Just when you thought the contract saga was over....

.... reality strikes again.

Of course, putting a double-Carlton was tempting fate and I even felt a little unsure yesterday as I wrote my blog but I didn't want to say anything just in case I jinxed it and it all fell apart again.

Which makes it ironic that when I received the translation of the first contract last night it took me all of about 2 minutes to spot the first mistake. A quick call to Dilyana appeared to clear it up but after further reading I realised that the contract was a pile of rubbish.

Slight exaggeration but yeah :D

I'm not going to go into detail but as a summary the quote had doubled AGAIN, there were new items in it which had never been discussed and, during a marathon 25 minute call to Dilyana going through everything again we both realised that Veselka had calculated the area of the living space incorrectly not just on this new contract, but had picked an apparently random number on the previous one (and then used that to create the quote she gave me hand written when I was over there).

It isn't this complicated

Frankly an architect who can't even add up their own plans correctly does not fill me with confidence that she will be able to add up any of the other numbers she has to do right either.

More like this...

The end game was me telling Dilyana that I was ready to walk away and that she had to call Veselka and tell her this and find out just what she thought she was playing at.

I do have other options however and this is one of the benefits of always thinking and never presuming something will work out. I have received one quote which is very competitive and equivalent to Veselka's first quote (though as with everything you have no idea what the extras will add) and I am waiting for another two quotes.

Additionally I have Sylvia who I have asked to speak to the head architect at the Obshtina to find out direct from her what we need to do. I am also considering paying Bekir to go in this week as well and talk to her face to face to understand the process and potential costs.

You're fired

I'm pretty close to sacking off the whole architect angle for now and waiting until I arrive in March to start this process; particularly if Sylvia and Bekir come back saying "oh it'll only take a month or so because we don't need to wait for the PUP" as Sylvia suggested she would as even when I get there it'll take me about a month or so to arrange workers and order materials etc.

So it's kinda back to square one, but also just trucking onwards and this demonstrates just what an exciting (!) adventure emigrating can be. As any of you who have done this before will agree, it's never plain sailing and there are always bumps in the road.

No need to get put off though.

So, on to the other subject I promised I'd blog about today.

Awwww isn't he CUTE!

Rambo.

The guard dog at my studio is going to have to be rehomed as we have opened a cafe and also have more and more young people coming in and there is a risk which our insurers are complaining about. When this became apparent on Friday my immediate reaction was "well I'll take him with me" and so now I am putting my mind into gear to work out just how this could be possible.

There are a number of issues with this. The first one is transport as every square inch of my vehicles was earmarked for taking my stuff over. If I take Rambo I'm going to need to put his cage in the back of Thomas (it fits, just, but only if I take the removable back off, put it on the truck, and then replace the back over the top... hmm...) and then pack things around him to maximise the space. He's a BIG dog and so his cage is pretty huge too.

The next thing is while we're travelling, we'd have to stop regularly to water, walk and allow him to do his toilet and while this isn't going to put us out very much (we were going to be stopping regularly anyway to swap drivers around) it is another thing to consider.

Another thing is the over-nighting. Will he be OK in the cage in the back of Thomas (additional security for the trailer which will be hitched there) considering he will be cooped up in there all day also. I suppose a long-ish walk of an evening and morning is a possibility but that just distracts us from the main business which is putting miles behind us.

Finally I have not got fenced land for when I get there and so I'll either need to get that fenced prior to my arrival or have him chained up until this can be completed. I'm no fan of chaining animals at all so this isn't ideal, though I've had a good suggestion involving a running chain to give him loads of slack.

And with all of that there is also the vets costs and animal passport which will be required to take him out of the country; an unknown cost.

Anyway it's another thing for me to think about.