Leaving the UK

Lin, waiting in a cold E’ly wind, for the ferry to depart Portsmouth
click to enlarge

Today, we are leaving the UK bound for Guernsey, the start of a long held dream.

For many years, Lin and I have been cruising the Channel Islands, often finding ourselves saying, ‘It feels like coming home.’ On one occasion we looked at each other and asked, ‘What are we actually saying?’ ‘This is home,’ was the answer. And so the planning began.

In 2011, we sold Orchard Gate, the house we’d lived in for 34 years in the small village of Upper Bucklebury near Newbury, Berkshire, and moved to a rented house in Dorset to be closer to our software house business (Double First Ltd) whilst planning our move ‘home’.

Our thoughts were to sell or give away everything except the precious items and family heirlooms. That meant we also had to look at every box of papers and ‘things’ we’d inherited over the generations and which we’d so often said, ‘One day we must go through all these.’ This took many months and was so rewarding. Maybe someday we’ll write about Luces, the perfume business my grandfather owned in Jersey and how he used to win the gold medal prizes for his Eau de Cologne in the competitions held in Cologne, Germany. Maybe we’ll write about Lin’s Dad and his time in the Navy seeing the horrors of war at 18 years old, and his involvement (and the real story) of the raid on the sub-pens at St Nazaire, France.

So the process began. Furniture went to auctions and charity shops. The local dump had many visits, eBay took their share in PayPal revenues, and R and R removals of Guernsey collected the items we wanted to keep. Finally, on the 22 March 2013, Lin and I packed the last of our belongings into our Volvo V50 and headed for Portsmouth to catch the 0900 Condor Clipper slow ferry to St Peter Port, Guernsey.

As we drove into the cavernous hold of the ferry for the 7 hour crossing, we said good bye UK, hello Channel Islands.

Piers and Lin
from the saloon of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55

Driving onto the Commodore Clipper
click to enlarge

The Commodore Clipper ferry from Portsmouth was about to take us ‘home’
click to enlarge