19 sleeps

our spare time on the day we had 20 sleeps left was spent driving and then sleeping, hence no post yesterday.

We said goodbye to the house.

we disposed of some stuff that was too far gone to save.

we brought rather a lot of stuff back with us.

so today, I have caved and booked Quirk with the super expensive pet travel service. The last straw was the foreign office legalisation service. for 5 minutes there I thought we were going to be ok becasue it turns out we have 7 days rather than the 4 that DEFRA had told me. But, no, the foreign office scuppered me. Not only will they not forward the document on to the Chilean consulate for legalisation there, thy won't let you chase up a lost document until 3 weeks after you have sent it in.

so, best case scenario is that they legalise the documnet the day you send it in (ha ha). then they send it back the next day, that's 3 days, then you send it to the chilean consulate, who require 2 days.

get the picture? See why £1600 has started to sound like a reasonable amount of money?

Well, no, I agree, it's extortionate, but whatever. We're going to grit our teeth and pay it.