Canterbury - 30th October, 2005

I went up to London again on Thursday morning to take the Ag boys back and to do more work on the flats. I was again surprised by the convoys of Polish 18 wheelers I was behind for most of the M2/M20 journey. At least two thirds of the trucks on the road were Polish. I don't recall ever having purchased anything that comes from Poland. Perhaps the world of commerce has left me behind and we are now sourcing all our toilet rolls or packets of crisps from that country? The only thing I know for sure that they make there is Polish sausage. Perhaps there are enough Poles in West London to have generated a huge market for it? I wish I could look in the back of one of these truck.

The other theory I had was that it now makes economic sense for road haulage contractors to have all their vehicles registered and taxed in a cheaper EC country. I did read somewhere that they were starting to do this. Perhaps Poland has the cheapest road tax for these operators?

Anyway up to London it was for the 3rd time since we moved down 3 weeks ago. The journey is exactly 100 miles from Petham to Ealing and can take between 2 and half hours and 3 and half hours depending on the congestion around the M25 between Gatwick and Heathrow. This time we did it in around 3 hours. I dropped the Ag boys back at home and went over to Helena Court. Everything had to be removed from the flat. We have a tenant moving in on Monday and we had left behind about 1 car load of stuff.

I also went over to the other property we are working on and spent some time working over there. At 7:30 pm I went to meet the prospective tenant for Helena and took him to the flat and went over all the details of how the place works. He was an older gent who works as a production buyer for a TV company and has a 6 month contract in London for a new TV show. It's not a long let but given what we may be up to in Canterbury in the next little while I may want to re-mortgage or even sell the flat to raise funds for a few local projects. Six months may be just the job.

I stayed over night at the Ag's place. They seem to be doing a better job of setting up a bed and breakfast business than we are capable of doing at the moment. The next day I spent more time at the flats clearing up and cleaning. I visited all the agents (there are 4 at the moment) who are working for us and retrieved the keys for the now rented Helena Court and pushed for progress on Highfield. This seemed to do the trick as no sooner had I arrived back in Canterbury and the phone rang with an offer to rent Highfield.

I travelled back to Canterbury on Friday night. Not the best move but it was how it ended up. The traffic around the roadworks section of the M25 was crawling but at no time did we stop. I managed to get home just after 8:00pm and got to see the boys before they went to bed. They are starting their half term today just as everyone else goes back to school with their half terms over. Don't know why the Steiner schools opt to take alternative dates to the rest of the world but we are increasingly glad that they do take an alternative approach in other areas of education . The boys are really settling in well. Julian's teacher, who Julie met at the Class 5 parents evening, was very encouraging about his progress and how quickly he has settled down.

We are continuing to work over the prospects we have down here. The best bet still seems to be the Clare Ellen guesthouse (see previous blog for link to the guesthouse website). Here is an established business with a certified turnover. I think there is a possibility that we could get the place and keep the management that are currently running the business. This would be preferable from our point of view as the current layout of the owner's accommodation in the guesthouse is not really conducive to family life.

We have also found some really good flats just next to Canterbury West railway station and 5 minutes from the cathederal. Two flats in their own building are for sale. They both have 2 bedrooms and are perfect to develop into self catering units or serviced appartments. There are many possibilities here. We want to do them all!

Julie today (Sunday) is suffering from a bad throat and was poorly enough not to be able to go to church. I took the boys on my own. Afterwards I went with the boys to see another property. As I was going, Julie rang me and told me that the house we were going to visit was the house next door to the house where the Chief Executive of the Afghan Educational Trust used to live. We knew that he had moved to work in Warwick but we were delighted to learn from the person who house we visited that he and his wife still owned the house next door and in fact they were down from Warwick at this very moment. So after looking around this huge 6 bedroom house (which Julian fell in love with) we went next door and lo and behold they were there.

We had one of those strange meetings. I think we were both wondering how on earth this could have happened. But it is great to know that they still come down to Canterbury and that we will have a chance to meet with them in the future. Julie is preparing to make do more talks this coming week and next month and it will be encouraging for her to know that she will be able to meet with Mo more regularly. Praise be!

We also leant that I will become a great uncle for the first time. My niece Lauren, who is currently on mission in Africa, has announced she is pregnant. Julie and I may never live to see our own grandchildren but at least I may see my brother's.