In 2019, Carole set off excitedly for Almeria in Southern Spain, with various job prospects and a recently purchased new Spanish ‘cortijo’ (rural farm house) in need of reform to look forward to.

Disaster struck. A combination of first COVID and then Brexit killed those dreams, and by 2023 the lack of the tourism work she had expected, an ageing mum in the UK and a violent personal attack helped her decide it was time to return to the UK.

She put her house on sale, and by May her pretty, still only part-reformed country ‘cortijo’ had sold.

She carefully packed her belongings ready for shipment back to the UK, and the removal firm, Amanda’s Removals took them in ready to go home. As she was planning on staying with family, she had agreed that her load would be shared with a friend, Stephanie, whose property was also on sale, just waiting on formal contract exchange. There was no rush for her things to arrive so it made financial sense.

But suddenly, Carole’s buyers’ own house sale fell through and boom! The ‘cortijo’ was no longer sold.

Stephanie’s sale, meanwhile, had completed and Amanda’s Removals were ready with a lorry to take both lots of belongings back to the UK. Stephanie’s last few boxes were taken to them in Lubrin and the lorry was expected to leave within the next week or so.

Carole had spoken to easyStorage Oxford (Thames Valley) a while before, preparing for the sale that didn’t happen, and co-owner Alex had discussed the options - all using Facebook Messenger.

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On the morning of the court case for the assault, whilst waiting for things to happen, Carole received an update from Amanda’s: “We’re on our way.”

Panicked and away from her notes with telephone numbers and contacts, and dangling off a ropey phone connection, Carole couldn’t get in touch with Oxford easyStorage over Facebook Messenger. 

But she needed to give the delivery firm proper instructions. In her panic, she called a storage firm near her mother’s house to make alternative arrangements. They were about to take her money when they announced that the goods would be stored miles away, somewhere on the M25 near North London. Not great for her, and even less great for the removal firm currently wending its way towards Oxford. Things were looking grim!

But Alex and the team at easyStorage Oxford calmly saved the day. They’d seen Carole’s desperate Facebook Messenger message, and after their first collection of the day called her. It wasn’t less than a morning later, but had seemed forever to a panicked Carole.

The court case was far easier than Carole had been worrying about, and by the time she came out, Alex and team had already liaised with the delivery people and arranged the time and a place for delivery.

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Amanda’s Removals’ team arrived as agreed, unloaded everything into an easyPod, and the easyStorage team even sent Carole a picture of the goods having arrived before sealing it.

The contents didn’t even fill a full pod, but are, to Carole, incredibly valuable – a silk rug given to her by her grandfather, her children’s sports awards and school achievement certificates, photographs (yes, the old fashioned type on paper), business paperwork, a spice rack that her father had made with her youngest son, and a huge, heavy, sculpted mirror that came out of a Spanish nightclub (long story, apparently!).

“There is”, she says, “nothing there of any value except to me. No-one would want any of the things in there, but to me they’re priceless.”

The ‘cortijo’ is back on sale with a new agent and has had three viewings this week. It’s on sale with Spanish Property Choice (of Channel 4’s Sun, Sea and Selling Houses fame).

“The Oxford easyStorage team had been warned my things were coming,” said Carole, “but they had no proper notice/details, just a casual ‘I’m coming’ arrangement. Despite that, it was all organised really professionally, with proper contracts in place, insurance, etc. More than anything, their calmness and empathy mattered to me. I knew I was panicking. I knew my request was unreasonable, but my back was against the wall, and their bright, positive, ‘can do’ attitude and the calm way they just sorted it all out, rather than pointing out how this was my fault, meant the World to me, especially with the stress of the court proceedings. Emma sending me a picture of what went into the pod when I couldn’t be there in person was just the icing on the cake and well beyond my expectations. I cried with relief that we’d been able to sort it.”

Carole said she’s looking forward to coming back to the UK. Things will have changed a lot after COVID and Brexit. We bet she’ll miss the sunshine and be shocked by the price rises here, but at least she knows her belongings are in capable hands until she settles back home.