There is an old saying of which is a relatively modern proverb apparently attributed to Alan Lakein, a writer of time management books since the 1970s. "Failing to plan is planning to fail!" With that in mind, three days to go we have planned our move down to the tiniest detail. We have ten packages for collection by our courier for transportation to Spain, all collected on time. Saturday arrives and we are struggling to keep the weight of our allocated two cases each below the 23kgs allowed by Monarch Airlines. We decide to be sensible and ring up Monarch and ask them how much the excess baggage will be. £10 per kilogram is the response. Ok, a few kilograms in the grand scheme of things we decide is manageable, until we check our flight details... To cut a very long story short, we have only one case booked each! How on earth did it happen? We blame the website which states you can book cases up to 23kgs each, with a maximum of five cases. Ok, we cocked up but on clicking two cases each we had booked two totalling 23 kgs. My argument will always be that who will ever book five cases at a total of 23kgs? With the weight of the bags totalling maybe 10-15 kgs, how much weight does that leave for luggage? A very odd scenario given that other airlines offer you more than one case each!
Our biggest concern however is how do we get our two cases over to Spain, given the excess baggage will be pushing £500. We are thankful, however that we called as if, when turning up at the airport we would have had no option other than to pay the excess or bin our belongings. I think I'm mentioning this because, despite our haste in leaving the country and our continuous mistakes, we are still making our dream happen! We arrange for our original courier to collect our remaining suitcases with only a few hours to spare.
Our leaving party negotiated, goodbye to work colleagues and family and a final drink in our local pub - Before we know it we are at Manchester airport. I have my iPod with my mix of classic rock, punk and guilty pleasures (musical ones) loaded. Sue has her books downloaded. We treat ourselves to the airport executive lounge before we jet off!
Our flight touched down 10.45pm local time. We were met at the airport by Mr party man taxi driver! He got us to Torrevieja in about 35 minutes with every speed limit broken and other drivers his mere playthings. My plan of quiet contemplation of our new life didn't even get off the ground. Our driver appeared to be the Spanish cross between Timmy Mallet and Smashy & Nicey! (Remember Harry Enfield back in the day?) very loud party music blaring away and loads of clapping by the driver. He even gave us frequent weather updates, well, he kept shouting "fifty degrees in Benidorm!"
Many people may wonder why two people would give up secure jobs and a comfortable lifestyle to go and live in another country. I've often wondered myself. We cannot speak Spanish, we have visited mainland Spain only once before and don't have jobs to go to. We will miss many things about the UK but given we have five sons aged between 20 a 25 years old who have all left home, brother and sisters, dad. We hope they will visit and we may even see them as much as we did before. Leaving family behind is definitely the hardest thing to do
We were met at our apartment by our landlord and within half an hour we had signed rental agreements. We were informed that Spain was experiencing a heatwave and it's hottest summer in years. We decided we could very much live with that scenario and the sound of the sea nearby only added to our excitement. Before long we were sitting on our balcony in the very warm midnight air, cold drink in our hands and thinking 'this is it!', 'there's no going back now' and 'what have we done?' The easy bit done, we are looking forward to our new life in Spain!