the journey

November 2003
The idiot who had previously pooh-poohed the notion that the family dog should have her rabies inoculation “NOW”, finally went to the vet to discover that it takes 30 days for the antibodies to form and a further 30 days for the blood test to be confirmed by one of only two DEFRA laboratories in the country. The jab was given on 20th November and the blood test was taken on 20th December and sent off in the Christmas post….

….early January, after a superhuman effort by the DEFRA lab staff (thank you all), saw us with the full PETS 1 and 5 “passport” for our darling dog.

January 2004
The arrival of the pet passport got us in “motivated mode”.

A local remover came to assess our needs and offered us a part load on a lorry going via Southern France and Alicante at the end of January for delivery by 9th February. As this meant a through delivery with no intermediate handling and was within budget, we jumped at the opportunity to condense our packing, goodbyes and winding up of our affairs into just 3 weeks. Perhaps one day we will be able to relax and take things easy.

One of us (not the one who had nearly messed up the pet passport!) had had the foresight to arrange our farewell party for the middle of January and we duly spent a pleasant afternoon and evening with friends, relatives and a variety of drunks, finally retiring hurt at 4.00 am. We hope that this is good practice for our forthcoming new life of fiestas and fun.

One small extra twist; the PETS 1 passport gets the dog back into the U. K., the PETS 5 gets her through France but to get into Spain you need a DEFRA export certificate in Spanish. Our vet’s opinion was that they would never check at the border but it would just be our luck that it was the Spanish customs officer’s first day on the job and we were his first English car. The DEFRA office in Reading came up trumps in double quick time and the certificate was collected from our vet on the day before we left.

The day before we are due to move out of our rented house, the packing continues and the prospect of a 4 to 5 day trip through the tunnel to France and Spain looms ever closer.

February 2004
Removal went smoothly and we spent a few days with friends in our village, saying our final goodbyes and generally passing time.

Wendy’s account of the journey and arrival……

”We departed for Folkestone and the tunnel at 9am on Monday 2nd February (only a month later than originally planned), roof rack and car fully loaded + one travel sick dog (Roxy). By Folkestone she was resigned to the journey and stopped dribbling. We traveled down through France (lovely roads) stopping regularly for dog exercise breaks. As we had failed to plan our trip - on the basis of when we arrive we will find somewhere to stay (not to be advised) - our first stopover was in a Motel – very basic, tepid shower, however, they did allow Roxy in the room and the attached grill bar served an excellent meal which had me up half the night with the runs.

Our second stop on Tuesday was again in France at a small hotel which was quite reasonable.
Wednesday we crossed the border into Spain – did they look at our passports? – no – did they look at our expensively obtained pet passport or import licence for the dog?– no.

Wednesday evening found us just north of Madrid – we could not seem to see anything much in the way of accommodation so in our wisdom we decided (in the rush hour) to go through Madrid and try to find something the other side. We were on a road called the E5/A1 and we studiously followed the signs – until they ran out – we were then on the M30/all routes – ok, no panic – at this point, I counted 10 lanes across, all going the same direction – the signs then changed and (you’ve guessed it) nothing about the E5/A1. I convinced Steve to keep going as I was pretty sure that we were going in the right direction. Sure enough, after about 2 miles, the signs for the E5 started again, although we did have a slightly warm moment when it said E5/A4 until I checked the map and realised it changes from the A1 to the A4 in the middle of Madrid.

We emerged from Madrid and headed south – by 8:30 we were a bit ragged, hungry and tired and could only find a drivers' hostel. This was right on the motorway and did not look very promising, however, any port in a storm. On close inspection, the room was very good with an en-suite bathroom and after much persuasion (not easy when you don’t speak the language) they let us have Roxy with us in the room. It seems the criteria is that the dog not bark and be female – she passed with flying colours.

On Thursday we had good road and hardly any traffic and made it to Rute by 4pm in the afternoon – booked into the local hotel and settled Roxy into the house. We spent the weekend recovering from the journey and visiting friends we have made over here. On Monday (9th) our furniture arrived.

The bridge at Iznájar (over the lake) was closed to traffic over 10 tons and the detour made them late, eventually arriving at 1:30. They tried to turn into our road, however, the truck was too long – they ended up reversing up to the raised pavement and putting a bridge across and lifting everything over the railings.

All our neighbours not only came out to watch but brought out their chairs, their children, their parents and their dogs and set up in the best spot to view everything as it came out of the lorry.

We then drove across to the farm at Algarinejo with the removal men following to deliver all the stuff we did not have room for at Rute. On the way back we got stopped by the Guardia Civil and of course we did not have our passports or our NIE numbers with us – eventually we played ignorant (which wasn't difficult) and they waived us on.

Steve checked the electrics – put in lights (when they move out of anywhere in Spain they just leave a wire hanging from the middle of the room), blocked up all the windows that are not glazed and plumbed in the washing machine and I spent most of the time cleaning and unpacking and then laundering. We finally moved in and spent our first night on Friday (13th).

We have, to date only had one power cut (for about 2 hours) and we lost the water for about 2 hours one morning.

We requested a telephone from Telefonica on the Tuesday and it was installed on Thursday (I was impressed) and we also now have internet access.

We have been really fortunate since arriving in that the daytime temperatures have been around 20/22c with lovely blue skies and sunshine if a bit cold at night, however, this changed about 2 days ago.