Monday 4 July 2011

Hectic last few days in London and how not to do it!

The last few days in London were very hectic as everything seemed to pile up.
We found a leak under the kitchen sink and managed to get Arturas (our trusted Lithuanian plumber / tiller/decorator) to come on the Wednesday evening to fix it. We were flying off the following day, at 1 pm!
At the same time Alistair spent the evening filling and repairing/painting a wall in our dining room!
The next day as we finalised the suitcases, one exploded. Alistair had to rush to the closest shop selling suitcases and come back with a flashy one.  That same morning we had a polish builder doing some final fixes around the patio and fixing the back bedroom door!
As we left for the airport, cramming over 100 kilos of luggage (4 suitcases  + one bicycle!) into the rented car, we left the polish builder in the house with instructions to finish by lunch time as the cleaning company was due then before the tenants arrived the following day!
We also found 2 days before that we had a leak in the roof, in the loft part! That will have to be dealt by the agency as we were unable to find someone at short notice!
At the airport we had to repack one suitcase as it was over the max allowed of 32 kg per luggage.  Fun!
By the time we sat on the plane we felt we fully deserved a G&T!
I was fearing passing through custom in Rio with so much luggage but in the end we were waved through no problem despite being asked if the big box contained a big TV, which was ok when I explained it was the bike!
Now we have been here for 3 days. The flat is great, very big and empty. We went to the antique market to check out the furniture but all is rather terrible or ridiculously expensive.  Furniture, among other things, seems to be very expensive.
Anyhow, for the next few weeks I will concentrate on learning Portuguese in an intensive class, and sorting out the house to make it more of a home.

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