Relocation to Spain Experience

dod said:
Are you doing that in Spanish or English? I'm just curious as to how your language skills are coming on living there full time
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English, the woman seemed to be Dutch/German.

Honestly, my language skills aren't great. I've not been putting any real effort in, and so whilst i'm better than i was back in October. I'm still at the real basics of simple sentences to get questions/answers across rather than holding conversations. 100% my failing and not sure what i can do to motivate myself.
 
So. Friday we also moved into the final rental as it’s an open ended contract that we only leave when our house is built.

Can’t remember if I said, but the couple were trying to sell it but due to legal issues they can’t and there’s no sign of them resolving that anytime soon.

The owners have bought a new house further south which in a more central location to shops/bars and is smaller as this house is too big for them given old age and deteriorating health and having stuff on their doorstep rather than driving is a plus.

She kept saying that she’d cleaned everything and it was spotless. I knew my wife would still want to clean to get to her standard es but optimism was high.
We turned up Friday morning and it was filthy. They had 3 big dogs and the garden was full of dog poo. I filled a large mop bucket with what I picked up!

Inside was a similar storey and today I spent around 6 hours on my hands and knees scrubbing the grout with a stiff brush. It’s not perfect but it’s mostly ok now.

The man had dementia and Parkinson’s and the toilets had poo/wee both inside and outside the bowl. The floors were also covered in various spilt drinks.

The positive is that today has mostly finished it all off and tomorrow we can mostly relax although I need to dismantle my desk from the previous rental and grab the last of my things and then do the final clean of that place!

Feeling very glad we decided to buy a bed which will hopefully arrive soon. We’ve also decided that we’re going to buy a sofa. We know the dimensions for the lounge in our new house so no risk there on buying something that doesn’t fit. Probably get some nice comfy outpost armchairs too.

Now we’re at this point we’re feeling pretty optimistic. The house itself is great and has loads of space which is something we’ve struggled with. Especially as there’s virtually nothing of the previous owners belongings bar some furniture we’ll stick in the shed or our storage unit.

We can get almost all our stuff from storage and really make it “our” home.
 
Haha this was still after using the steamer! Just didn’t touch it. That thing has been a life saver though and saved loads of effort.

No issue with deposit at the fist place and doubt there’ll be one at th last place. All rentals have been direct with owners and pretty relaxed.
 
tom_nieto said:
Really great that you’re making progress towards your final goal. When do you think your place will get built? Nice that you can avoid moving around and feel a bit more settled.
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Yeah. This is a real boost. A house we can unpack and not have to think about moving again anytime soon so we can make it feel like home rather than a rental.

No clue in build. Aiming for Feb/March but depends on planning mostly.
 
One other thing. I can't decide if it's good or not. As she was running out of time (had to have a dog put down on Thursday as two had had a fight), she didn't manage to take some of the chickens with her. We've been left with 2 chickens and a cockerel.

The Chicken pen is directly outside our bedroom window. I shut them away at night and then need to let them out in the morning. Having the cockerel screaming in the morning is great for getting me up early, and it'll be awesome to get me up/out for early bike rides. Although Saturday/Sunday it started around 7:15, and this morning after i finally got to open a bottle of whisky and relax around 11pm last night, it started at 6:30. Again great for cycling, less so for a ropey head. My wife also isn't keen so the prior owner is trying to arrange for someone to collect them, but i think i'll miss having that motivation to get up early.

In other news, we got the TV out of storage and it's completely dead. No idea what the cause is. It's a Samsung one with a separate OneConnect box containing all the inputs/power and then a fibre cable to the TV. There's no standby switch or any kind of indicator of power so no idea if it's the TV, the cable (known to fail) or the box. Each item is expensive so any experiment would be pricey if i'm wrong! The One Connect box used to get hot and now it's cool to the touch when plugged in, but unsure if that's because it's the failure or whether it's just because it's not having to process anything.
 
So, the house is clean (mostly - We've shut the door on 2 of the bedrooms after giving it a quick wipe down), we've got a local cleaner to do the pool house today and then i can move my gym stuff in there which will be great for me.

Few updates

1 - Chickens went last Monday. I kind of miss having the rooster to wake me up, but it's certainly nice not having them. Need to disinfect the area they were in though and clean it as there's chicken poo everywhere!
2 - Got my residency approved. Need to have a second appointment to have fingerprints taken before i can get the card. Annoyingly the wait is quite long and it's the end of June. Hoping the delays don't cause issues with mortgage delays.
3 - TV is fixed. Not picked it up yet, but they've not mentioned new parts so hoping it's nothing too expensive
4 - Still no word on the Jeep. Might try and chase them this week!
5 - Had a week off work last week. Was aiming for massive relaxation but don't think i spent much time doing nothing. Was mainly doing DIY tasks etc and sorting stuff out. Good news is my office is now clean and tidy @bastic you now win messiest office space :p
 
jpaul said:
WFH in pool house - must have an iron will to avoid occasional dip; temp is ok already ? much missed habit to return from work and taking a dip in residence pool.

chickens - got to be up early for cycling to avoid the midday sun too and avoid english stereotype - recceing out the watering holes essential
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Haha the pool house will become my gym. One side if the wall is glass curtains so reckon in summer it'll get pretty toasting in there, not sure i want to have it as an office. Plus for any guests on holiday by the pool would be irritating if i'm on calls! I've actually not been in the pool much. Mainly as i'm a rubbish swimming so just use it for cooling off after workouts. Although this pool is 12x4m so might try swimming a bit more. What's really odd is it's a flat 1.5m depth all over. Brilliant for me as there's no shallow bit. Less brilliant for my wife.

Pool house got cleaned yesterday although she ran out of time for the bathroom, but i'm going to head to storage at lunch to get my squat rack/weights.

Chickens are gone!

In other news, got a call yesterday from the Samsung repair place. Turns out there was no issue. Got home, and still couldn't switch it on. However when unpacking i noticed some physical buttons under the TV. Pressed one of those and it sprung into life. Turns out the battery remotes were too low and not sending a "Turn on" signal :(
 
Ian_Eb said:
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!
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Yeah, probably would be, but given this is rental i have no intention on installing anything! It has ceiling fans!

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

Lopéz said:
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)
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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
 
dod said:
I'm out your way next week to look at places. Staying in Pego and have appointments lined up between Denia and Oliva :)
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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 :)

LBS – Los Baños Sunshine – Restaurante Mediterráneo

Los Baños Sunshine es un restaurante mediterráneo y está situado a tan solo dos pasos sobre la playa. Un paraíso junto al mar. Llámanos +34 699 413 005.
losbanosunshinebar.com losbanosunshinebar.com
 
jpaul said:
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. )
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*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!
 
jpaul said:
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.
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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.
 
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.

www.youtube.com

Correfoc 2023 - Hondón de las Nieves, Alicante 12.08.2023

Correfoc 2023 - Hondon de las Nieves, Alicante, Espana.eMail: [email protected]: www.HondonValleyHomes.comWhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/GBKYDT5...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

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
 
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