Waking thoughts

Early morning, two days to go..
Actually scared !!!
Some of the most important papers/items that I have been working on getting for months, may just arrive tomorrow.
On Saturday Im going to leave my beautiful home I love, the security I often need to come back to..and the dogs that love us sooo much and have no idea that we will come back in 4 months.
Can I cope with life on the road again? Daily home searching and making, un-making and repacking..
Negative things don't always come to mind unless they're pointed out to me.
How will I manage with the extra work load especially with my back?
- and inspite of the wonderful help from Gofundme and Jamie giving Mark a sitting down days work,  we are still setting off with minimal money.
Mark can ride but he can't walk! It seems ludicrous to think about leaving now!
But if we don't, we will miss the grass for the horses and the summer heat will become impossible.
Ommmmm comes to mind, best not to precieve ( my phone tells me that's not a word, but I beg to differ! )
Stay naive, up in the clouds, riding the wave, living in the now!
Positive things to note :
Mark will get better.
The hours in the saddle will be the easiest hours for us in the current circumstances, so keep on movin'...
Neurotic Niki and Hop along Cassidy T minus 48 hours and counting. .

Losing my cool..

YES! YES! YES! (I have got out of bed- don't worry!)

I have called him!

We HAVE got a pack horse!

& she is no ordinary horse - like Paco said she is Oro puro...

Pure gold...& great feet too (did I mention?)

He only came down 50 euros but hey ho! It's only 11.15 now, didn't manage to wait til midday.

Gambling for the Golden Girl

So out of Paco's horses, one stood way out, the criteria being: not too big, compact, easy going nature & very importantly, easy to sell on as it will stay in the UK and we won't have long to home it.

 She's not just lovely to look at, she gets about like a mountain goat! It's not easy to act like you're not interested when you really are, but for the sake of getting a bargain...

... 8am Friday, thinking about the golden girl! I'm going to ring today and make the offer, we MUST have her! I've managed to stay cool for 48 hours in an attempt to scare Paco into dropping the price.  She's already peanuts but we have such limited funds. It's stupidly frightening! Did our sums last night and its a bit justo to say the least... 

Also I'm waking early these days and thinking (well, worrying) about the time left to get passports done etc.  But it is OK, there's still time!

OK, I'm going to ring him at 11.00... or maybe I can cope til midday? Then I'll go to market and celebrate with a beer and a fag probably (even though I don't smoke any more)! 

Please let us have her!!

So here's our wall at 2 months to go..

We've got a big fat super confident green line on the map following the GR7 through Spain, and notes showing places where people have generously offered for us to stay on the way. We got a wonderful response after posting our plans on the facebook page 'Horse owners in Spain!' 

Mark has also plotted a proposed route through France which continues along the GR7, but I think its quite a long way round so we obviously need a discussion...

It's good to have a big visible list to refer and add to, we both have a poor memory (but for different reasons). The wedding (dress), if you can see it, is right at the bottom of the list ..obviously not a priority - yet!

So now to start ticking things off... 

El Lorrito:

We think we've decided on getting:

a) an English lorry (more scope, cheaper and less red tape); and 

b) a 7.5t or at least one that can take 3 horses (a lorry then).

So I'm looking with renewed vigour and inundating my brother in the UK with lorry links..

Oh, hang on a minute, no.. Mark now says we should get a 3.5t because it'll be easier to drive, guess that's true..(el lorrito after all then).

The Pack-Horse:

I've rung a guy called Paco and we're going to see potential pack-horses on Wednesday.  Ojala we'll find a good one...

We've got plenty of time haven't we??!!!

[Apologies for the small font... technical hitches - we are learning on the go!]

So here we are, our wall filled with maps and lists, people keep scaring me with comments like 'how many weeks now til you go?' Weeks? you mean months! Actually dare I say, two and a half months is about right, still sounds OK, but when it's less than two months it becomes weeks and then I'll be stressy, especially if we haven't got certain key things sorted, like having the packhorse/ mule! 

So I'm busy looking for a suitable packhorse, and on Wednesday I'm going to see a few .. what fun! I'm also searching like mad for the lorrito (that's a small lorry). Trying to get one set up early as our safety net, but actually we should only need to get across the channel. It's fun looking for a two horse lorry with possibly room for a bed, even though we're limited with just a 3000 Euro budget. 

Mark is the navigator, he's plotting the route, getting to know Google Maps, blogs and websites..finding and losing things, swearing a lot.. 

He's doing that and I'm doing this, now and again he or I will enthusiastically quote something interesting from our findings, but we aren't really listening to one another cos we're too engrossed, we just make an appropriate response noise without looking up.