5th January 2010 - Last UK Day

The moving day...the day the flat, the British life, was packed into one white transit van....EVERYTHING!

Boxes had been packed for weeks....more boxes than ever imagined- full of memories, history, stories and of course shoes!! Looking back now, you could think that most of the memories and history in those boxes didnt need to make the journey. But then, a grey day occurs - its raining and cold outside, friends and family are distant and life en France isnt quite the adventure it should have been and those memories and history are more important to BritGirl than you could ever imagine...postcards from holidays past, old CDs, letters from friends and family going WAY WAY WAY back in time, notes stuck on BritGirl's car on her last day at work (!! - yes even that was kept!), the first silver service set used....another endless list, but they were all stowed safely away in a white transit van.

Around those boxes, a sofa was squashed in...... the van was ready, the flat was ghostly empty. No tears were shed at this point, which surprised BritGirl...it was just a matter of cleaning and leaving.

The plan was to spend a night with friends who lived near the airport and on the 6th January fly to Bordeaux where the new life would start with a new flat (the flat hunting was such a trial, that it will need a whole new blog to explain!) The white van would also leave the UK on the 6th and drive through la belle France for Bordeaux.

It must have been about 5pm on the 5th January, when the worry about weather set in....in typical British fashion - there was news of heavy snow fall affecting the south (lets face it, we had been plagued with snow on and off throughout December).

Surprisingly, no tears were shed on this day at all - not even with weather worry, but a very sick feeling was present, from the moment the empty flat was "abandonned" all the worry and fear set in....it seems that some of these nerves were not entirely in vain.

That night, the last British pub meal was had with very good friends - the best you could ask for in many ways - we laughed, we talked about the past, the present, the future, we planned and of course, we had a drink....but that didnt take our eyes away from the pub window and the snow falling...the ery silence of snow hit us as we left the pub - the sky was dark with an impending gloom that suggested hours of snow was still left to fall....at this point, the sick feeling worsened - would we really fly tomorrow?

That night, no matter how much sleep was needed after a week of New Year celebrations, tearful goodbyes and packing - no sleep was had.... instead there was just worry about the move, the distance, the fact the DDay had actually arrived (coincidental that DDay was a French event) and worsened by all likelihood that a white van with the whole contents of life and home would be travelling to Bordeaux in the morning, without BritGirl actually getting on a plane to join it at the other end.

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