Everything to do with life is now compared to moving to Spain. I was dragging the wheelie bins up the front garden the other day and realised that I only have three more recycle bin empties between now and living in Spain. That actually starts to bring home the reality of how quick the next few weeks are going to be.
This week has been spent discussing with a rental agency about our own property and getting to a point where I will be able to list my car for sale. The rental agency is now instructed and will be here on Monday evening to take photographs of the house ready for adverts.
The car has its MOT and the tax is purchased and awaiting delivery. Once it arrives I can clean the car up and stick a couple of adverts out - and once the car sells I will be able to buy the van ready for moving.
The owner of the villa we are going to rent has also been in contact regularly. He is in the process of installing a pedestrian access through the garden so it's not always necessary to open the electric gates for to the drive to leave the property.
On arriving back in the UK last weekend I had to drive down to Plymouth from Bristol airport. Between Bristol airport and the M5 at 2 o'clock in the morning a speed camera flashed...on a straight piece of road with no houses where inexplicably for just a few hundred yards the speed limit dropped from 60 to 40 and then immediately was raised again. The camera was conveniently poised just inside the 40 zone - not a built up area - just a random 40 zone to sting drivers unnecessarily. And so today, the fine arrives - 60 quid and three points for daring to drive so irresponsibly as to do 52 mph on an empty straight road at 2AM! Oh roll on leaving this country.
Then on Monday I was tasked with completing an application form for the parent of a child I teach who wishes to claim a benefit that just seems entirely unjust and unwarranted but yet I know will eventually be awarded. Seems to me the current benefits system is one of the blights of UK society and is one of the principle reasons that middle income earners are hugely overtaxed. How frustrating to pay taxes so they can be generously shared out to labour voters who may well never pay into the system. What a joy that the system is only going to be a gripe of mine for another couple of months.
On Thursday I have the joy of a last sampling of NHS before Spain as they remove a wisdom tooth. This week I had to therefore attend a pre-admission check up where they took swabs to check for MRSA. The nurse in question didn't see the humour of my retort that I was expecting them to give me MRSA and not the other way around.
Sometimes I think my intolerance of British politics really does make me a prime candidate for moving abroad.
The photograph of the view down the La Barraca valley from our villa is now perched on my windowsill so I can keep reminding myself of just how few weeks there are to go before life changes - hopefully for the better.