Relocation to Spain Experience

Well done on the TV repair :D

I presume the pool house/gym is a candidate for Air-Con with all the glass? or get some of that mirror type film perhaps?

I think I would be in the pool every evening after work if I had one at my place!

Yeah, probably would be, but given this is rental i have no intention on installing anything! It has ceiling fans!

I though the panoramic glass in the picture was the living space , if it's pool house, then place is palatial;

Oh yeah, the pictures from the Images thread is just the pool house, which is a long narrow building, probably 12m x 4m. It has the glass curtains on one side which can be opened entirely.

My wife (and her family) are all like this.

Air conditioning makes you ill
Leaving a window open makes you ill
Having a fan on makes you ill

Slovakia regularly gets temperatures in the mid to high 30s in the summer, but if we go anywhere in the car the windows are up (incase the breeze gives you an ear infection) and the air con is off (incase you get an unspecified respiratory illness)

I'm lucky, my wife doesn't sleep well so she's constantly adjusting the A/C during the night. I'm definitely aclimatising though. Was 25C yesterday and i was out in a fairly thick Rab mid-layer.

That car journey sounds awful. The A/C in the Kia is a bit ropey and never feels too cold, so i actually like windows down, although my wife isn't a fan. Sucks to be her when i get my Jeep back :D
 
Wife refuses to use the Air Con in her car, even in sweltering heat! "Wastes too much fuel" etc. In the 5-6 years she had her last car, i never saw it once on. Windows down, blasting cold air, is still hot, but refuses to use the air con; like wtaf?
 
Wife refuses to use the Air Con in her car, even in sweltering heat! "Wastes too much fuel" etc. In the 5-6 years she had her last car, i never saw it once on. Windows down, blasting cold air, is still hot, but refuses to use the air con; like wtaf?

You might want to tell her that having the windows down isn't good for fuel economy either. Really she should just sit in the car sweating with the windows up and air con off.
 
I'm out your way next week to look at places. Staying in Pego and have appointments lined up between Denia and Oliva :)

Awesome. I quite liked Pego. The cycling up over the hill towards Sagra is lovely. El Verger/Els Poblets would probably be my picks (assuming you want coastal). Prices seem reasonable, and some lovely bars whilst easily getting to Denia/Ondara etc.

This place did some cracking food :)
 
Awesome. I quite liked Pego. The cycling up over the hill towards Sagra is lovely. El Verger/Els Poblets would probably be my picks (assuming you want coastal). Prices seem reasonable, and some lovely bars whilst easily getting to Denia/Ondara etc.

This place did some cracking food :)
that sounds/looks familiar, I think we might have been there before the lockdown. There's an Indian restaurant close to there as well I think

Edit: one to see in El Verger, one in Ondara, Oliva, Gandia, Denia, etc etc

Edit 2. What's really been interesting has been emailing in Spanish. It's like someone's flicked a switch at the other end and all of a sudden they become super helpful.
 
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When are they breaking (hard) ground - is that in full summer ?

( good exchange rate for you at the moment, but I haven't studied what the market thinks about labour vs tory win. )
 
When are they breaking (hard) ground - is that in full summer ?

( good exchange rate for you at the moment, but I haven't studied what the market thinks about labour vs tory win. )

*shrug*

Waiting on planning still.

It's going to be a tricky one. I can't imagine anyone wants to be pouring concrete in 40C heat. It's already getting to low 30's during the day and we're not in peak summer yet. Did try and speak to the developer yesterday about whether we could start digging out foundations/leveling the land so that as soon as it's approved then we can get the concrete done straight away in better temps. However since it's still classed as agricultural, we could be fined for doing lots of prep work before actual planning is approved.

Yeah just moved over the last 40k from my ISA and got 1.176 which is about as high as i've seen. That's pretty much everything in Euros now apart from my wifes salary each month to be transferred so don't need to be worried. It's weird not checking on investments too. A shame really as i imagine now that interest rates will start to drop the share prices should rise a bit. Although i think the recent jump in GBP/EUR is driven by the EU Bank dropping rates. Should help for a mortgage though!
 
Finally got my residency yesterday. Standard baffling experience. Had an appointment for 5:30, got there just before to find loads of people milling about on the pavement outside with wads of paper like i had. There was an entrance in the gate with a rope across.

Stood around wondering if someone would come out and call names (this has happened elsewhere), then some guy seemed to get fed up waiting and tried to climb under the rope. At which point the police came over and shouted at him a while and pushed him back. I was close to following him, but was conviniently stood at the entrance at this point and explained i had an appointment and got waved through. The guy who got shouted at was eventually let in around 30 minutes later.

Process itself was fairly easy, although what's amusing is that i got a paper form whilst they print the proper ID card, but i just have to monitor a facebook page where they announce which batch of ID cards are ready for collection!
 
Did you get your wrangler fixed up ?

summertime wildlife Do you have the background orchestra of cicada's - uk dawn chorus not the same , little lizards in france are cool too.
 
Did you get your wrangler fixed up ?

summertime wildlife Do you have the background orchestra of cicada's - uk dawn chorus not the same , little lizards in france are cool too.

Still in the garage, i'm being told "less than a month". Did find a bargain of a soft top roof for it though which is currently under the carport.

Not really much in the way of bbackground noise really. We have some swallows nesting behind an AC unit, and there's a constant barking of dogs to contend with though!
 
Yeah, sounds like it's gearing up to hit low 40's. It's been getting warm in my office now, been posting recently but it's around 38c whilst sat at my desk which isn't too pleasant. The dog isn't coping too well in this heat either, think he's too old to be able to adapt and he's pretty old for his breed now (11yrs) so just hoping it doesn't cause too many issues and then realistically it'll be a surprise if he's still here next summer. Although we said this last year! Main thing is his back legs are struggling more and more now.

How was your trip over? See anything you like? My mate was over a few weeks back and wants to buy something over here so was exploring places. Came to the conclusion as me that Oliva just doesn't have the right feel to it. Sadly his wife liked Moraira which is where their accommodation was, but to get what he wants (<1km to the beach) is pretty ridiculous price wise.

Got confirmation last week that the planning is almost approved. Sounds like it's just waiting on a secretary to do the final sign off, so that's a relief.
Facebook page for my residency card is up to 152 and i'm 153, so hopefully get that soon. Then i can exchange my driving licence.

Also going to try and reclaim the Import fees from when we initially moved over. By all accounts this isn't something that's even worth doing due to hassle. Given we paid ~€1200, i figure it's worth a few hours of my time and then abandon it. It's an amount that'd be nice to get back but nothing worth killing myself for.
 
How was your trip over? See anything you like? My mate was over a few weeks back and wants to buy something over here so was exploring places. Came to the conclusion as me that Oliva just doesn't have the right feel to it. Sadly his wife liked Moraira which is where their accommodation was, but to get what he wants (<1km to the beach) is pretty ridiculous price wise.
Not successful. We had a look at places in Oliva, Gandia, Pego, Denia, MArzuquera and BArx. A couple of the houses were nice enough but I'm beginning to think we're looking for something that is going to be really difficult to find.

we (I) want a place close enough to town, preferably in town, that you can walk in for all amenities. It needs to have a bit of ground for the dogs and that sort of property seems fairly rare. We also had a look at Moraira but yes, prices are at least 50% higher than the ones we looked at for no more property so really difficult to justify when this is for retirement.

Going back in September so you never know. ALthough that's mainly a cycling holiday, there's 8 of us doing the Contador challenge, not really looking forward to it at the moment
 
It can certainly be tricky. It's considerably cheaper down here and you can get closer to the coast with Catral/Dolores type areas to give a decent balance if you didn't want to be as inland as i am. Guess it just depends on wish list/budget.
What was crazy was that we saw a house for sale in Benidoleig for €800k which isn't really going to be much different than we'll end up with.

Shows the pricing difference when ours will come to ~500k and include a large 60m2 garage/office and 4x the amount of land.


Hadn't seen that Gran Fondo. A shame as i'd probably have signed up for it, but i'm on the La Nucia one a month later and not sure i've got both in me! Not even done a 100 mile ride yet and it's a hefty amount of elevation to squeeze in, although yours is ~1000m less so maybe not a bad training ride!
 
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And people think health and safety is taking over the world..... On Saturday was the local festival of Correfoc. Seems to be some festival to banish any bad spirits. The actual even just is an excuse for a load of fire.


Here's a video from last years event. Absolutely no ***** given. Consists of a parade of people on a little car thing spraying welding sparks into the audience
 
Hadn't seen that Gran Fondo. A shame as i'd probably have signed up for it, but i'm on the La Nucia one a month later and not sure i've got both in me! Not even done a 100 mile ride yet and it's a hefty amount of elevation to squeeze in, although yours is ~1000m less so maybe not a bad training ride!
you have some interesting climbs nearby ?

Doesn't seem you have any nearby Vuelta stages near you- 3 weeks of travalogue from Spain in prospect though, for us to envy you.
 
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