📦📦 ”MOVING COUNTRIES DOESN'T ALWAYS GO SMOOTHLY” ~ MarketFriday - beautiful video included 🎥

Hi all 👋🏻

Today I want to tell and show you the exciting adventures I had while moving to Ireland 🇮🇪 in May this year and I had to change a few things in a very short time. As some will know… moving 📦📦📦 doesn’t always go smoothly, let alone moving countries and renting a place unseen 😳

With this post in our lovely #community this Friday I join in at #MarketFriday by @dswigle - Denise.

‼️If you want to know more about #MarketFriday’s have a look at the community about it: Market Friday community! run by the lovely @dswigle and her last post: “Sunflowers at Burnside Farm: Market Friday“ where you find also the rules what to post if you want to join us. Do join in, it is fun 🤩

Today’s selection will be of 34 photographs and 1 video 🎥
Dates early May 2023
The Photographs in this post are all taken with my iPhone 📱🤓
I will follow the time stamps on them. So it looks like you are experiencing my adventures with me, to 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻 #discover everything what I saw, like the little #details seen through my eyes when #moving #countries doesn’t always go smoothly 😊

If you missed my ferry ride to Ireland have a look Here for part 1 and Here for part 2
After those, the drive towards the rental house… You find in this post!

I know this post I should have posted earlier… but better late then never 😎 and to be honest, it isn’t that long ago that I moved and then joined hubby in the UK for 2 weeks and that we are both in Ireland now since a few weeks. 😉

I will include also happy and beautiful things in this post so don’t worry… all will be fine. 🙃

So are you ready for this little adventure?

Let’s start at the beginning 📖

We drove from the ferry ⛴️ in Belfast Northern Ireland towards the rental house 🏠 we rented unseen and it should have been ready for us to move into.

We arrived and someone let us in, gave us the keys and disappeared. As the owners didn’t live themselves in Ireland.
We started unloading the car into the first room next to the entrance. 📦📦📦 as you know… our car was fully loaded with belongings and the movers would arrive the following Tuesday. Us moving into this rental house was late afternoon on a Sunday 🤓 keep that in mind going forward.

We walked around the building and the back looked like this.

The house had 6 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and a large kitchen dining room so our belongings coming Tuesday with a truck would definitely fit. 🚛📦

I found this hibernating snail 🐌 on the wall of the house.

The views around in the garden… this castle ruin was close by. So beautiful, the best view ever… don’t you think? 😋

As soon as we entered again coming from the garden it started to feel weird…
We walked slowly through the house, room after room. Our mood instantly changed 😔

I won’t tell you all the details or show everything in this post.
What we found inside the house 🏠 meant it would have been a health risk to stay. In many ways.
Hubby would have to leave soon also, to go back to the UK as he only could move to Ireland mid July.
So me being in this house alone… with already health issues like a compromised immune system due to an autoimmune disease. It wasn’t wise to stay even one evening. 😳

We found no working fireplaces…
And I mean this literally. Look at the broken pipe or even the wall in the back ground.
Do note, one does need heating in the winter ❄️ and the colder months in Ireland.

Let me show you the following.

One of the living rooms / reception rooms.
The walls were dripping, so wet I could wipe off water 💦

All the hallways and some rooms had wallpaper.
It was peeling off…

Yes I know that doesn’t have to be a problem…
But what’s underneath is.

Black mould everywhere.

The single glazed windows had strong foil glued over the entire size of the windows from one side to the other. Behind it, dampness and more black mould.

All the wooden furniture in this house was hairy… you must know what that means. More mould 😕 spores and things I so did not need 🦠

Then, looking at this beautiful view isn’t worth it.

Our moods sank even further. We looked at each other and said; “what now?”
We can’t stay here… no way.

To be honest it made me cry…
As our move to Scotland the UK didn’t go as planned after they refused my #residency in February (Brexit related) so we needed to change everything.

And now this…
It was hard 😥

As it got later and later… Sunday afternoon, almost evening.
I pulled myself together and made the decision.
No, we are not staying here, even though we paid rent since April.
Our #health is so much more important.

So the only thing I could do was looking for a #cottage, another house or even an apartment on the #holiday let #providers.
There wasn’t much available at the moment, as there is an enormous HOUSING CRISIS going on in Ireland 🇮🇪

After searching and searching. I found a little cottage (that would have enough space for us and the car load of belongings) that I could book for a full week.
After messaging the #Host he told me the last people just left and he will get it ready for us and we could meet him at 19:30h at the cottage.
He send us the address after I paid 💶 for the full week.

He saved us from a cold night sleeping in the car 🤓
We were happy.
So packing up again… pulling the front door 🚪 shut after us. It was a chore to even get that done. It was bend and broken in many ways due to the rotten and wet wood. We locked 🔒 it.

Drove away… and sure didn’t want to look back.

Now let me show you the #happy part with #beautiful things 😉 as we do need to think positive…
We need to keep going!

We arrived at the time agreed at the #airbnb

A cute renovated cottage with space to park the car.

2 bedrooms and a large kitchen.

We were #welcomed by the most #friendliest #couple, the fire was going as it was cold, chocolates 🍫 and wine 🍷 awaiting us 🥰

After the owners left, we settled in and unloaded the car into the second bedroom.

Let me show you around this Airbnb, that is our home for the next week.

The bedroom with a large shower en-suite.

The bathroom 🛀🏻 en-suite of the second bedroom.

The large kitchen… it had everything we would need.

The cute sitting area… hubby could work from, as he still had to work too.

Looking outside the window at 20:41h I see… 😊

I see and hear something… 😎

I go outside to capture the view

Now listen what I heard 🥰

Yes… these are the moments I #treasure 😁
It made my bad experience and feeling go away fully.
I recharge in nature and here was the best place for me to be.
The rental house wasn’t meant to be.

Let’s look at some cute details inside the house:
Living room #accessories.

“A Penny for your Thoughts”

The light switch.

Cute corner…

More details… accessories from many moons ago, framed in.

A cute place.

All of this made me feel welcome and cosy.

What next you must think.

So all evening I went through the rental portals to find another rental house. I have a week to do so.

I created an email with details, what we search for and that’s urgent. Send it to agencies through out the night.
As with this adventure, I sure couldn’t sleep.
I replied to rentals put up on daft (main website in Ireland for housing to buy and rentals)

When I didn’t find any more rentals that we would fit in, I went to sleep. Late… very late at night.

I woke up early in the morning again just before 8 o’clock.
And imagine this.
I got replies from 1 agency and one private landlord.
I could view today… Monday around lunch.
So I agreed with both a time. One at lunch and one at 1500h to go and view.

The first viewing was a 3 bed, spacious house semidetached.
It wasn’t ready to be rented out. 🤨 But the landlord could try to finish all the jobs in the weekend.
We told him, we let you know this afternoon.

The second house a 2,5 bed semidetached place. Small in size. Was ready to be rented out, so we thought. 🤔
We chose for this smaller house. We paid the deposit and rent for the first month an hour later in the office of the agency. (Ireland didn’t have a bank holiday)
By doing so, the real estate agent would let us have the keys for a few hours the day after. On Tuesday! So the movers could bring all our belongings into this rental house.

As… to make things more complicated:
Yes… I know… hahaha the things I had to juggle even more with.

Monday was a bank holiday in the UK. And Tuesday morning before 4 o’clock (in the night) the moving company with our 20 cubic meters of belongings 🚛🚛🚛 would hop on the ferry ⛴️ and once arrived in Belfast. They would drive to the rental house in Ireland… we didn’t stay in.
And contacting the office… they only open at 9 o’clock. Wouldn’t work to divert them in Belfast to their storage.
See where it could go wrong 😑

So having agreed with the agency to let the movers bring our belongings the next day at 11 o’clock.
I only had to get in contact with the movers office to divert the movers while on route. 🚛🚛🚛

This luckily worked out well. 🥳
The moving company was send to the new rental house in time.

Once arrived, they started unloading our belongings into the house.

Oh yes, did I tell you it was fully furnished too 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 so we had to squeeze in. Literally!

Our sofa, a 4 seater… all our boxes… the landlords sofa is a 3 seater and he had also 2 large seats in there along with other furniture items like tv cabinet and a coffee table.

The bedrooms full…

The kitchen full too. We lived most of the time in unfurnished properties. So we have a lot of belongings. And believe me. In the last 5 moves and 3 country moves we reduced over half.

We agreed with the agency we move in the weekend and during the next week days we would clean the kitchen and bathrooms and get a bit organised.
This house was a repossession and the first look… didn’t show that the kitchen and bathroom were not that clean.

Once back in the Airbnb… we had in the evening our #CHEERS 🥂 with some rose wine 🍷

We’ve done it. Got a new rental house in such a short time. Got our belongings delivered in the right address… a small celebration was surely needed 🥰

A few more evening captures around the Airbnb… before we left it on Sunday morning.

I sure do live an adventurous life, don’t you think? 😉

It is never boring… hahaha 😜
And… we are still living between the boxes as this house is way to small for us.
But we have a goal… I will tell you more about one day 😁

…and here I say “that’s all for today’s post my friends”… join me next time for more #updates, #adventures, #stories and #photographs soon 😎👋🏻 Even some #artworks once in a while will come by” 🎨
Thank you so much for looking, and reading.

#ecency banner by @irisworld

Any questions or comments, let me know. Always happy to help.

Have a great #marketfriday all 😎
Grtz Jackie

The divider by SilverFish / mondoshawan

Unless stated otherwise: All art and photos used in my posts are taken, created and owned by me. If you wish to use any of my photographs, please contact me first. As I have used some commercially myself. We don’t want that you or somebody else gets into trouble 😉 So please don’t use them without my consent.

🖼 My PRINTSHOP: for the purchase of all kind of prints in many sizes from my Artworks 🎨 and Photography 📸 Which come on different objects too. Have a look in My Prints Shop!

If you want to see where I traveled to and what I already shared in @pinmapple, have a look at my personal map here: Littlebee4 PINMAPPLE MAP

#ecency image by @brittandjosie