less and less..Like the sun going down on the horizon. In a split second it will be gone. 

Of course this was going to happen. The number of challenges we have had to overcome to get here, has felt like some kind of computer game mixed with a twisted test of faith. Have we not proved ourselves yet, have we not reached the next level? Can’t just this part of the fucking journey go smoothly? Nothing about this move has been easy. Every step, a mountain to climb. 

It is hard to relay just what work has gone into getting us to this point. People have congratulated us for taking the plunge, for making the decision to move to Thailand. Like it was a decision to turn left or right at the traffic lights and then you are on your way. If only people knew. Or perhaps they secretly do, and that is why they haven’t done it themselves however much they like the idea of it.

Imagine a mountain, Everest will do. Not many have reached the top. It starts with a sunny day. An idea that looks bright. A dream rising under a gentle light. That is the easy bit of course. It is still a steep mountain climb in winter.

In the weeks that have led us here, we have worked every day and into the night, to get through our ‘to do’ list. The to do list is as long as an ancient scroll. Just as we tick one job off, another one fills its place.

People say that you never really finish a place or get it how you want it, until it’s time to leave. That is the case for us. Although we have achieved much and more than most in the short amount of time we have been together. Now I’m wondering if we just have too many ‘toys’. 

Over the last few weeks these toys have pushed us to our limits and there are times we have just wanted to give up on it all.

Our beautiful house has been our main focus these last few years.

As if renovating a 550 year old house was not enough, last year, Sam took on a camper van conversion project, which she finished just a few weeks ago- That is a whole other story.

The house is where you’d would have found me, these last few months. Searching for my place within it; living under a new set of rules and a new way of being, having left my job and routine of 10 years. It took 2 people to prise a paint brush from my hands, because I just couldn’t stop. Then I wished I had, because never is it as simple as a simple paint job- Not in this place. 

Just days ago. I went to touch up some paint work on the ceiling, only to discover it was as soft as a deflated balloon and ended up having to re-plaster the whole lot.

Could it be I was painting my new life, and in doing so, was letting go of the old? 

Just days ago, I discovered that a window in the bedroom was stuck and when I tried to free it, part of the window frame fell away in my hand. It took me two days to repair it. Sam was busy helping a friend ‘in need’ down ‘the flight’ (of 29 locks). He was in his boat, she didn’t throw him down! Of course it had to be there and not the other end of town, that would have been too easy. What could have taken a few hours, if it had been there, took a whole day. The same friend is helping us, by having Blue, which is worth a lost day.

We: plaster; we sand; we paint; we build, we tile. We clear; we cut; we dig; we strim; we pack. This house needs all the love you can give her and even doing the finishing touches is a labour of love.

Then there is the boat (our other toy). We have less than 3 days to get her ready for rent. She is a wreck when we arrive, it is heartbreaking. We clean her from one end to the other, washing her and polishing her in the midday sun. As everyone else sits cooling in the shade.  

We fixed the solar boxes, parts of which have become rotten. We break them apart, and replace them with new slabs of wood, painting them before putting them back together again.. We go from one end of the boat, to the other, looking at everything she needs to bring her back to life, finish the jobs we never finished and repeated some he had. After: washing, painting, fixing, varnishing, repairing, re-wiring. After whole pots of paint split; broken backs and meltdowns; she is back. Misty even has a name again, as we christen her with bespoke graphics ( just as we had dreamed of) carefully made on the laser cutter, and stuck on her one by one. Misty is ‘back’ and ready for her tenants..

Welcome pack written and tour given, we all laugh as both couples hand each other a card and a bottle of fizz to mark the moment. 

I know how much it means to them, to be moving onto a boat. It is their chance at a new life, a new beginning.. In the months leading to now I did not know if it would happen. If their dream would come true, as it was all reliant on us finding a home for Blue, whether we could embark on our journey. It was hard being a keeper of someone else’s dreams, knowing that it could all come crashing down, and it was you that broke them.

Misty was also our dream, our home, our special place. Walking away, I felt sad and emotional, but also.. incredibly thankful. (She is in good hands).

In our last week there is also:

-A trip to France, to say goodbye to mum’s. Still the jobs do not end. There is the life admin with lists just as long as the ancient scroll: The visas, not knowing if they will arrive in time; tax; inventories; agreements; contracts; insurances; pensions; 2 welcome packs to write and the money was going down as quickly as countdown 10, 9,8,7.. And the reality of how much this is all costing. My security blanket once cozy is now threadbare.

-A trip to London to say goodbye to my besty. A dance under bright lights and dancing beats, but the beating of my heart is louder and I know that I am actually too tired to cope with any of it.  

-There is the sad news of the death of another friend. 

-There is more news of ill health. Family members, friends in need.

All building up to the question that hangs like a cloud- Should we really be doing this now?? 

There have been the visitors, the ‘leaving doos’, family coming to stay for the last goodbye. The emotions are higher than we ever expected them to be- as more clouds appear at the thought of leaving them all behind.

We also have an Airbnb booking. Why? because we need the money. This means getting the house ready, which is like getting ready for a show. We know what to do now, but it doesn’t make the workload any less. The opening night, the matinee, and now it’s the final curtain.

*

Each job is like a new day, a page turner of the thriller that is now our life. We just need to get ‘there’ then we can focus on getting ‘here’. We can’t focus on ‘this’, until we have finished ‘that’. That is the only way that we have coped. We are on a mission. A tag team on sports day with obstacles to overcome. It is the strength of the team, the partnership that keeps us going. 

We know we can’t stop, until it’s done. If we did, we would not reach the end. It must be exhausting to watch.  It is even more exhausting to be in it. 

Not only are there jobs to tick off. There is so much that needs to happen for it to even be possible for us to go. As the time to leave grows closer-  all we can do is just hope that it will all work itself out. The things that ‘need to happen’ hang heavy over us; along with hope that starts to drag its heels in behind us.

Just as we think we are reaching the finish line, the electrics in the house go. Bang, like a magician disappearing in a plume of smoke. Sam tries to fix it, then her uncle, working his way round every socket in the house. But no. It takes an electrician all day to find the source of our problem. It turns out to be in the attic. Some wires have got squashed under the number of boxes that are now stacked there. The boxes that contain every inch of our life, sucked into it, vacuum packed, and in the end, thrown there – Even the house is feeling the weight of our decision.  

We have taken it in turns to have a ‘melt down’. Sam’s was the day before we were due to leave, having become hysterical when I suggested we discuss finances. One too many buttons pushed and one that pushes hard is the conversation of finances. Mine is the approach that we need to take control of them, before they run away with us. For Sam it is just another thing to add to the pile of jobs that weigh heavy on us both.The result of which is a melt down as soft as a fondue and the question whether we should give up on it all. 

My last meltdown was the night before we were due to leave. There have been plenty of others. Our meltdowns have usually been at different times to each other, which has been our only saving grace really. Two meltdowns at the same time would just get messy! That night, my melt started when I was packing my bag. Most people who are leaving the country for a year or more, might have started their packing a little sooner, but we simply ran out of time. My packing started off okay. I packed, I thought somewhat skillfully and like an experienced traveler, packing medicines, and photocopies of documents-just with a little more clothes than usual. When I went travelling on my own I knew every corner of my bag. I was in control of myself. It is a different matter altogether packing when you are moving somewhere. How do you decide what you need for a year or more? 

It is also a different matter when you have someone standing over your shoulder talking ‘Kg’ and ‘limits’, bags and their shapes.  It was just all too much. My whole life, reduced to 35 Kg!

I am in a fruit shop, or even worse a maths class. There is a big bag of apples, except they can’t stay in the bag, I have to put them into these bags. Before I can do that, I need to put them into piles: one bag of apples has to weigh 7 Kg the other 35 Kg or I can have 2 piles of apples that make 35 Kg. But they can’t go over 35 Kg. Then there is another pile of apples but this time it doesn’t matter how many apples there are, what matters now is their shape? 

I stand there staring at the mass of items that are now on the bedroom floor and my mind follows suit. It is all over the place, scattered and in pieces.  I am too tired to think, let alone weigh bloody apples. 

Just hours before leaving, we have to do a second run, emptying our belongings into the side of the road. The bone of contention is my shampoo and conditioner. I thought I was being organised (saving money even) by bringing a ‘backup’, but my shampoo and conditioner alone weigh 4 Kg, nearly a whole portion of apples and 2 Kg off the limit of one of the cases. It is between the flippers and the snorkels, the socks and the long sleeve tops- all playing a game of ‘scissors and stone’ for prime place. Do you really need socks and long sleeve tops? Says Sam. “Yes” I say. Do you really need all this shampoo and conditioner?… 

In the end, I wore 2 pairs of socks, a pair of trainers, two tops, a jacket and a jumper tied round my waist! All of which could have gone into the 7 Kg bag but I couldn’t put it there as I would have been charged £50 per Kg over. 

At the end of the day we essentially had the same pile of apples as we did to start with (bar a few items that found their way either onto my body or chucked at the side of the road) so why airlines make you follow this charade I do not know.

*

Even on the last day we are due to leave, we are nowhere near ready, despite all our hard work to get there. We have the Gas engineer; a Pat tester; the estate agent to do an inventory of the house; we still have boxes to pack and a whole house to clean. Luckily we have an evening flight. 

There are moments when you should cut your losses and pay out the money to save a job, but we can’t afford the £560 quote for a pre-tenancy clean, nor am I willing to pay the £30 an hour fee of our second quote, not when it is something that I can just as easily do myself. 

We have been renting our house out on Airbnb since January, to raise capital for all the work we have done on the house and to share the magic that is this place. Whilst the nightly rate is relatively high, we worked out that for each booking, it takes at least 10 hours to get it ready for the guests, and a large portion of that is spent cleaning. It is exhausting. 

On our first booking it took 2 weeks of hard work to get it ready but we made it. Then just an hour before the guests were due to arrive, we discovered a leak in the bathroom which was pouring into the living room below. We nearly died there and then. The guests were surprisingly understanding and amazingly gave us a 5 star review!

Reaching the end can also be satisfying. When the time before the guests’ arrival draws close, and we have finally finished all the jobs, we look back at all our hard work (not just completed in those 10 hours) but all the work that we have put into the house, making it the  house it is now. A house that people from all over the country choose to stay in. 

As I am cleaning the house for the last time- it feels somewhat cathartic, knowing that someone else will be enjoying the house just as we have, and that someone else will also be cleaning it! Thoughts go to Thailand, that maybe there, I may even say yes to a cleaner. 

The last night before we are due to leave I lay worrying whether we have made a huge mistake- worry that sits like stagnant water inside me. Standing in the deep end comes to mind.

The last day however feels  like a new dawn. We are energised, like runners on their last leg of a marathon. 

At the busiest time of our lives, we have had an influx of visitors. After days of everyone else, on the last day it is just me and Sam and together we thrive. We get a system in place. We work through the house from one room to the other and when the man arrives at 8 am to safety test our electrical appliances, we have already made good progress. We have cleared the whole upstairs and are ready to come downstairs to finish the last remaining rooms.  

PAT MAN ( or so I call him now) saves the day. He tells us about a friend who lives on the island where we are heading. She apparently loves it there. PAT MAN has no idea how much he helped us by saying that, squashing our seeds of doubt, validating what are about to do. Inadvertently telling us it is all going to be okay. It gave us the energy we needed for the final push.

Never would I think I’d say that we were saved by PAT MAN but we were and we made it to the finish line.. Or was it the last lap?

Not having a cleaner meant that we were still mopping floors, cleaning walls and doing dump runs right up to the moment we had to lock the doors and say goodbye to the house, that has been our project and home for the last 3 years.

*

Sam’s sister drives us to the airport. She has been by our side these last few days, along with Aunty Ju, and Aunty Nick, helping us with jobs, lending us a hand when we had no hands or body left..

On seeing the warning signs, Sam’s sister uses a detour to avoid the 1 hour delay on the M4. She drives through the sights of Slough, but there are more traffic jams, and more road closures that hold us back. 

In the end the journey takes us more than 3 hours. Much more than we had planned for. I am somewhat delirious in the back of the car, too tired to care. I am just happy for someone else to take charge, to have someone else give us a bunk up the mountain. I know she is exhausted too, not just carrying us and our baggage- but the weight of it all.

We make it to the airport just in time..

*

The goodbyes are emotional. We don’t have long, but Sam’s sister parks the car all the same, so we can say goodbye properly. I get it and am moved by it. 

As tears flood Sam and her sister, her nephew (who has been along for the ride) has a question for me- “pick a card, any card”. Something he has done all the journey down. Kids have a beautiful way of lightening a moment.

It was the same for me and my sister as we held on tightly to each other, our bellies jolting  in-between us. My mum read me a poem- one about the blossoming of a peach and another one about packing. My mum, my sister and I all hug together, and as we do so break down in each other’s arms, promising to see each other soon. 

Sam’s sister watches as we walk through the gates.

Strange how goodbyes always end up in a gate of some sort. With one door closing, or another opening. There are always those left behind. Family and friends. Are they not what you want and need in the end? When the adventures are over? Who you turn to when the adventure is too much?

*

When Sam walks onto the plane she looks drunk and unsteady on her feet. We only have one drink at the departure lounge, this is something else. This is sheer exhaustion. 

Waiting for the plane to take off, I get a message from my sister: the plane is delayed. My sister, who is waiting patiently to see us takeoff and also 10 half hours later watches as we land. 

We on the other hand are delirious. We would no sooner know if the plane had taken off or if it was still on the runway, which evidently it was for another hour. Things get even trippyer when the safety video comes on and a lady in pink is surrounded by a magical world of butterflies and angels. It is the best safety video I have ever come across, but we could as well have been dreaming. 

Like childbirth, somehow you forget all about the pain that it took to get you there. As you hold the child in your arms.. And before long, as the plane makes its way into the skies, we are asleep.

*

This journey has been a test of faith. We didn’t know if we would get there because so much was reliant on our getting there: renting the house; finding a home for Blue; renting the boat; selling the van; selling my car… All of it.. SO close to the last minute. 

We had to discuss B plans, because plan A was on the edge and was close to falling of it. Joined by myself into the sea of doubt. Somewhere on this journey, I don’t recall when, something in me changed.  I made a conscious decision to have faith. 

We could not have carried on without it. We would have drowned. 

Faith- delivered.

We found a perfect family to move into our house who were even more emotional about it than us; we found the perfect tenants for the boat. We found a home for Blue.

But faith did not hand herself to us on a plate. She didn’t come running to our aid. It was more like, how much do you trust me? How far are you willing to go, to prove you trust me.. As I fall ,surrender, shouting “I trust you”.. she catches me, just millimeters from the ground.

On the Sunday before the Tuesday we are due to leave, I finally sell my car. The car was going into an auction that evening. It was supposed to go in on Saturday, but they made a mistake. A mistake which turned out to be a blessing. On the Sunday before the Tuesday we are due to leave, Sam is despondent when a prospective buyer for the van walks away.. “Just hold on” I say   “just have faith, trust the universe”. Then comes the call, someone else wants to view it. “There you go”, I say. “Your delivery”. Sam still had to drive an hour and half round trip to meet them. 

They wanted it, but in the end just not enough for the work that Sam put in. She doesn’t accept the offer. Even hours before we were due to go to France we don’t know whether the van was coming with us to France or staying put..

Then on the Monday before the Tuesday, someone else. Maybe just maybe the universe is going to deliver- we are still waiting. Or maybe it already has delivered and the van will become our new home when we return from this journey. And we will thank the universe for not letting it go.

That is how it has been. Faith as tight as tenterhooks..

With every new page, a new challenge. As we climb the mountain there has been mounting bad weather. As we hold onto the rocks the storm rages. All we want to do is give up, because maybe that way we would get some rest. But we know we can’t. We know we just have to hold on and trust that the storm will pass. As the rain lashes down our backs and assaults our every sense.

In the distance a spot of blue sky- it is just that we haven’t seen it yet.

*

I wonder, did we get to the top of the mountain? Would we even notice if we had?

For years we have been so intent on getting ‘there’, because once we are there, then we can stop. But where is ‘there’?  What does it look like? Does it come with a view? Is it the moment you arrive? Or is it the moment you leave?

Maybe ‘there’ is just a moment.

The moment you stop to notice 

The moment you look at all that surrounds you.

The moment you breathe it all in.

Maybe it is the moment you see how far you have come.

Maybe ‘there’ is the moment you stop and rest a while..

Before the next mountain

Before the next set of challenges.

Is that not how it has always been, and always will be? Unless we choose a different path, but I am sure it will take us there all the same…