From The London Diary: The Last Two Weeks
Day 82
Wednesday May 12
Mark:
Right. Before we get onto moving day, incase you’re coming to this late, or maybe it was so long ago we were writing about this that you’ve forgotten. We’re moving to Ireland because it really is the only place in the world me and Maja can legally live together. Her visa for the UK is only valid for six months – doesn’t have to be six months all in one go, but it is valid for only six months. Bottom line, she can’t legally settle there. Thanks to Brexit. I can’t go and settle anywhere else in Europe either. Thanks to Brexit. We examined other countries around the world and discovered a lot of barriers everywhere we looked, this time thanks to Covid. Yes, this is May 2021 and Covid restrictions are still in place in varying degrees all over the world. But travel and relocating is still OK between the UK and the Republic of Ireland and citizens of both are allowed to live in each others’ countries. And of course, citizens of Europe are allowed to live in the Republic of Ireland. Because it’s Europe. So Maja can live there. So can I. Problem solved. As long as we can get ourselves around all the other problems of getting there from London. Including finding a house, which we still haven’t managed to do.
6:45am: We wake and see we have an email from an agent we’ve contacted who is up for the six month rent up front thing, but we really don’t like the look of the house he’s proposing for us. Maja also tells me now that, on a whim, she sent an email to a house she saw and is only mentioning to me now. No problem. She shows me the pictures and it really doesn’t look good. She even apologises to me for having made the contact for such a dingy looking place. Again, no problem. We dismiss it and think no more of it until I decide to check out the location. It’s bang in the middle of the country. Maybe we should just remain open on this. Later we get an email from a guy called Adrian replying to Maja’s email. He seems quite downbeat and says the location isn’t good at all for two musicians thinking of moving to Ireland from London. He suggests we try somewhere like Galway instead. Well, thanks for the heads up. We’re really not thinking that hard about this place anyway. But there is still that thing that it’s bang in the middle of the country.
7am: Maja and Cris have completed the paperwork. We now have a car and it is enormous.
While they’re doing that, I’m checking out new houses that have popped up. I email them now and will follow them up later.
8am: Big news as we receive our Green Card authorisation by email. We are now insured to drive in Ireland.
9am: That paperwork for the car needs printing, as well as the Green Card. I go over to the restaurant to ask Luca if I can use his office to print it. No problem he says. We get on that straight away.
9.30am: I’m walking across the carpark back to our house, I see a traffic warden three cars away from the car that is now our responsibility. And it’s not supposed to be parked in here. Cris would kind of chance his arm with it, but more often than not park it somewhere else. Today, it is not at that somewhere else.
I run into the house and into our room. After completing the paperwork, Maja went back to bed and is now fast asleep. I wake her up without hesitation. ‘You need to get up right now,’ I say. ‘A traffic warden is about to hit the car. We rush out, Maja wearing slippers because they were faster to put on than shoes. The traffic warden is inspecting the car next to ours as we jump in and drive off. Maja’s first drive of the car and it’s a getaway drive.
Me: ‘Are we ever going to have something happen that isn’t dramatic?’
Maja: ‘No.’
But the getaway isn’t at all smooth. She’s never driven a car this big before, and when she searches for the biting point in first gear, the revs suddenly go mad and the car makes a huge noise. But she gathers herself, finds the right balance and we ease out of the parking spot and away from the inquisitive warden. Out in the small streets and we just can’t believe the sheer dimensions of this thing. It seems to be far too big for the roads we’re driving on right now. But we get it a few streets away from the house and then stop and take in exactly what we have here. We can sleep in it, and we do exactly that for a 15 or so minute nap. Damn. We have our tent now as well, although it will have all our stuff in it when we get to Ireland so it might not be an immediate accommodation fix.
11am: We get back and Maja does some more cleaning on the car while I get onto house calls. I won’t detail them. It doesn’t go well.
3pm: We’ve finished packing and the car is loaded to the roof. Damn, we had no idea that we really needed something this big. We’ve said our goodbyes and we’re on the road and away. The move is officially on. We still have no final destination. All through the small, slow, winding streets of north London, Maja is learning the car and having trouble with the clutch. She assumes this is just because it’s such a big car and so has a different make-up to the smaller cars she’s used to.
5:30pm: On the motorway and we suddenly feel something bang under the car. We catch a glimpse of whatever it is as it bounces away and we think it’s a shoe.
6pm: We’re following a diversion away from the motorway for a little while which means slowing down and picking up speed at a few junctions and roundabouts. Which means Maja has to use the difficult clutch quite a lot. At a particularly tricky roundabout the rev counter suddenly goes crazy, the engine roars, and the car is filled with a horrible burning smell. Soon after this it starts to lose power. We get back on the motorway and Maja is able to keep it going. Just. I can tell she’s using all the concentration of a racing driver and is in hyper focus mode. While she’s doing that I’m on my phone and trying to find mechanics up the road that we could possibly go to. But it’s late. The only one I manage to call and speak to says they’re closing soon so we won’t make it in time from where we are. He says all others will be saying the same thing. Thankyou very much. We’re on our own.
6.50pm: Maja declares that we’re going to try to make a run all the way to the ferry which, if we can keep this speed up, is just under two hours away. With that she gives me a job to do. Keep us on motorways. No junctions, no roundabouts, nothing that could remotely necessitate a stop or even a slow down. As long as she can keep us moving with minimal recourse to the clutch we might just be able to put in some real miles. She doesn’t care how far I have to detour us if that’s what it takes. Just keep us on uninterrupted fast roads. We might just make it to the ferry if we do that. Get this thing on the other side of the water and have it looked at then. The ferry leaves at 10pm and we have to be there for 9. By now I’m watching every mile of the GPS tick off and am watching every minute of the clock tick by. After an hour or so of this, Maja asks, ‘Are you bored?’ ‘I wish I was,’ I reply, and in the middle of this madly dramatic second by second drive we fall into hysterical laughter. I don’t think I’ve ever been less bored by watching miles or minutes go by one at a time. I’m in hyper focus mode too, and am thinking that if we can just keep on, one at a time, we can get there. Looking at Maja now, I realise I really have never seen anyone operating at this level of focus. We have a horrible moment when we have to stop at a toll booth and the car absolutely crawls away, accelerating at a tortuously slow rate. Enough to have cars behind us beeping in frustration. Oh, they have no idea. And their horns do nothing to improve the dark mood in our little world right now. We get to some kind of speed, but it’s clear things are very very weak. As we head round a downhill motorway bend we pick up some encouraging speed, but it’s an illusion. If anything, it feels more like freewheeling.
8.30pm: We’re 10 minutes away from the ferry. A little more than 10 miles away and we’re starting to believe we might just be able to make it. But then the car starts to slow down. No matter how much Maja pumps on the accelerator, nothing happens. We’re going slower and slower. Soon the decrease starts to increase. Maja reluctantly pulls onto the hard shoulder. Down down goes the speed, as though the brake is being applied. Then we stop. Maja looks at me in resignation, then a little hope as she charges the car again, gets some revs going and we start to pull away. But it’s only a tease. We get a hundred yards or so, never getting above walking pace, and then that’s it. The car, which passed an MOT yesterday, really has gone. This is as far as we’re going to get. It’s dark, it’s raining. We’re on a lonely road. We’re slowly accepting we’re not getting any ferry tonight but that’s not even our biggest problem right now. We have no breakdown cover. We’re totally alone, abandoned on the side of a road somewhere in the north west of England.
Maja looks at me with empty eyes. She’s stunned, mentally exhausted, and almost emotionally broken. And lost. Both geographically and for any idea of what to do next. We’ve been together less than three months and have already been through quite a few crises. But this feels like by far the biggest. I saw an emergency phone a little way back and I’m going to walk to it and see what happens. We normally have pens and notebooks to hand all the time but we’ve somehow managed to neglect that on this drive. All I can find is a pencil and a single piece of paper and frankly, I feel lucky to have found that. And unfortunately, the only thing the hopeful burst of walking pace driving has achieved is to take us further away from the roadside phone. Worse news comes as I open the door and a blast of cold rain is blown in on a harsh, icy wind, instantly destroying what has been a lovely warm, if quite stressful, place until now. Moving day could not be further from fun right now. I jump out into the unforgiving weather and begin the dark, lonely walk back down the wrong direction on the motorway to the phone, wondering what’s going to happen when I pick up and if I’ll actually be able to talk to someone. I am, but it’s not an encouraging conversation. The lady on the other end is sympathetic, but all she can do, she says, is give the numbers of some breakdown companies for me to call round myself. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Reluctantly, I retrieve the paper and pencil from my pocket and do my best to write down the names and numbers she gives me. But the paper is slowly going soggy while also blowing about carelessly as I try to write on it. As soon as I hang up, I get to work calling the numbers as I walk back to the car, buffeted all the way by wind and rain. And it’s a slightly stumbly walk as well because this patch of ground I’m on has not been cultivated for strolling on and it resembles some craggy, alien landscape complete with deep grooves and gashes you could break an ankle in. I go back and forth between a few emergency companies, comparing prices and offers. This process of finding and comparing service providers can be challenging and frustrating enough when sat at a warm kitchen table with a laptop, pen and notebook and with a lovely hot cup of tea steaming away next to you. I can tell you now that it’s a little more challenging and frustrating right now. And I’m nowhere near a kettle. Oh damn. That reminds me. I am writing this from a warm kitchen table and I am very much near a kettle. My mind is right back at that horrible roadside scene but I can’t take my current cuppa tea making facilities for granted. Gonna go get that started now before I plunge back into this little bunch of misery.
Halfway through my calls and my phone rings. It’s a guy called Craig and he introduces himself as being from the RAC. I’d quite liked their offer compared to the others although it is still quite expensive. What makes them the most attractive, apart from the name recognition, is that they offer the furthest towing distance from the scene. I have no idea where we have to get to, so the biggest margin for error we can have, surely the better. Craig on the phone also represents a bird in the hand as opposed to the other companies yet in the bush. I accept his call and offer for help. I also had the awareness to write down the serial number of the standing roadside phone I used, so Craig now knows exactly where we are. Already I’m feeling reassured. I think I’ll say now that I’ve already refused another company, that I won’t name, not least because I can’t remember who they were. This is because the guy I spoke to on the phone sounded so unprofessional, unprepared and spoke with zero level of assurance. He was only a phone operator and front person for the company, but I thought that if that was the first impression they were happy to give, I could do without discovering what any of the other impressions could be. Our predicament is not a place in which to be nice or polite to people you think could make it worse. This is not the time to give someone a chance or benefit of the doubt. As soon as the guy started spluttering and hesitating I hung up. But now I have Craig, who sounds decisive, tough and eager to get on with the job. Before he hangs up, he tells me that we are not to stay with the car. We have to leave it and walk back to the barrier behind the hard shoulder. Will do. I feel as safe and confident in his hands as it’s possible to feel in a situation such as this. Totally independently, I take the decision to agree that all payments will be met and conditions agreed to. By the time I return to Maja in the car, I’m delighted to tell her we have the beginning of a solution, but not so delighted to tell her we have to leave the warmth of the car.
This means walking back over that pitted moonscape which Maja, with her newly healed ankle, is not happy about at all. Once we’ve reached the relative safety of the barrier, all we can do is wait in the dark, cold rain. Somewhere in this we manage to have a really big few laughs but I can’t remember at all what we talked about to make them happen. But even as we’re going through this horribleness I think it’s pretty cool we can have a laugh about it. But then, getting serious as our spirits start to dip, I say, ‘You just never know. Something might just happen out of this that wouldn’t have happened without it.’
While we’re waiting, we make the call to the ferry company to tell them what’s happened and to book ourselves on the ferry for tomorrow night. The ferry company happily transfers us onto tomorrow’s crossing with just a small admin charge, but unfortunately we no longer have a cabin. Not ideal, but given the circumstances, at least we’re starting to get the dots joined again. However, as we’re waiting here, one thing dawns on us. We told the guys in Mayo we’d be there tomorrow. Now we won’t be and we know they’re showing it to other people. Oh well, that house has really gone now.
The plan, as much as we can make it now, is to see if Craig can fix the car here, but we know he probably won’t. We’ve missed the ferry anyway so that part is irrelevant. At best we’re going to hope we can get to a garage and they can fix it tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ll be booking ourselves into a hotel somewhere in Liverpool tonight.
9.20pm: Craig arrives. As I suspected by dealing with him on the phone he’s professional, friendly and quite brilliant really. He can’t tow the car as it’s too heavily loaded, so he winches it onto the back of his truck. Only then does he summon us to come and join him in the front cab. He confirms the callout includes a lift within a 50 mile radius. He’s already called a garage and says we’re going to drive there, leave the car there, then he’s going to drive us to whatever hotel we’re able to book ourselves into.
9.30pm: While Craig is sorting out the car at the side of the road and we know we’re rescued, I call Cris and tell him what’s happened. He point blank refuses to believe this isn’t a wind up, even when I send him a picture of Craig with the car against the flashing blue lights. It’s only our increasingly desperate tone that finally convinces him, at which point he has something of an emotional breakdown and can’t say sorry enough. He really thought the car had been checked enough to be totally solid but something has clearly gone wrong.
10.20pm: Craig is done and he gestures to us to come and join him in the cab. Finally. We’re ready to leave. Our feet are almost numb. We’ve been standing here in the cold, wind and rain for almost two hours. He tells us the clutch has burnt out and that only a garage job will do.
10.30pm: A short drive during which he asks about our story and soon can’t believe what he’s hearing, and we’re at the garage where Craig gets out and prepares to leave the car to be picked up in the morning. While he’s doing that we call hotels. The first one is full. Oh dear. Not good. The second asks why we want a hotel because we’re still in Covid times and you can’t just go and book a hotel apparently. It has to be some kind of emergency. I tell them what’s happened as briefly as I can and they relent. Yes of course we can have a room for the night. Oh wow. Now I call Paul who lives in Warrington, just a short drive from Liverpool. I tell him our story to stunned silence and then see if he fancies coming to meet us somewhere tomorrow, and in doing so, meet Maja properly for the first time. He’s well up for that, although he does sound a note of caution that we shouldn’t expect the car to be fixed tomorrow. Not really what I want to hear because we kind of need it tomorrow, but he does have a hell of a lot more experience of cars and repairs and garages than I do. I decide to engage the denial dial and concentrate on the real outcome which is that bizarrely, we now have plans in Liverpool for tomorrow. By the time Craig comes back we’re able to tell him we have a destination. Before setting off to drive us there he gives us the number of the garage he’s just dropped the car off at and tells us to call the mechanic at 8:30 in the morning. Then it’s off to the hotel where we gratefully check in. Despite the uncertainty still ahead of us, we’re so so relieved to be in a warm safe place with clean dry sheets and a shower. Will the car even be fixed tomorrow? We have no idea. We have no idea about anything. But somehow, feeling calm and even joyful – how?- we settle in for the most wonderful night’s sleep.
Day 83
Thursday May 13
On our first 13th of the month together, which was March, we almost killed a cat. On the 13th of the next month broke her ankle, throwing all our plans into chaos. I wonder what will happen on this one. Surely we’re due a good one, if for no other reason than to balance out yesterday.
We’re up at 8am and at 8:30, just like Craig said, we call the mechanic. He goes against all Paul’s pessimism and promises they will have the car ready today. We’ll see, but right now I’m happy to take his word for it. We chill around for a bit, try to call a few house prospects but get either no answer or no luck, then at 12 we have to check out. In the meantime I call Paul and he says he’ll be here sometime around 4pm.
So at 12, all packed, we leave the hotel and find ourselves out on the street. We’re in a pleasant enough seaside pedestrian area called New Brighton but today is not a day for day trips in the sun. It’s raining and a little bit chilly. And we’re out in this and homeless. And Covid restrictions are still in place, meaning we can’t even go inside anywhere to warm up. Not a library, not a cafe, not even a bar. Bars are open, but for outside table service only. We do the only thing one can do in such a situation. We go to the seaside promenade shops and get donuts. The kind that are made right there as you order them. They really are quite wonderful and we go and find a bench on a covered bandstand and settle down with our hot sugary paper bag.
This done and we call Cris. Last night, once he’d decided to believe us, and once he’d got over the shock, he offered to pay for the repair of the clutch. We don’t mention the cost of a call-out, or the cost of the hotel. It’s a well meaning, genuine gesture and I know he’s horrified and thought he’d done everything he could to prevent anything bad happening. A clutch repair is no small financial thing so yes, we’ll be grateful to accept a reimbursement for that alone.
Well, we’re on the seaside, so once the donuts are done, we might as well go for a seaside walk. There is an interesting looking fort type building and we think we might go and have a look at that, but it’s closed. Of course it is. So we take a casual walk along the seaside edge and pretend it’s not raining. During this we try a few more house calls. Nope. Nothing.
We reach the end of the promenade and we’ve come to one of those newly built shopping arcade areas. The ones with a cinema and bowling and stuff. My phone rings. It’s a guy called Adrian calling from the house Maja emailed late Tuesday night and which she apologised for doing so Wednesday morning. He says he’s had a few viewings but he likes the short story we presented of ourselves in our email to him; all our emails have also included links to our website so people can really see what we’re about. It seems he’s actually gone that extra little bit and bothered to have a look. On the phone now we get into a bit of a chat and I tell him a little of what’s happened and a few encouragingly sympathetic sounds and words come back. I go for it now and say that our ferry leaves at 10 tonight. We’ll be in Northern Ireland around 6 the next morning and can be at his house sometime late morning, however long it takes to drive there. I promise we will absolutely be there. Would he give us a guarantee that the house is ours if we turn up as promised? He mulls this over and I almost break the phone from holding onto it so tight in suspense. Maja can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but she definitely has the gist of it. She’s also looking at me in the highest of anticipations. The silence seems to go on forever and I don’t want to break it and break this guy’s thoughts. I just have to wait to see what comes back. His thinking done and he replies. Yes. Yes I can do that. See you at 12 more or less. Oh thankyou. Thankyou very very much. I hang up and me and Maja hug tightly but not yet in celebration. But finally, finally, we actually have a destination. And hope. Realistic hope.
Almost as soon as I hang up on that call Paul calls. He couldn’t have timed it more perfectly. He’s ten minutes away so it’s off to the pub where we’ll meet. We did have a little check on bars in the area on our walk earlier and so have our location all staked out. We tell him what it is and make our way there.
The three of us all arrive at pretty much the same time and just manage to get the last table under the awning. Yep, it’s still raining. Him and Maja have a big hello then we sit down and have lunch while Paul hears a little more of how we got here, and the big news of our last phone call just a few minutes ago, not that anyone’s completely relaxing just yet.
While we’re here, we have a look at the map and think about where we want to cross into the Republic from Northern Ireland. There’s no hard border but we still want to avoid any stops from anyone. We just don’t want to flaunt that we’re trying to move there, especially given the fact we don’t have an actual address to give, which we know is one of the requirements when entering a country during these Covid times. We are still homeless. So we don’t want to cross the border at the first opportunity, instead we plot a route across Northern Ireland, planning to plunge south deeper into the country.
Final leg planned and we continue our joyous hang and catchup until we become aware it’s painfully close to 5pm and the garage still hasn’t called. I have been in touch sporadically but with no real news. Then at 4.30 my phone rings and it is the mechanic. Our car is ready. Wow. Guys, we have to leave. Like, right now. We finish our teas and cokes and Paul drives us to the garage where the mechanics lead us to the newly repaired car. As we’re doing this, one of them comes out with the broken clutch that was the cause of all our problems yesterday. ‘How far did you say you got on this?’ he asks. ‘A hundred and fifty miles give or take. About two and a half hours.’ All around us are small gasps of wonder and appreciation. I’m almost surprised they don’t break out in applause for Maja’s feat of determination and concentration. ‘It doesn’t seem possible,’ one of them says. Yes, we had a massive rev count somewhere in the detour that started all this, but they are emphatic in pointing out that this clutch is worn out to oblivion. ‘No way this happened in one incident,’ one of them says. ‘This is clear wear over a long period of time. Basically, you guys had no chance.’ Wow. And now it can even be confirmed that even if we had made it to the ferry, with all the stopping and starting and attendant clutch work in such a situation, the car would have just broken down right there in the queue. We were never going to get on that ferry. So really, just as well it stopped us when it did is the conclusion.
We get in the car now and Maja has a quick go at driving it and is almost hysterical with joy at how different the clutch feels. ‘It’s like driving a brand new car,’ she declares. ‘Thankyou thankyou thankyou.’ While she’s speaking to the guys and they’re still in wonder at that incredible feat of driving, the payment gets processed and we’re ready to be on our way with one last thankyou. As our two car procession leaves the forecourt, they close and lock the gates behind us, while happily waving to us, their day having ended on such a positive note. Wow. We really did just make it in time. There’s still another few hours till we have to be at the dock, so we stop off for another cup of tea or two at a lovely countryside looking bar with a decent sized garden.
About 7pm we say our goodbyes to Paul and head off to the dock. Once on board, Maja takes charge of finding us a spot for the night and finds a lovely sofa type thing against a wall facing the front. This is as good as it gets, she says. Yep. It’s very comfortable and will definitely do.
On February 26, day seven, we each made a list of the things we would have have to accomplish just in order to be able to be together: ‘As an entire list, it’s impossible. Just impossible,’ I wrote at the time. ‘There’s no other word for it. We are totally deluding ourselves if we think we’re going to get that lot ticked off and somehow sail into the sunset.’
And now, here we are on day 83, Thursday May 13, 2021
It’s still daylight when we find our little area and settle down with something of a spark of hope. That hope, of actually having a house to go to, of having a home to go to, lies with a man we have never met, and with whom we have no written agreement. We are leaping into the wide blue yonder with nothing to land our feet on. But when we get to where we’re going, we believe we’ll find something there. When we do get to that house, and if Adrian does keep his word to us, it will mean that after everything we’ve faced up to, including last night’s actual breakdown, we will have ticked off our impossible lists. With rising feelings of almost overwhelming relief, tinged with a bit of realistic caution, we settle down on our sofa and gaze out of the window at the slowly moving city skyline. As the ship leaves the dock, we are literally sailing into the sunset.
