Chapter Eight: Foreign Exchange

It’s been a few months since I last wrote properly and two things have changed. Thing one: we bought the house. Thing two: we have grown as a family by one third.

I’ll save you the scene-by-scene on the arrival of our baby and focus on where I may be helpful, which incidentally is what I tried to do during the labour. That’s to say I provided the snacks¹. The signing of the deed, albeit belated, went without a hitch. The twenty four hours prior to the signing were a little ropier. 

Remember how in my previous post I wrote some incredibly flattering things about the U.K. banking sector? Well I retract that.

As we boarded our flight to Italy for the signing of the deed, we were still missing around 20% of the cash we owed to the sellers. Countless calls, emails and in-person visits to the bank failed to speed up the process. The computer said no. As we queued at Stansted Airport at half six that Monday morning, standing alongside what felt like 80% of the population of South East England, we really didn’t know whether we’d be able to complete the purchase. 

Once we landed in Perugia and got through immigration, nature called. For my wife. Understandable at 37 weeks pregnant but more so given she’d downed the bottle of water she had been asked to bin at security in Stansted. I took the opportunity to turn on my phone and see if I had any messages. I did. Two from my dad, but that’s not the point. I also had one from the bank. We were set.

Less than twenty four hours later we were in the notary’s office, sat opposite the sellers: two sisters in their seventies, and their entourage of witnesses and translators. The signing was mainly ceremonious as we’d all had a chance to review the contract ahead of time. A bit of luck really, as in honesty we struggled to pay attention to the reading of the contract (in both Italian and English), while attempting to stop our daughter from making a scene (in English) courtesy of a boredom-inspired meltdown/doming herself on the corner of the notary’s menacingly well-oiled mahogany table.

Ninety minutes later, we signed on the dotted line. It was done. All that hard work. All that focus. That energy. We’d done it. We’d actually done it. We’d managed to keep her entertained. We were also now the legal owners of a beautiful view and an olive grove, for which which the sellers also threw in a tired old house.

We spent the next week attempting to make the house as habitable as possible, ironically, all the while enjoying the comfort of an air bed. We’ll tell and show you how that all played out in the next post. But next Sunday, the work begins in earnest as we pack our things and say goodbye to London.

We’ll be driving through France and Switzerland before making our way through Italy. With two under three. What’s the worst that could happen?

We’re still planning the route but if you have any recommendations - places to stay, items to consume - please do get in touch. And for those in desperate need of images of the post-car sickness clean up, don’t forget to head over to our Instagram.

Xoxo

1. I also delivered the baby. True story. All that time in second slip paid dividends.