Gunner Hobbs and Life on Mars

Once installed in Magura, Rob and I settled to a summery life of building and lazing. 'Building' for me consisted of long conversations with Bogdan about how big a hole he could knock in the kitchen wall for a new window without the house falling down, or raiding the Hornbach DIY shed in Brasov for more plasterboard, plumbing eccentricities and assorted fixings. Rob weighed in as builder's assistant, hole digger and concrete chipper. At Adriana's we discovered a small scrawny kitten who had natural charm and winning ways, being fearless and affectionate. I couldn't resist feeding him, which became expensive as he was inhaling food at the rate of a hundredweight a day.

Rob insisted we call him Scuzzy, but this struck me as grossly unfair as the kitten was scrupulously clean and self-contained. His green eyes reminded me of a character in the Hornblower TV series called Gunner Hobbs, and by dint of ignoring Rob, Gunner Hobbs he became. I later realised that what I thought was the promise of balls wasn't, but Hobbs she remained, even though I removed her from duty. As well as a Munro of food per day, the cat was inevitably allowed to sleep on my bed, which made her floatingly happy, her purr volume up to max. For a number of weeks I was adamant that I wouldn't accept responsibility for the cat or for any living thing, but as Hobbs insinuated herself into my life, it became impossible to resist, so in August she was plucked from the guest house and removed to her new demesne.

She took charge and took on the job of keeping an eye on the place and watching for interruptions.
While we were still in the guesthouse waiting for the house to become livable, we wiled away the long evening watching Life on Mars. Rob had never seen it, and liked the first episode so much we worked our way steadily through both series of Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler scrapping, drinking and being offensive, noble and daft.

Road trip: sausage, bullfrog and Klaus-Hans

The ferry from Ramsgate left just after midnight on 1st July, and for the next eight days we puttered through Europe, the Skoda Fabia loaded to the gunnels with my gubbins, my cousin Rob and his luggage stuffed into the passenger seat. We reached Bruges at 5.30am and failed to find anywhere for breakfast so ate a bit of our picnic watching a Liver Bird (or its Flemish equivalent) sunning itself in the dawn light,

not minding Rob's impression of it. Then it was off to Germany via Robertville. We fell over Blankenheim by happy accident, where we met the divine El Vira, but not her amazing parrot who was still kipping. In Aicha, close to the Austrian border, we made friends with happy locals by sticking up both thumbs and chanting 'vier-nul!' - the score by which Germany beat Argentina that afternoon in the world cup. I connected with a bullfrog by doing passable impression of its croaky challenge, but whether it thought I was its True Love or a deadly rival I'll never know. In Austria there wasn't a sniff of an Alp due to persistent hammering rain through lowering cloud; the highlights of Austria were meeting Natalie in Linz,

and Rob finding his scary friend Klaus-Hans. K-H was a six-inch high mannekin in very dodgy lederhosen, sporting manky beard, frothy stein and psychotic grin. His head wobbled and tended to fall off when the car's lurching round corners dislodge K-H from his perch on the dashboard. From Blankenhaim to Magura we had few culinary options but sausage and only a cabbage salad bought in a Hungarian Tesco saved me from porkosis.

Interim measures

I flew back to London and had a couple of days before flying out again, to Kathmandu this time. From being a recluse for 15 months, I was now globetrotting. Nepal was the setting for the wedding of Mike and Anita, who met at Everest base camp and shinned up the mountain again just before their wedding. It nearly came unstuck when Anita (first Hungarian woman to reach the summit) collapsed on the way down the hill and nearly died. Would have put a dampener on the wedding... But she recovered, and the wedding was fabulous.

We had time to see a bit of the city, and on the morning of the wedding, at sparrowfart we were hijacked from our beds, installed on a small plane and flown to Everest. Quite a sight, and made me even more convinced that humans were not meant to be in that forbidding place.

Brought tears to my eyes as I looked up at the summit (flying at 25,000ft the summit was almost 5,000ft above us) and thought about Ran, Mike, Anita and others who'd made it, and all those who didn't.

Fawns, blossom and concrete

Spring was blooming in May 2010, and my friend and builder Bogdan Coltea leapt back into action to get work going on the house so that I could move in later in the summer. The Dacia Papuc (papuc = mule), kept alive and kicking by Bogdan's constant love and attention to its ornery carcass, was back in harness hauling tons of cement, lime, sand, plasterboard, ironmongery, and men up and down the five miles of hairpin bends, potholes and rocky track that is the road up to the village. The pictures of what are now the kitchen and study give you an idea of the amount of work to be done.

Too used to comfort, I opted to stay at Adriana's B&B rather than camping on the concrete and peeing in a bucket; was fed well, slept well and spent ages playing with the fawn they'd rescued.

It lived in a pen on the lawn, guarded by Nero the shepherd dog; the fawn was fed biscuits by every visitor and eventually taken to a sanctuary.

Hysteria and blood loss

I'd planned to move out to Transylvania in April or May 2009, but the months ticked past, jackdaws nested, hatched and reared a brood, and by June I still hadn't done anything about shifting my carcass and the basement full of stuff. I finally booked a flight on 9th July, but three days before I was due to go, I had an anaemia attack that completely flattened me (take six steps and almost black out). I knew it was psychosomatic, but it was real enough. Quite scary to have one's limbs screeching for oxygen despite lungs full of air. Doctor confirmed anaemia, I munched iron pills and in a few weeks I was fine. The episode suggested I was more scared of the big move than I realised - if you'd asked me I'd have denied being remotely concerned about leaving the country and starting from scratch somewhere remote, at the age of 51, unfit, underfunded and speaking little of the language. No problem... Heeding the warning, I gave myself more time; it was May 2010 that I went out to get work going on the house again, and this time no panicky anaemia.

A novel, two novellas and seven short stories

In the Welsh lurking time I wrote 300,000 words of crime fiction - one long novel and nine stories, two long enough to qualify as novellas. None of them saleable, but all fantastic training. Using a group of readers and fellow writers to review the fiction, I learned more about writing crime stories than I'd have done in a creative writing MA course. Made friends in the process, too. Huge thanks to all of them - you know who you are. Then I had to start the big redraft of the novel to make it commercially saleable, and that process continues... Much harder than the first draft, which I couldn't stop from pouring on to the screen.

To cut a long story short

Between Feb 2004 and April 2005 five family members died, starting with my sister and ending with my mother; we got rather good at arranging funerals and thanksgivings, and all sorts of blessings came out of the sadness, but all the same it all had an effect - slow but inescapable. By 2008 I couldn't make a decision, had cotton wool for a brain, and was useless to the business or anything else. In October I gave in: struggling to regain control was pointless, and the only way out was through. As my income generating powers had vanished, I put my house on the market to wipe out the mortgage, insurance, utility bills and attendant worries. The credit crunch was exploding, and the housing market imploding. I sold three days before Christmas, for £50,000 less than I'd have got 6 months earlier, but at least I sold. By Christmas Eve I had sold or given away everything that didn't have a place to go in Transylvania, and this stuff was bunged into the basement of my sister-in-law's house in Llandrindod Wells (mid-Wales). I wasn't exactly flush, but I was free of debt and responsibilities.

For a year my social life revolved around the jackdaws living around the house; entertaining, sociable and smart individuals, they kept me going in my hermitage. I'm deeply grateful to Davisee for letting me be a recluse in her Welsh hideaway, the perfect stepping stone from urban England to rural Transylvania.