It´s getting serious...

It´s all happening... On Friday night, with the help of our friend Susanna, we packed a substantial part of the contents of the Lisbon apartment into a big (I mean, BIG) van which we rented for Saturday. I love driving vehicles like that, and decided that I will be a bus driver when I retire (laughing smiley here). As the photos below show we managed to pack it to the rafters (if it only had rafters).

Saturday morning saw us leaving Lisbon at 6:00 a.m. (how dedicated is that!). High and dry above the highway we rocketed towards the Serra de Estrela. Niki decided that our next car would have to be a van, because she now saw so much more of the countryside around us and things she could never have imagined as they were simply not visible from the little carette that she normally drives.

About 3 hours later we arrived in Sarzedo where the roads (well, there are only two and one of them is in need of repair) are so narrow that we were somewhat concerned the van might not even fit. With  mirrors folded in we just scraped through ... As you can see we professionally (!) stored all the things on the ground floor (which at the moment is not much more yet that a sandpit with French doors, but will at some stage be a lovely kitchen looking out over the mountains), off the floor (bricks quickly scored at the local DIY) before going up the mountain, under / in tarps. We were quite chuffed with ourselves!

At some stage one of the elder ladies in the village came in muttering and (as far as we could tell, in a bad mood) asked us to move the van. I said to Niki, ´I bet you she´s ignored the safety sign that we set up 50 metres or so down the street, and is now waiting behind the van with her cart. Lo, and behold - she was indeed, but she was not alone ... look for ´ít´ in the slideshow.

About 2 hours later, having left a few chairs, a table and a doll´s house in the part of the house where building is taking place, so the builders would have something to sit on and play with during their infrequent (!) coffee breaks, we were able to set off again (squeezing the van out of the village) towards Lisbon where at the end of the afternoon we delivered it back safely and returned home to do more clearing and shifting.

It is now Sunday morning. Unfortunately, my back is protesting after yesterday´s adventures. We´ve just had breakfast at one of the local bakery / coffee houses. As I blog, Niki is at is again / still at it - tidying, bagging, chucking away, and cleaning so by the end of this weekend we´re all ready to rock!

As I said ... it´s all happening.

Move