We were lucky with the weather, yesterday. The remains of our furniture and other possessions moved into storage until the house in Spain is completed. The previous day it poured all day, but the sun shone for the move. Everything expect the piano and a couple of plants was sealed in a container brought by an 18-ton lorry. In order to avoid getting mould on the furnishings and clothes, it was important that everything went in to the container dry.

It was a tight fit for the driver, turning down our little side road – the removers thought they would have to remove the safety-barrier at the roadside, but in the end the lorry got round the corner without modifying the barrier.

The piano was taken in a separate truck to the removers – it goes into a controlled environment, instead of the main storage warehouse, so it should stay in tune while it is in storage. The plants go to the admin office of the removers until the delivery to Spain.

We hand the house over to its new owners on Saturday, and then we wait for the new house to be completed. At the moment the builder and Antonio, our architect, think it should be finished at the end of the month, or the beginning of October. There are still a few things we need to decide and do before then – the most urgent one being to choose the tiles for the kitchen walls. It’s not turning out to be so simple – we want locally supplied tiles, and we are visiting various tile showrooms near our flat in Kronberg, trying to track down Spanish tiles which we like!