Under the dark of night…

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Douglas Adams

It was now October 2020 and the Brexit deadline of the 31 Dec, 2020 was rearing its ugly head. This was one deadline we couldn’t let whoosh by. If we didn’t make the move now, we couldn’t exercise our rights to live and work in Italy and it would be much harder to achieve, if not impossible. It was now or never to try and make our little dream a reality.

Talk was beginning to circulate around the UK that there might need to be another lockdown as Covid cases and hospitalisations were beginning to rise again. At this time, there were still no vaccines. We were all just hoping that we would avoid catching it from masks and social distancing alone. With our plans for Italy becoming ever more precarious and the risk of further lockdowns happening, we felt our window to move was narrowing and we had to make the jump. In under a week we quickly booked everything we needed to get across to Italy by car, got our Covid tests done, and pets all compliant for the journey.

And we’re off

We woke at 1am to start the journey from Cambridgeshire, to catch a dawn Eurotunnel train from Folkestone. The journey with our pets was not the easiest. Our cat, Betty, a formidably independent feline, meowed solidly in her pet carrier on the journey down to the chunnel. We felt awful seeing her drooling and panting, obviously scared at being out of her normal surroundings and in this weird moving thing. But just when we thought we had made an awful decision, we let her out of her carrier and she finally seemed to relax and settle. By the time we reached France, she was sleeping peacefully on the central console. By the time we reached the Alps, she was taking in the mountain views and seemed very at ease.

Our dog Rufus was far more calm and was as good as gold for the whole 17 hour journey. The motorway services in France were great for pets and he could stretch his legs every few hours. Keeping Betty inside the car proved no problem and slept through most of the pitstops.

Mont Blanc soon becomes Monte Bianco

We finally made it to Italy and our Airbnb accommodation in San Giovanni Valdarno at around 8pm in the evening. We we were greeted by the most incredible Italian feast of crostini and antipasti -it was like someone had a wedding and we got the leftovers! It was the best welcome we’d had in any Airbnb ever.

Although we hadn’t got any place to live further than 2 weeks, it felt like a minor victory and a step in the right direction. By the following morning, Betty was happily taking in the view of the olive grove and we were starting to get settled into life in Italy. What could possibly go wrong?!