I am getting Excited now!

well we have just returned from Le Theil after a very productive week. I now feel like it is all coming together and the whole thing is not a figment of my imagination, oh shit what have we done... No really it is working out real good.

So we took the Berlingo and trailered the FJR1300 down to the house no worries, even managed to take the Wood Burner in the back of the car so another worry over.

So we managed to:

• get the FJR registered
• get the Berlingo Registered and Insured (all risk and Assistance)
• connect the hob to a gas source
• get the wood burner into the house
• entertain our first visitors (Bikes)
• have aperitifs with the french neighbours
• get some riding in
• visit new friends in Abusson
• view and instigate Wendy's mum and Tony's purchase of a house in St Dizier (Bourganeuf)

So all the stress over whether I would get the FJR registered without having to go through some restriction in BHP was unfounded - I simply turned up at the Import Tax office with the V5 and proof that we have a house in France (An EDF Electric Bill) and of course a passport, the lady filled all the forms in for us and we received an import Tax exemption Certificate.

We took this to the prefecture up the road and with the right forms pre-completed (Basic inf0 on the bike and proof of identity) we approached the teller and were surprised at how easy it was. We simply handed the forms in (signed them) we gave the V5 in (retaining the export part) gave the Certificate of Conformance, and proof of living in France (EDF Bill again) - we were told to sit and wait and within 20 Min's we were in receipt of our Carte Grise (French V5) for 182 euros for the JR and 151 euros for the Berlingo. Number plates cost a total of 49 euros for the car bike and trailer. SORTED...

The insurance worked out at slightly cheaper for the Berlingo than that of Nowrich Union Direct but it now included full riskes for any driver and came with full european breakdown assistance.

We had some friends drop in on us (Coops, Steve, Alistair, Glyn) who stayed the night - it was a good night and exceptional social, drunk all the wine but we were ale to get a feel for entertaining and hosting the guy's and securing their bikes. All said they would definately be back.

So we are moving forward at a rapid rate of knotts we take the furniture over in July when I hope to Register the Triumph Rocket 111. Then in Sept we are over again for the duration...

Still counting down

Well serving out 6 months notice is a drag - whilst I am still committed to work (strangely) I would equally cut and run.

We sold the MX-5 reasonably quickly and for a fair price. Wendy was sad to see it go and would have just as happily kept it and took it over with us to France. But that would be just one more thing we needed to sort out and at the end of the day we really didn't need it nor the expense of its upkeep.

I have managed to get Certificates of Conformaty for the FJR1300 and The Rocket 111, thankfully. The FJR one was really simple and a phone call to Customer services at Yamaha UK secured one by return post. Triumph were a little more difficult really it was down to who you spoke to or emailed... I emailed a Viv.Porteous@triumph.co.uk who according to Triumph's switchboard was the right person and the person who delt with Certificates of conformace for all Triumph Bikes. I emailed her many times and received read receipts but she ignored my emails (so Viv if you read this I think you are ignorant!) so I then emailed Youels of Blackburn the delership I bought the bike from and they obtained me a copy of the EU Certificate of Conformance within a week - Thank you Anna of Youels.

I had a technical problem with the Rocket this week so was a ble to get have a go with the Berlingo and trailer combination and was pleasantly surprised at how much happier I was with the Berlingo than with the PT Cruiser as a toeing vehicle. I was also surprised at how easy it was to get the Rocket on and off the trailer.

Just waiting

Well we are in the "wait" be patient stage and time is dragging in our minds but in reality it is rushing by.

We had a problem finding a wood burner which met our needs whilst in France (I guess we just didn't really know where to look or how to explain ourselves sufficiently) so we bought one in the UK and had it delivered to our house in the UK. which was fine until I realised how much these things weigh (300lbs) so now I have to work out how we get it over there and then how we get it out of the car/Luton and into the hearth, lol... it was a good price though and fits our idea of what we needed.

Things we need to do before we go but not too soon.

• Inform the Tax Man we are moving
• Inform my Pension we are moving and that I want the pension paying to a french account in euro's
• sort out the medical side - inform our Dr's etc, sus out what we do about repeat prescriptions when in France
• cancel all the utility bills, Gas, Elec, Phone, Broadband, Sky, TV License, Poll Tax, RAC cover, Key security.
• register the Berlingo and the 3 bikes in France. I am worried about the bikes car should be fine.

Once there we need to prioritise all the work so that we can do some sort of B&B from Spring next year (08).

• central heating system check and repair
• fit wood burner
• buy/store wood for burning
• internal decoration of double bedrooms. Carpets.
• satellite dish and cabling for UK television (Sky(?))
• decorate kitchen and make good units - source suitable table and chairs
• sort out furnishings, beds, linen etc.
• guttering and down pipes
• finish off roofing around the bunk area
• electrics and plumbing for bunk room
• hot water supply bunk room and our bathroom
• new bathrooms for bunk room
• floor and walls for bunk room
• rendering of outside
• paint outside
• convert store room into a drying room for bike kit
• Gardening, and Patio area...
• board up and convert atic to living space
• new kitchen (low priority but needs to be done)
• repair/replace garage doors
• gardens, BBQ area
• and much much more no doubt...

Driving on the wrong side of the road

Well We sold the PT Cruiser Friday 30th quick sale for £7,750 and picked up the Berlingo on Sunday 1st £7,999 so almost a swap. I guess the timing was right and the PT Cruiser was automatic and petrol so a hard car to sell when the diesel is more powerfull and economic so I was happy to take the price just to be free of the trouble of selling it on before we left for France.

Well it was like learning to drive all over again - I have been driving a RHD Auto for the last 6 months and to sudenly get into what is practically a van LHD and manual was a bit of a laugh... Had Wendy worried for a short time.

We rode up to collect it 86 miles on the FJR Wendy then drove home.

The Luton Van is hired for July Billy (eldest son) has booked time off and we are set to move our belongings out to the house July 25th - 1 Aug. Ferry booked - the plan is for Wendy to drive the Berlingo with her Honda on the trailer accross hopefully Bobby will be able to get the time off and accompany her. I will Drive the Luton over same time with Billy (If bobby cannot get the time off then Billy will go with Wendy in the Berlingo...

Web Site

Spent some time over the weekend developing a website to market the B&B what do you think www.ridersrest.net ?

Long Weekend

Not much happening - we had a good long weekend over in Theil 13 - 18 March the weather was brilliant, We spent the time just checking out the local facilities and venturing to Limoges and Brive to check out the major stores, drank some wine and fitted an oven and part fitted a Gas Hob - still need to sort out the conection to a gas bottle though.

Practice trailer packing

So regarding transport and actually getting over to France with all our possessions we have a slight problem we currently have two cars and three bikes... Both cars have to go and we need to buy a more versatile car LHD we have put a deposit down on a Berlingo 1.9D.
I know it isn't an exciting drive but it has plenty of space, is French, and LHD so a practical choice and most suitable for our needs. More so than a PT Cruiser and an MX5...

Earlier in the year (January) we bought a motorcycle trailer one reputed to take the biggest of bikes (but the Rocket111 rear tyre is too wide for the trailer) - but no worries as both the Honda and The FJR fit perfectly.

So we head over for a week in June and intend to take and leave the FJR over there leaving the Rocket111 and Honda which we will trailer the Honda with Wendy driving and I will ride the Rocket111 down at the same time.

We intend to hire a Luton to take the furniture and my eldest Billy has volunteered to drive this down for us - All we have to do is decide on a date and make it happen...

Amendment to Plan

Stage1:
Selling our house in Poole - Completed
Purchasing the house in France - Completed
finding somewhere to rent in the UK - Completed
Stage 2:
saving up so that we can survive until the B&B can sustain us - Okay this may not happen given the new timeframe...
modernise the french house to create a home - Brought forward
network and establish a B&B 4 motorcyclists - Brought forward

Stage 3:
give up work in the UK - Handed my Notice in 5 March 07 - Leave 1 Sept 07
move lock stock barrel to france
enjoy our life riding and entertaining motorcyclists.

Full Steam Ahead!

Well we have upped the pace a little, after returning from France we had a couple of eye openers on how life should be lived and not wasted...

One of my colleagues asked for time off as his wife had just been diagnosed with a "C" lump in her breast and they were going to operate to remove it and as many Lymph nodes as they could saying how lucky they had spotted it at this early stage, he was also worried about a lump in his testicles...

Wendy then had an Accident in her MX5 being rear ended she was okay a little shocked and bruised, but then a couple of days later she was admitted into Poole Hospital with symptoms not dissimilar to a "Heart Attack" which turned out to be Liver related and the Dr's had/have no idea what the cause was.

So I have handed my notice in at work (I am on a 6 month notice period) so we will now be moving lock stock and barrel over to France by 1st September.

We have now taken possession of the House

We went over to France on the 14th Feb and traveled down to Treignac on the 15th Feb where we met Catherine (the Imobilier rep) who walked us round the house and arranged for the owner to come up and show us where all the water and electric meters were and how to use the appliances such as the Oil Fired Central heating system...

On the 16th we opened a bank account, sorted out buildings and contents insurance and went along to the Notaire to sign for the keys and have the contracts explained and Whola after a busy day we were officially property owners in France...

The beginning of the rest of our lives…

So we decided to escape the rat race and work for ourselves, well if you are going to slog your guts out it may as well be for your own pleasure rather than to make someone else rich.

But how do you get out of the Rat Race and live a good life? You need to be self sufficient and financially independent, right. We still had a big mortgage with 17 years left to go until we could call it all ours and paid for. We did have a good income and a good lifestyle but this depended on a well paid job and a healthy profit share bonus at the end of each year.

So armed with a calculator we added up what we were worth if we liquidated our assets and became cash rich. I am fortunate (through working) to be in receipt of a military pension which is index linked from my 55th anniversary so 55 seemed to be the optimum year to do it, but we wanted to go now.

We worked out that if we sold the house we could use any equity 90k to buy a property in France and then live on the pension aided by any savings to raise the living level until I was 55 ( that would be August 2013) - so we had a plan…

Since we had done some riding on France we had a good idea of where we would like to be located. Since we also wanted to spend what quality time we had riding our bikes we would need to be near some of the best biking roads we could find but also in an area which would afford us a 360 degree option of rides which would be different. Our choice was the Limousin. With the Med, and Spain to the South, Switzerland, Italy, and the Alps to the East, The Atlantic Coast to the West. North gets us the Grand Massif, Holland and of course the UK.

We were pretty lucky to find a house which met all of our criteria quite quick – second house hunting visit. It was on the market for 120,000 euros plus fees another 12,000 euros just over the budget but we made an offer of 110,000 euros and to our surprise it was accepted, we put our house on the market in October 06 and within 3 days we had accepted an offer for £5,000 more than we expected. We were commited.

Since we still have to save a bit of cash we decided we wouldn’t go over full time until I was 50 so we needed somewhere to rent in the meantime. Well you could have knocked us down with a feather when the buyer (a fellow Marine) offered to rent our house back to us until we go and for £100 less than we had been paying on the mortgage – RESULT!

SO we have a house in France which cost us £84,000 leaving us some money over for improvements a place to live in the UK whilst we save a little and a future to look forward to.

The Future is Bright…

Our New House

Well we are nearing the end of the purchase part of our life changing experience. the final part of stage 1 is swiftly drawing to a finale which is taking possession of our new house, (New to us that is).

We Sold our house within two days of putting it on the market This made us wonder if we had under priced the property but also we were very happy that we could sell quickly thus doing away with needing a mortgage to finance the French Property. We were also pretty fortunate that the buyer was looking for an investment and was happy to rent the house back to us for less than we were paying on he mortgage.

We quickly made an offer on our French house 10,000 euro's under the asking price and were very pleased to have it accepted, we were off to a good start. When it came to transferring funds to France to pay for the house we were also in luck as the exchange rate rose in our favour and actually saved us £2500 from our estimations.

So the date is set to pick up the keys. Friday 16th February, the ferry is booked for the 14th Feb (romantic crossing of course) as you can imagine Wendy is buzzing and I am reserving judgement until I have the keys in my hand...

Whilst we are over there we need to ensure we read the meters, arrange direct debits for the utility bills, and open a bank account.

So we will be saying at our house in France from the 16th Feb til 18th Feb when we dash back to Poole, which is going to be difficult as I suspect both of us will want to stay as there is much to do for phase 2.

Stage1:

• Selling our house in Poole
• Purchasing the house in France
• finding somewhere to rent in the UK

Stage 2:

• saving up so that we can survive until the B&B can sustain us
• modernise the french house to create a home
• network and establish a B&B 4 motorcyclists

Stage 3:

• give up work in the UK
• move lock stock barrel to france
• enjoy our life riding and entertaining motorcyclists.