Honeymoon Suite News

Think about how much you’d be willing to spend on a project of your dreams, and then double it. That counts for money as well as time allocated for it.

Our vehicle is coming along. We call it our Honeymoon Suite, since we can’t get used to calling it a lorry. One big relief is that we seem to have found an insurance broker who is going to insure an old 7.5 ton vehicle of over 8mtr length, not factory converted, with a left hand drive, for a lengthy period abroad. All of these factors were deterrents with most insurances, but we got there in the end. Now we are fighting with the DVLA. Nothing out of the ordinary, just trying to obtain the right forms is hard enough, as they have no more offices in the country.

The other battlefront is getting my name changed, so that by the time we leave we have all documents in the new names. Passports, driving licences, vehicle documents, bank accounts etc. etc. According to English law, I can use Rozelaar and von Zimmermann in any way I like. I could have a bank account in one name, my bills in another. According to German law, I have to apply for the name change: Fixing a date one month in advance, Frank and I had to appear before the embassy in London with at least 6 documents in triplicate. Now it will take about 6-12 weeks to process my application after which I will get a piece of paper that will allow me to apply for a passport in my new name. One would have thought that in this day and age of technology these things go quicker. But no, everything has to be sent by snail mail to Berlin and back.

I was made aware that whatever name I choose is going to stick with me until the end of my life, or until I divorce. No deed poll in Germany then, by the looks of it…

Ah, well, we took the opportunity to meet up with Frank’s family and had a lovely spring afternoon B-B-Q in a surprisingly wild and spacious London back garden. We’ll be back to London in June, when Lilli is singing at Ronnie Scott’s. Maybe that’ll be just in time to coincide with my passport application :-)


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