{"id":13416,"date":"2003-01-05T13:21:00","date_gmt":"2003-01-05T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=13416"},"modified":"2026-06-07T15:07:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T15:07:58","slug":"a-month-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/2003\/01\/a-month-of-change\/","title":{"rendered":"It all starts here…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JANUARY 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday 5<\/strong>th<\/sup><\/strong> January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our house is up for sale, Del is freelancing in lighting, and H is full-time at ITV; all of that will be gone soon, except we still have a small flat in Tenerife that we have been renting out for a while, and it’s about time we went out there to check it over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our lovely flat in Tenerife<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today we will fly out and spend a couple of days out there. It could be a while again before we see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Friday 10<\/strong>th<\/sup><\/strong> January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All good in Tenerife. A short stay, but worth it. Time to get back to the house in Harrow, which is going through its sale, and we need to keep an eye on how that’s going. It’s just as well, really, as we have discovered that the solicitors have made a mess of the exchange of contracts. It’s a nervous time. We have planned out the next few months towards our boat delivery day; it’s all a bit tight. It looks like we will be exchanging contracts on Monday. Fingers crossed…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Monday 13<\/strong>th<\/sup><\/strong> January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, today, after some solicitor incompetence (what’s new?), we have exchanged contracts on the sale of the house. A big move in our overall plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bigger move, though, today. H will hand her notice in at work. H has been working on This Morning for 5 years, and is well established there. Her boss, Alan, is naturally shocked at the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it all feels real. The house sold, and H has handed in her notice. Del is turning down future work. Are we foolish or brave?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our fantastic garden at our house in Harrow. We had such a big, lovely garden and terrace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tuesday 14<\/strong>th<\/sup><\/strong> January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between us, we start telling our friends and family what we have done and why we are doing it, and what the plan is for the next year or so. The reaction is positive and encouraging, but you never know what people are really thinking…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wednesday 22<\/strong>nd<\/sup><\/strong> January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Del is flying off to Australia for a few weeks to work. He is packed and ready to go, including stuff at the house. When he leaves today, he will leave his house in Harrow for the very last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JANUARY 2003 Sunday 5th January 2003 Our house is up for sale, Del is freelancing in lighting, and H is full-time at ITV; all of that will be gone soon, except we still have a small flat in Tenerife that we have been renting out for a while, and it’s about time we went out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boat","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13416"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13805,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions\/13805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vantours.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}