Leaving Soon

We leave Bordeaux the day after tomorrow. We are back at the hotel we stayed in for a month when we first arrived. We return the keys of our house tomorrow, it's almost empty and almost clean. We have been busy for the past two weeks. I hate this part - the deciding what's coming back with us and what's not, the clearing out and cleaning up.

A few weeks ago, we still had a lot of furniture and a full kitchen and no plans for how we were going to get rid of them. I didn't want to dump anything that was still in good shape. And one evening our doorbell rang. Turns out, our fairy godmother is Irish and is actually a guy called Daragh - who knew!!

Daragh and his wife and kids are moving to Bordeaux for a year and had read our blog. Daragh was looking at a potential rental house and the rental agent happened to mention that there was an Irish-Canadian family living next door, he figured it had to be us, so he rang the doorbell. Daragh eventually managed to rent the house next door, after going through all the same hassles as we did. He got the keys today and we moved everything over. He has two little boys so we could also pass along any toys we weren't bringing back. So in the end, we threw away nothing. I am delighted. Daragh's wife Deirdre and the boys are coming over after Christmas, it's too bad we didn't overlap with them, it would have been fun.

Fiacra and Ailbhe left our house for the last time this morning on their way to school. After school we came to the hotel. They both waved goodbye to the house as we rushed out the door. Ailbhe, in particular, is sad about leaving. She loves her school and will really miss it.

Last night at home

 Leaving this morning for the last time