Homeland...

Its been a few months since my last confession....

After an pretty OK flight back from Halifax to London with a supprisingly low price of about £250 each we got home to a fridge full of basics thanks to my Mum. The cars were still on the driveway and Matila was still on a boat. That was the next challenge. Getting Matilda into the UK. the worse place in the world possibly to get her into so far. Thats a long story. The shipping agents at both ends had been great so if you need some details on that take a look at our other posts and various forums where its been cross posted.

First tasks were to cut the hedge and grass and get the house back to running state. Since we'd packed everything up and sold furniture because of "the rental that never happened" we were in a right state. All the clothes needed ironing as we sold all our bedroom furniture when we thought the house needed to be empty. We still have piles of clothes with no where to put them and we are still living out of boxes. We cannot afford furniture yet so it will be some time before we are back to normal. At least the Kitchen is working and we can eat what we like. The vacuum cleaner was broken so i've fitted another motor. I've repaired my computer monitor as that had blown an internal component. Luckily i'm pretty handy with Google Search and a soldering iron. Its strange how things break from not being switched on. The PC power supply had also blown so that needed a new one. We don't even have TV as Julie's sister "borrowed" the Sky Box. At least it means we don't need a TV licence. We are watching dowloaded stuff on the Laptop. We got internet installed again before we returned home so at least we have that to keep us entertained.

We tried to claim benefits from the government since we have no jobs and no income. They would not give us anything as we'd been out of the UK for more than 3 months so we have to wait three months and then you guessed it, we get nothing. All my Tax and National Insurance going to pay for Europeans to come over here and claim. I've been paying tax whilst away and i've even had to do a tax return but whats OK for one department isn't for the next so i've not been here physically but on paper i'm still a resident so pay tax.

Now of course we have to deal with the DLVA and getting Matilda road legal. This government department is a nightmare. Every time you call in you get a different answer and you just almost have to guess which one is correct. Anyhow, two forms later and one letter and we have Matilda back and registered. They've still messed it up of course so another letter has been sent to try to get them to sort it out. Nothing can be done via Email or Phone. Its all letter. We drove from Liverpool to Yorkshire with no road Tax, MOT or registration plates. We managed to get insurance from Admiral but even that took nearly 8 hours on the phone. I have the name of the guy who sorted that out if you need VIN Insurance for and unregistered car. I was really stressed we were going to get pulled over. She passed the government MOT as soon as we got back. They guy said there was only one thing he could even comment on and it wasn't even an advisory let alone a fail.

Now we have a working car we went over for a camping weekend for a buddies 40th. Met some friends from where I used to work. Doesn't seem like 5 minutes since I was working with them all. I start a new job on Tuesday so that's a load off my mind. Some money coming in again.