Strange times. Watch the skies.  Everything disrupted… Everyone pulling together, media dominated by it, everyone knows someone affected, and can talk of nothing else… sound familiar?

As international incidents go, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption and resulting ash cloud grounding flights across Europe, is actually quite a nice one.  Yes, I know its has cost recovering economies millions, clobbered already-struggling airlines that we all depend on, and had a hundreds of thousands of chaotic personal impacts around the world. However, let’s just remember, no one has died - at worst people have experienced extra travel costs and lost work time (when will everyone learn to work as flexibly as we do at www.sarosresearch.com?) 

People are united against common cause in the face of disaster, but this time there is no-one to hate or fear.  And no one to blame or sue.  This is the earth reminding us what it is capable of, all on its own.  Our latest aviation technology is just no match for a bit of dust in the upper atmosphere, so people are having to stay put, or find other ways to get from A to B.  Someone remarked on the radio last night that they had been vividly reminded of the sheer physical distance between their home in the UK and their holiday villa in Tuscany, that they flit to and from without a thought most of the time.  I believe it does us good to be reminded of this… of course the world is smaller today and that is a good thing, but now and again it needs to let us know that its curvature and bulk is still a present reality.

Of course we’ll be devastated if my Mum’s visit can’t go ahead next week as planned.  Our landlady is stranded here with grandkids due back at school, no internet access in her holiday villa, prescriptions running out - lots of complications.  Cassie’s LAMDA examiner hasn’t made it to school, and her karate grading may well be postponed as Sensei unlikely to be back from the UK, but all of these things are surmountable in time.  Frozen food rotting undelivered might just make people more aware of their dependence on air-freighted groceries, and certainly no one in the UK is going to hungry as a result.

Despite the election fever there seems, from this distant vantage point anyway, to have been relatively little political capital being made - I am sure the Daily Wail will blame the government for everything somehow, but amongst normal people the mood seems to be more one of collaboration and co-operation.  Twitter trends such as #getmehome and #ashtag are helping co-ordinate lifts across Europe, as is http://www.facebook.com/carpooleurope - of course there is some inevitable profiteering, and as much suspicion of, but is it too naive to think that there might be some long term learning from this… that you can preserve and not waste food, that cars travel as well full as empty, and that best laid plans can ALWAYS be challenged by things we’d never predict in a million years.

A friend of a friend of ours has this thing of coming out with little sayings, one which stuck in my mind from way back was “Spain is a cold country, that happens to have hot sun”. 

At the time I didn’t really know what that meant, but now I do.  Most of the year Spain is warm and sunny, spring and autumn are sheer delight.  The hot summer you can survive, between the beach and the pool and not trying to do too much.  But the brief and brutal winter is HORRIBLE… in homes built to stay as cool as possible in summer heat, every icy breeze penetrates, and the lack of sun in our chilly north-facing villa adds to the frozen misery with damp and mould.  Between us we have never had more colds and respiratory infections, since moving to this ‘healthiest climate in the world’!

Our big mistake was viewing this beautiful villa in the early summer, when it was glorious, spacious and luxurious.  We paid no attention to the lack of radiators, curtains, interior doors, or even a woodburner… and we have spent the winter trying to heat the bits we are living in through a combination of inverting air conditioners (which produce astronomical electricity bills), and a calor gas heater which produces such damp the condensation runs down the windows, creating more black mildew and rot everywhere.  The girls rooms have little oil-filled radiators, that work OK in the smallest bedrooms (and in the office if you actually put your feet on them).  We have also become big fans of the good old hot water bottle!  Basically the strategy is focus on warming up the immediate area you are occupying, rather than the whole house or even room.  Lots of layers, hot drinks.  Warming soups…

So we are OFF.  In just two weeks, to a smaller, warmer place, with friendly helpful landlords, a proper long term lease, and that most wondrous of inventions… central heating!!!  Bring it on.

We were woken about 5 in the morning by the kind of howling that penetrates deep into your dreams, and has every parent scrabbling to their feet in a panic – before you realise that the noise is actually feline rather than human.  Satisfying ourselves that Merlin was in, as he is all night given we can’t put a catflap in someone else’s front door, we pulled the pillows over our heads and tried to go back to sleep.

The problem is, the occupants of the large house opposite us a couple of weeks back did a very short notice run back to the UK for financial reasons-  leaving SIX pet cats ‘to fend for themselves’.  How on earth do you end up responsible, using the term very loosely, for 6 dependent creatures, when you know you can’t possibly afford to take care of them in your long term plans?  I couldn’t believe it when she told us, the morning of their flit to the airport, that she was simply dumping them at the house.

Most of them seem pretty able to survive, a stroppy gang of tabbies, that until last night we thought had pretty much moved on and done their own thing…  but ‘Fluffy’ broke our hearts.  Not only had this woman – with whose daughters Cassie had struck up a brief intense friendship – tried to guilt-trip us, through Cassie, to take her on, she was also not even full grown: a beautiful black and white long hair and very affectionate.  She tried desperately to get into the house at every opportunity, and would sit on the windowsill crying all the time.  I felt so cruel telling the girls not to pet her or play with her, knowing that we would be stretched to the limit financially to board Merlin when we went back to the UK in the summer holidays.  The two cats actually seemed to get on OK, and if circumstances were different and we WANTED a second cat it could all have worked out fine, but this was not the case.  I still snuck over the road and put out food on her old doorstep, as well as water, but I don’t know whether she got it or her old housemates who we rarely saw – and I felt very mixed up about perpetuating the problem, whilst at the same time unable to watch her starve on our doorstep.

No one wanted Fluffy.  All the local animal shelters are at capacity, and every enquiry we sent out came back null, every animal lover has had to harden their hearts about the endless abandoned animals left behind by broke Brits going home.  Sam at Woofers didn’t know anyone, and they are having to be increasingly cautious about their own client’s intentions these days, even Cindy from the veggie group who put out loads of feelers didn’t turn up anyone seeking a new pet.  The cat shelter at Denia refused to take her as they are full.  Eventually we found a German charity in Benidorm, who agreed – originally they wanted a €100 donation in return for taking her in!  We pleaded that she wasn’t even our cat, but that we’d do the transporting, eventually settling for a reduced donation- they don’t get any funding, and very animal they take in is neutered and dewormed immediately, so their costs are huge.

We drove down the coast with Fluff howling and freaking out in Merlin’s cat box – we didn’t know if she’d ever seen a car for a trip to a vet before.  Eventually we found Ana, after getting increasingly lost in Albir, and she took her in, plus some donated goods we had found for her boot sales they use to fundraise.  She called us later to say the cat had already been spayed, which means someone cared enough for her once to do that (and made me feel a bit better about haggling down the donation).  I promised we’d see what else we could do to raise money for them – they are called Gatami, and based in Benidorm, reachable on 966806976 – don’t even have a website, but their reputation is good.  They do a regular boot fair stall in Denia and are pleased to accept donations of anything they can sell there to support their work, and they have never put a healthy cat down.  Like every shelter I spoke to, their normal MO is that animals come and go, they’re a great source of free pets for expats and Spaniards alike, but everything’s changed now and all they get is animals in, with so many people leaving.  Aldea Feline said they get cats dumped at their gate in the middle of the night, tied to the gate with string or in cardboard boxes… 

It’s a sad and cruel complication of the credit crunch:  sad enough that so many small businesses and families are going under financially – there is no safety net here – and the fact is it costs a bloody fortune to take a pet home to the UK.  All Merlin’s jabs and pet passport cost the best part of £300, not to bring him here which is unrestricted but in case we ever need to take him back.  Then the flight – through a restricted number of carriers – was around another £400. Which is why we could not and would not take on another cat right now.    Rabies is a terrifying and as yet incurable disease, but it was eradicated from the Spanish dog population by the 60s (compliance with nationwide animal vaccination programmes being one of the few upsides of rigid dictatorship) – a very few cases still show in bats occasionally each year.  Britain’s position on keeping the island entirely rabies free is understandable but the costs and beauracracy involved in vaccinating and certifying animals is causing tremendous suffering here.

I have never been a dog person, but I know that it’s even worse for them.  Not only are the costs of the Pet passport scheme + shipping significantly higher, they are far less likely to cope in the wild.  I walked past the Apasa dog pound the other day, their lonely whining would break anyone’s heart – as would the sign on the door begging people not to dump their animals and find a humane solution as they are absolutely unable to take in one more.  Every one of those poor howling creatures had been raised with the expectations and dependence of being a family pet, not the wild feral creatures they are indeed related to but have become so different from…  I wish people would think twice and three times, before making a commitment they cannot fulfill long term.

Long time no post!  But we’ve had a busy week…

We were looking forward to half term, because it felt like for both us and the children we had arrived then pitched directly into work/school, without much adjustment time – well, it’s not easy to be tourists in midwinter in any case.  We had plenty to look forward to as we did our best to get the house cleared up and rearranged in anticipation of our first houseguests.

Sunday morning I got up early and scooted down to Grenadella, looking forward to my first ‘proper’ walk, a free guided excursion organised by the local tourist board.   It was a 3 hour hike through beautiful countryside, initially well inland and steep hairpin bends that left me without sufficient breath to curse my lack of fitness and embarrassed at being the youngest and least fit person there apart from our guides (who were around my age but in far better shape for climbing I hasten to add).  Then we came out onto a slightly scary but incredibly beautiful ridge walk, from which we could see for miles in every direction, from Cap San Antonio in the north to Ifach at Calpe in the south.  It’s a shame it was a dull and gloomy day, the views were still quite incredible but I wondered if I would be able to find and follow the intermittently marked path again on a sunny day.  We passed down to “Grenadella castle”, the ruins of an 18^th Century defensive fortification, after which we appeared to be quite close to the beach.  The last part of the trail was extremely hairy however, at one point involving nothing I would describe as a pathway at all, just chains bolted to the rock to help you scramble round – not a little stroll up from the beach I would fancy attempting en familia, unfortunately.

Anyway later that day my sister, her husband, and 2 and a half kids arrived from the UK, and the girls were thrilled to be reunited.  Lara wore herself out completely, and spent most of the night awake with earache which was far from ideal as she ended up in our bed (so we had no sleep instead of the other kids), and next day was Cassie’s long awaited birthday party – deferred from her actual birthday the week we arrived.  Lara perked up magnificently though Richard was feeling unwell too after our rough night, but somehow I got all the food prepared and between us we shuttled up to Pinosol Park, a short distance up the road, where her friends from school all arrived.  The kids seemed to have a really fantastic afternoon, all mixing well including her cousins from England, and Lara’s best friend from nursery also came so there was a great spread of ages - although at one point we lost most of the older ones who seemed to set up a tribal camp on the opposite side of the park, only emerging to wave sticks at the grownups and shout a lot, before a quick cake raid.  A lot of the food, even the savoury stuff, got eaten, which is always a good sign.

The party ended abruptly when Lara, running on fumes by now but having a brilliant time, suddenly got to tired to hold on to the swing and dived headfirst to the floor instead.  Nina rushed the two of us home where I got her cleaned up and tried to calm and comfort her, but it was really scary as she cried for about 2 solid hours before drifting off to sleep, and her face was badly bruised and scratched.  As always when a small child is tired and  in pain, she regressed a good year or two in age and communication skills, and we had no way of knowing how badly she was hurt.  Eventually she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and thank god woke up more cheerful and apparently with no lasting damage, but it was a horrible moment, and we were rushing round researching hospitals and clinics etc whilst trying to be jolly hosts and cope with post-party clear-up – not much fun.

The rest of the week went well though and the weather was kind – we spent most of the time at local beaches where it was paddling weather, certainly for fast-moving small people, and indeed emergency clothes changes were required on more than one occasion for those inclined to misjudge the incoming waves and suddenly find themselves doing rather more than paddling.  Picnics and sandy toes reminded me why we had uprooted our lives from the familiarity our guests represented, and I knew we’d done the right thing watching the children play so happily – all my childhood, beaches were a 2 week treat in Wales every summer, and I always promised myself I would live near the sea sometime, why had I we waited so long to give our children this lifestyle?  Well, lots of good practical reasons as it happened, but here we finally were, even though our guests kept saying how it wouldn’t suit them.  We checked out new beaches at Moraira, Cap Blanc and Denia, but the kids always loved the Arenal (with its climbing frames and golden sand) best of all.

On their last day we went into Jalon, just to explore a bit of the interior, and although our Nina and Mark didn’t enjoy the mountain roads as much as we had hoped – we took them the pretty way through Gata and Lliber -  they made it half way up the Coll de Rates where we stopped for a picnic in the pineforests with incredible views, across the whole of Jalon valley and out to the Montgo and the sea at Denia.  The weather was perfect – just right for picnics without worrying about sunburn – and the kids loved exploring the mountain trails.

At the weekend we were back to the valley for lunch at La Vall with the Montgo Vegetarians, lovely to see Brian and Cindy and everyone again and the food was very excellent – even Richard seemed to like it.  The journey back was interrupted by road closures in Gata as the local kids had their Carnavale parade, it appears our kids had theirs a week early due to half term timing, so we got to watch all the village children and their famililes parade past the car in their colourful costumes.  On the last day of the hols we went back to the Arenal again to meet Lara’s friend from school, and it has already reached the stage where we can go there anytime and both girls will be pretty much guaranteed to hook up with friends from school or last time.  I love it so much that we live 5 minutes away from this kind of fun and the sheer delight they take in dodging the surf… though I hope that as the season and temperature develops we may reduce our laundry load slightly, or simply learn to strip them off in anticipation of the inevitable soaking that seems to occur whatever the our plans/instructions/the weather.

On the final afternoon we drove out to the lighthouse at Cabo San Antonio, for amazing views of the bay, though it was very windy and none of us were dressed for a walk.  We drove back via the mirador at Els Molins, from where the views of Javea were simply incredible, and I longed to follow the path back down into the Port – with different footwear and no small children though, so another day.  We contented ourselves with a stroll around the pine forests at the top, and once again thanked our good fortune in living at such a beautiful and inspirational place.

One of the most fundamental and hopefully enjoyable aspects of life is what we eat and drink… so I decided this week to write a bit about that and how it gets done around here.

Whenever we’ve been in Spain in the past it’s been as a tourist, and of course what you eat on holiday is not what you eat at home – so whilst we knew a lot about restaurants and bars before we arrived, there was a lot to learn about the day to day stuff, some of which was familiar, and some less so.

Supermarkets for example are pretty much the same anywhere in the world… but as in every area, they each have their own feel and culture and good and not so good points.  Some names are familiar – Aldi and Lidl and Carrefour are spattered along the coast including a Lidl in Javea, and others are new.  Eroski is huge and seems good value, with lots of non-food items (eg we bought Cassie’s bike and our office chairs there, as well as some kitchen stuff).  Mercadona is a good all-round weekly shop, Masymas seems to be a fairly local chain with stores all over the area and some regional produce, medium sized premises.  Dia is cheap if you chose the right promotions, Consum is cheapish but mainly because you can’t find anything you actually want…  Supercor is part if the Corte Ingles chain, with choices and prices to match.

There are lots of little supermarkets too, many serving the expat or tourist trade.  Quick Save has several local branches for those who can’t live without Heinz beans or PG tips, though the prices are very different from the UK chain with a similar name.  There are smaller independent ones out in the urbs where lots of people live, the closest to us is a German run store with a surprisingly good bakery.

But the fresh produce in the supermarkets is generally disappointing, so we try to be a bit more Spanish about it and get to the markets when we can.  A lot of these are during the working day which is a shame, apart from Pedreguer on Saturdays which is heavingly busy.  The Thursday market in Javea is great and we have found all sorts of things from a charity stall selling secondhand English paperbacks for 1€ to cheap socks, along with a great range of local fruit and veg.  There is also an indoor market in Javea with permanent stalls selling all kinds of foods, and the produce there is excellent and also competitively priced.  Lara has a school trip there in a week or so, as they have been learning about healthy eating and hygiene as a topic.

Eggs we get from a local mum at school – amazingly fresh and very free range, daily from their own finca.  Bread we tend to buy every day or so fresh, but exactly as in the UK generally also have a sliced sandwich loaf (‘pan moulde’, though it keeps pretty well!) on hand for simplicity in lunchbox making.  Wine of hugely varying quality and price is available in all the big supermarkets, and we keep forgetting to make some note of the good value ones that turn out surprisingly nice… although for everyday drinking its hard to beat the reliable and acceptable brew from the bodega in Jalon (95c per litre!) -you wouldn’t take it to a dinner party, but then we don’t go to many of those.

As I may previously have hinted, Spain isn’t an easy place in many ways for vegetarians.  Lifetime carnivores too are confronted in a more head-on way with the reality of what they’re consuming, and if accustomed to shrink-wrapped unrecognisable body parts in Tescos the corpses with heads and legs on, especially on the fish counter, might come as a shock – likewise the ubiquitous whole hams, complete with trotter, hanging in every bar and racked in rows in the shops.  Of course there are plenty of alternatives, and local cheese is pleasant and plentiful, as are pulses galore (though many precooked ones may contain the ever-present jamón.  Processed vegetarian foods are rare, imported, and consequently extremely expensive – I remember being thrilled to find quorn mince in a local supermarket, only to drop it in horror on spotting a pricetag in excess of 5€!

I have found one local health food shop that sells organic tofu for a similar price you’d pay in the UK – there is no mass market alternative like Cauldron – and they also sell a good selection of whole organic pulses as well as some limited fresh stuff.  I am currently trying to make my own tempeh, as I have never seen any of that on sale here, although the delicious Indonesian takeaway must be getting it from somewhere.

Restaurants, cafes and bars are of course everywhere in a resort town in Spain, and whilst we can’t frequent them as often as we’d like whilst Sterling continues to circle the drain, it is nice to pop out for a quick bocadillo or café Americano occasionally.  The Arenal area has endless ‘international’ restaurants, including the famous Scallops, renowned for ridiculously low priced food offers.  The Port and the pueblo have many more Spanish establishments as well as some high quality international/fusion offers, including two excellent Indians.  There are places serving greasy chips to Brits in a language and environment that they understand, and there are coffee shops serving brandy and wine at 9am to Spanish workers taking a break for their segundo desayuno.  At lunch time a fixed price ‘menu del dia’ is commonplace, offering a good value 3 course meal, generally with several choices for each and possibly including a drink – us veggies have to negotiate our way around this of course, so we don’t end up with an a la carte salad costing twice as much as the menu steak!  A veggie entrée is a rarity in a Spanish restaurant but often the starters will include soups, salads and tortillas and lots of places will be flexible… it’s no coincidence that restaurant ordering is probably my most advanced area of Spanish language knowledge!

Of course one of the things that really attracted us to the mediterranean lifestyle in the first place is the fact that children are welcome anywhere, at any time – there are no ‘family’ restaurants serving rubbish food in small portions.   Kids in Spanish restaurants are seen and heard, but you can generally spot the natives who are well behaved and accustomed to being treated as part of a society of many elements.  One thing that is a concern eating out though especially with kids is special Spanish loopholes in the supposedly EU wide smoking ban – many establishments opt out of being smoke-free, meaning the interiors are like sticking your head in an ashtray.  Though when you can sit outside that isn’t a concern – bring on the summer! 

We have had a couple lovely days this week and are promised more for the weekend which will be great, as it’s been a long week for us in the office – mainly dealing with the fallout from the extreme weather conditions in the UK.  Cassie is furious to have missed the best snowfall in decades, she doesn’t even know her old school was closed for part of the week whilst she was sat at her desk.  We are hoping to go back to Jalon tomorrow- restock on wine obviously, but the almond blossom should be out, so we’ll take lots of photos.  Right now writing this has made me realise it’s almost teatime…

Try before you buy at the Jalon bodega

OK one month in Spain now – as of early tomorrow morning. That’s pretty amazing, but I am still not sure whether it feels like we’ve just arrived, or been here all our lives.

But rather than the usual introspective ramblings I thought I’d try organising thoughts into lists today, now that we’ve had a chance to think things through a bit certain categories inevitably come to mind….

Things I wish we’d brought / brought more of:

• Our kettle – took us a while to figure out where to buy one of these
• Teatowels - what do Spanish people dry their dishes on? Took us ages to find these in a local rastro
• Oven gloves – still haven’t managed to find a pair still – will add to my eBaying list, but again, what do Spanish people do, are asbestos fingers the norm around here, especially with all the grilling and barbequeing, I can’t work that one out
• Tresemme Salon Silk conditioner – or any decent rich conditioner – seems to be very hard to buy locally, also kids detangling conditioner/spray. Spaniards must be naturally blessed with luscious hair I guess
• Our TV!! It’s very frustrating to know we have a decent widescreen in storage, when we look at the ancient goldfish-bowl one here. But we had one trip, and one car, and had to prioritise,
• Warm/winter clothes… OK, I know it’s hopefully only for a few more weeks tops, but I am bored with my 2 sweaters and have had to buy more,
• One of those presses that recycles old newspapers into blocks for the woodburner. I am definitely going to get one of those for next winter!
• The scanner. Again, got a perfectly good one in storage, didn’t think we’d need it, but the amount of things we have had to provide copies of – I thought I’d scanned everything I could think of before we left but we have substantially added to our haul of Vital Bits Of Paper in the past month

Things we brought that I wish we hadn’t bothered:
• So much kitchen stuff… I wish we’d had a proper inventory of what was here.
• 2 DAB radios – see previous posts – could have eBayed these and regained both load space and useful cash ?
• So much IT stuff – serious ‘if we can’t work we can’t stay!’ paranoia came into play here – of course the right set up is essential, but did we really need 3 routers? Honestly!
• Likewise stationery/office consumables. Yes, apparently they do sell pens in Spain, even highlighters.

Things I’ve learned:
• That driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road is actually possible (just still rather scary). Driving in ancient pueblos where the streets are barely as wide as your car, or along roads with sheer drops and cliffs to the side, is still best left to someone other than me however.
• ‘Mañana’ doesn’t actually mean ‘tomorrow’, when uttered by anyone in official administrative positions. If it can be done more slowly and irritatingly, it will be, and it can’t be done today because the office is just closing and anyway the paperwork isn’t quite right
• Conversely on the practical front, extreme weather is something a society can live with – forest fires, tree-felling winds, flood-inducing rainfall… none of these things grind the country to a halt the way they do in the UK, it gets fixed promptly without too much fuss and life goes on.
• That there are other vegetarians in Spain – although so far none that I have met are Spanish..! The fabulous Montgo Vegetarians are a great bunch and not a hair shirt or pair of dungarees in sight.
• How awesome the night sky looks on a clear night – especially during a power cut
• I’ve also learned all manor of practical things: how to wire a 2-pin plug, how to get a fire going even from damp wood, how to watch UK TV via a proxy server, and how to make coffee on a barbeque

Things I still haven’t really worked out, or just have no idea about…
• What the actual procedure is for post too big for the letterbox… some of it seems to get randomly delivered by private car, other might be waiting for us at Correos, it’s all very confusing
• What the exact translation of the slightly scary sign with a gun on it means at Grenadella National park (probably something about hunting)
• When we will ever get the promised 10meg adsl
• What on earth our electricity bill is going to look like after all these heaters blasting away
• How the girl’s school can justify charging 6€ for uniform socks
• Why the local radio stations play such cheesy rubbish

Things I want to prioritise for our second month in Spain
• Getting some decent walking boots and doing some walking
• Finally getting on the Padron (and investigating the potential nightmare of applying for full Residencia)
• Organising Spanish lessons – nope, osmosis is not going to do it (not in Javea working with Brits all day!)
• Going riding with Cassie
• Get more photos onto this blog –even though the resizing is a bit of a pain
• Getting my Spanish company properly set up
• Calling friends for chats instead of relying on Facebook –we have the ip phone set up in the office so it doesn’t cost anything – just psychologically feels like we can’t chat as its too far
• Having even more fun, outdoor family time and really getting to know the wonderful new area we live in. Another ‘OMG can’t believe we’re really here moment’ just in the offing!

Its funny isn’t it, how soon the totally new becomes normal and routine. Most especially, and surreally, when the wildly new is intertwined with deeply familiar elements. This week we have been back to school, and back to work, and it’s just like being at home… in our new home.

So what’s the same and what’s different? Well, getting kids up in the morning, making breakfast, and packed lunches, not so different… obviously making lunch for two now Lara is doing full days, to which she has adapted brilliantly – if tiredly – so far. Lunches we are keeping fairly close to what’s known, but Cassie has taken a slice of tortilla in a couple of days this week which the teachers are happy to microwave for her at lunchtime! Can’t imagine that in a UK school… But making packed lunch whilst the girls eat cereal has a reassuringly normal feel about it, and the range of nice fruit juices in little cartons is nicer than before.

One thing I really miss about my mornings is though the Today programme – how sad! And given how precious every inch of space in our loaded moving car was, I am irritated every time I look at the DAB radio alarm I carefully bubblewrapped… not only did I fail to check and establish there is NO DAB signal available in Spain, but I didn’t realise it has no manual clock setting either, so the thing is useless in a number of different ways. An expensive and ugly paperweight for the new office perhaps? Grr!! Of course there is internet radio, but I can’t face putting the laptop on in the dark, and so have to ration myself to the last 45 mins or so of Humph and co when I start work later on.

At the moment, this is after the school run – though I expect this will only take one of us soon. Parking/approach is chaos, the school is moving to a new purpose-built site next year but for now its anarchy in a too-narrow road. And nowhere safe to drop them nearby, even if it were only Cassie, further away – pavements are clearly one of those namby-pamby health and safety oddities we have left behind us, so we queue and jostle our way into the carpark with everyone else. The cars themselves aren’t so different from Surrey! Except some of these oversized 4×4s actually have mud on them and appear to be owned for good reason.

Lara we drop to her classroom, where she can now easily find her peg for her lunch bag and then run straight outside to the play area to embark on the task of ruining another pair of tights. I hope the school uniform shop restocks soon, because their own clothes don’t seem up to a full day of schooling. Cassie we deliver to the playground at the other end of school, and the teacher takes them down to class together as a group. The current school site has been temporary –for many years, it’s a good example of the best job being made of a far from ideal situation, a mishmash of buildings including a number of portakabins interlinked with narrow passageways, a variety of play areas, pleasant murals, sports zones, etc etc. Certainly it has character, but the new site will undoubtedly be a big improvement.

Then back home to the office, where it’s business as usual – everything is set up OK, and the pathetically low broadband speed doesn’t impact too badly on most applications (other than watching TV in the evening that is). I really like getting started almost an hour before UK business hours, I can get such a lot done and in the inbox cleared, my day planned, before the phone and IMs start going, I actually feel quite organised. It’s amazing how normal everything feels! Even down to the cat jumping on the desk and walking across the keyboard at the wrong moment. The phone works – and my number is still 020 8… - Still lots of admin outstanding re setting up of my new Spanish company – to consult to the UK one, its so complex – but we are chipping through it bit by bit and at least have a place to put the paperwork now! I need to locate an equivalent of Staples or Viking, that we can visit or deliver – what is the Spanish for bluetak anyway? (not that anything sticks very easily to our rough plastered walls, but for project planning I am going to need to get my UK postal area and boundary maps up soon… and that’s really going to mess with my head!) We bought a secondhand anglepoise lamp, but that blew up this morning (and tripped all the relays, fortunately no other damage, good new electrics in the villa). An of course it’s not just my office any more, I am sharing it with Richard, which is… interesting!! But we’ll give it time, haven’t killed one another in the first week, which I consider positive.

He normally goes to collect the girls, they finish at 4 here – initially Cassie thought this extremely unfair, as 35 minutes later than her friends at home, but they do get an additional break, AND we keep pointing out that when we collect her at 4, her pals back at Chandlers Field still have 25 minutes to wait for their bell! Also on Fridays they finish at 3, (though it looks like Cassie will be doing her karate class then), so she has the satisfaction of knowing school is out whilst it’s still barely the end of lunchtime in the UK.

Cassie seems to get homework most days, even if it’s just a quick worksheet – I am really pleased with that, it’s great that she has some rapid reinforcement that can be got out the way directly after school, In her old school homework was rare and erratic (weekends only and sometimes the teacher ‘forgot’ to give it out!) Even Lara gets ‘homework’! Well – this week, we had ‘mathematical development’ where she had to count and draw all the doors in her house. It’s a start! On Wednesdays we have enrolled Cass for an after school Spanish conversation class, to help her get up to speed rapidly, but so far that and karate is enough we think.

Weather is a little milder, far from blazing sun, but we are less freezing first thing now and sometimes go hours at a time without the blowers on in every room. Still light a fire most evenings but sometimes because its nice rather than essential!

Well, Tuesday was 3 Kings day, and all the Spanish kids got their shoes filled with toys – ours didn’t, as we reminded them, they had had the small benefit of a visit from Santa less than a fortnight ago, not to mention Cassie’s birthday… turned out they had both done alright on the parade sweets yesterday too.

Everything was shut (including the school uniform shop in Lliber), but at least Mum and Stephen had an easy run through to the airport, and Richard was pleased to show them a bit of the countryside on the way back as they hadn’t really been out of Javea since their arrival at the weekend – definitely need visitors to get a car in future or it’s really limiting (unless there is just one of them with a relatively small rear end and prepared to squash in between the kids’ booster seats!) It really is so beautiful round here and varies hugely in the different areas, with the landscape changing around every bend. Not that there would have been a lot worth seeing on Tuesday as it just got colder and duller as the day wore on.

Wednesday we got up in the dark again! Our plan being to arrive at the school half an hour early to buy the girls new gear. However when we got there we found there was a problem with the uniform supply chain and there wasn’t going to be any available that week, so they’d remain in mufti, and there were a couple of other new kids also in the same boat. First we went down to Lara’s nursery class where we met her teacher Mrs Middleton and colleagues, they had already prepared a peg with her name on, it was a small bright and friendly room, and there was a little girl called Meg who was waiting to be the new girls’ friend. Lara went off cheerfully to join in the day’s activities.

Then we went back to the office to meet Mrs Brewer, Cassie’s new teacher. She seemed lovely too, everyone had been very friendly, and Cassie was taken down to meet her new classmates whilst we did some paperwork in the office.

We met Sam outside, and she said that a load of the mums generally went for a quick coffee on Wednesday mornings, so we met up with them all in Javea for a quick americano. Everyone was kind, and they seem welcoming and open to new arrivals. My mind kept drifting back to the girls, especially my Cass who had been so anxious about changing schools and friends and countries… I just hoped she was finding a similar welcome.

We wanted to stick around Javea for the day, and had a good look around the Port area shops. We went into the Vodafone shop, who could do me a good sim-only deal for my Blackberry, BUT could do nothing without details of our not-quite-ready Spanish bank account. We did find some cheap rugs for the bedroom floors though and various interesting shops.

We ended up popping in to the local tourist supermarket for a few bits, including a tomato pasty for my lunch, which I had a big fat bite of back at the house before realising it had tuna in it as well! Eurrgghh. I spent the rest of the day fighting nausea even after cleaning my teeth, I never, ever want dead things in my mouth again! But soon it was time to go and get the girls, and to our great relief good times had been had for first day of school. Lara had made it through till 4pm without losing her better nature, both had eaten their packed lunches, and had good things to say about classmates and teachers. Phew! Back home a near disaster – a close encounter between my Blackberry and a hard tiled floor, left it not recognising the battery and basically not working at all. A lot of frantic googling and forum-bashing ensued before we found a way to reboot and reset it… so another great relief (having seen the prices to replace it locally this morning). By then the day had simply evaporated on us, the later end to school day is something we’ll just have to get used to…

Waking up in our new house was lovely.  As the 4^th night we had spent in a different place to the night before, it was wonderful to think ‘here we can stay’ (for at least 6 months anyway), and to know that at last we were somewhere to call home.

In the decidedly cold light of day, we realised how much there was to do.  We are in a private let, but I had still anticipated a professional clean would have been done… wrong assumption, so plenty to do before we could unpack.  Nothing filthy dirty, but it wasn’t our dirt… if you know what I mean.  And some bits were worse than others… how on earth do you get hairs in a fridge anyway?  Eurghh!!

I cleaned the larder and fridge (despite a general lack of any kind of products except for random car cleaning things) and we got most of the fridge shelves into the dishwasher, before setting off for breakfast in Javea – well call it brunch as it was after midday, but Scallops was open for one of their ridiculously cheap fry-ups, so a cholesterol-and-caffeine fix later we were ready to hit the supermarket.  We cleaned out Mercadona, really should have got a second trolley, and it cost a fortune as it was all the stuff you never have to buy all in one go (cleaning products seemed really pricey actually, but other stuff like wine was cheap so fair enough!).  Then we came home and put it all away as best we could, swapping another load of greasy plates etc into the dishwasher.  We couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the Spanish sunshine, but at least it was mild and dry.

After that it was time to be reunited with one member of the Middlemiss family, the first of us to emigrate to Spain.  After stopping by a pet shop at the Marina centre for litter, we found our way to Woofers and Co where Sam and Jim and their lovely kids had been taking care of Merlin for Christmas.  He seemed pleased to see us, although he had clearly been very comfortable - he was evidently far less traumatised at being abandoned at a cargo depot in Gatwick back on the 12^th Dec than I had been leaving him there!  It was lovely to see Sam and Jim too, and they had lots of practical advice about everything from secondhand furniture to getting UK TV – they’ve been here and been doing it for a couple of years, so it’s great to have the benefit of other people’s experiences.

Merlin protested loudly at the car journey, but soon made himself at home in the villa – running round howling at everything, trying to hide in cupboards and boxes, and endlessly swiping and pawing at us if we forgot to pay enough attention for a moment.  We had a quick skype chat with the family back in Wales, as well as Fiona, and Merlin joined in with that – seemed like the kids had actually missed him far more than they missed us!  But they were clearly well and happy, undoubtedly being spoiled rotten by all the grownups plus Adam and Rebecca, and though I missed them even more afterwards I knew it wasn’t going to be long before we all were reunited at the weekend.  And not long in terms of making a habitable home for them either.

We were both so knackered from the endless travelling, followed by a day of hard grafting scrubbing and sorting, that once we finally got the fire going with the damp wood, we took the decision that our first childfree New Years Eve this millennium would be celebrated… at home!!  Oh yes we know how to party.  But between the kitchen scrubbing, trying to get the fire going, writing up the journey blog and calming down a mental cat, the evening passed very easily and pleasantly.  When midnight came we watched the fireworks from the roof of the villa, and ate the 12 traditional grapes – you’re apparently supposed to eat one for each bong of the clock, and each brings you luck for a month of the year ahead… well we couldn’t hear a clock up there and didn’t want to drop our cava so we just ate them, and enjoyed the view.  It was almost as though the new year held so much promise and excitement and opportunity, we didn’t need a big or public ceremony to mark it – just the two of us and our grapes!  The fireworks were pretty too, and not so close as to completely freak Merlin out (any more than he was already).

Next day we knew nothing would be open, so we celebrated the big Spanish fiesta that is new year’s day by - carrying on with the cleaning!  The kitchen finally under control, we cleaned all the bathrooms, sorted out Cassie’s bedroom, and at last our own bedroom – everything put away, no more suitcase living, hurrah!  It was so good to see it starting to look like home, the boxes gradually emptying and places being found for things. Considering it had all fitted in or on a single landrover we seemed to have a phenomenal amount of STUFF to find homes for… but it began to seem it was getting there.

In the evening we walked in to Javea, which really wasn’t too bad – to the Arenal at least, about 20 minutes.  It was a very quiet evening down there, lots of places closed, but it was nice just to hang out and have a drink and a meal.  We found a pleasant scruffy friendly bar, where a detailed discussion about language ensued with the multilingual server – he said he found English simpler to learn but much harder to master than most latin languages, that Spanish was far more precise and less open to interpretation.  To convey meaning in Spanish you can describe something exactly, and it can only mean one thing, the thing you want it to mean – whereas to describe the same concept in English would be a lot quicker but understanding would depend on context/experience/interpolation by the person receiving the communication.  He seemed to be saying that English was a lot less precise and expressive, but actually on reflection it made sense, in the light of our limited experience of learning Spanish.  For example the verbs to have, to be and to know each have at least two Spanish equivalents – so depending on which you use, you convey different information, that in English  you’d have to work out as the listener/reader.  I hope this is a theme I can return to as our studies continue!  For now, it’s just also worth noting that they served a very nice Rioja, and also that the walk home was a lot further than the walk in due to the hill we live up.  Hopefully once I finally shake this chest thing I’ll be able to do it without coughing and nearly collapsing.  Or if not we need to investigate cabs…

The next day we woke up in a room that looked like a bedroom, and headed in to Javea Port to check out secondhand furniture, for the office and Lara’s bedroom.  But it was quite disappointing, overpriced and limited.  We popped in to see Bev, who had nearly rented us a villa, and she suggested we check out a company that go to Ikea in Murcia for you, as it would be cheaper and new… 

After enjoying a bocadillo on the harbour we drove back to the shopping centre in Ondara – very unSpanishly open all afternoon – where we strolled round the shops trying to find different things on our list.  At least we managed to get a car booster seat for Cassie and a cafetiere, but we’ve now resolved to open a shop in Spain selling only kettles to  beverage-deprived Brits – surely we’ll clean up?!  Entire aisles of hipermercados were devoted to coffee preparation in myriad forms, but could we find something in which to simply boil water..?  But we managed to get some stuff for Cassie’s birthday, and various household bits and bobs that were missing.

We also managed to pick up a scart lead and adaptor, and once we were home we managed to connect our DVD player to the incredibly ancient TV in the villa – square goldfish bowl, Richard is seriously in mourning for our widescreen packed away in storage, but there was just no way that was fitting in the car with everything else that had to go.  Bev had given us a number for someone who may be able to do something with the dish on our roof – apparently too small for Sky but maybe some free channels – but at least for now we could watch a film and try and get an early night.  Tomorrow the girls come home, and that can’t come quickly enough.

We’ll consider that the journey began when we actually set off, from Wales, on our journey to Spain. No one wants to read about the joys of living out of a few suitcases for Christmas with two young children, trying to finish up major projects at work through a killer virus, going from one relatives’ sofa bed to another, wondering if you have put the right stuff in the right box in the right place, holding a sick child who’s crying ‘I want to go home…’ as she throws up over someone else’s sofa. Nor does anyone want to hear about the sheer thrill of a gearbox seizing up and dying, nor the excitement and expense of finding a replacement, couriering it over Christmas, and the hard work of a team of heroic Welshmen in fitting it in one endless day’s work. We’ll gloss over all that and start from day we actually began the final journey down here.

It was touch and go from the start, whether we’d make the trip on the day planned. Richard and Mark went returned from collecting the car, complete with new gear box, around 1am! ‘There’s a few bits and bobs he hasn’t finished putting back’ I was told – and after all these amazing guys had done a 3 -4 day job in one very long one - but I wasn’t prepared for the state of the car the next morning… It was absolutely filthy, no front fascia, looked more like the tractors they are accustomed to working on. But it was too late to turn back, and it was driveable – so Richard put the bits back together (mostly – a few minor details like a gear selector plate, connecting the speedo or reversing lights were simply too complex to address in the time we had) whilst I sorted out all our clothes and Christmas stuff etc, and tried to find cleanish places to load it all in the car.

A final Wales breakfast saw us on our way around 11am. It was hard saying goodbye to the family especially the girls, but with all the uncertainties over the car it was good just too be finally on the road. The weather was clear and we made good time on the M4 back to what we used to call home – well actually Nina and Mark’s house. We found the satnav had a setting that displayed a full digital speedo, so who needs dials? Once we’d gathered up our bits and bobs from there, my Dad met us and followed us down to the lock up to help us load up the car. For some reason the pile in the lockup had expanded over Christmas, and the tarpaulin seemed to have shrank, it was also freezing cold and rapidly darkening, but between the 3 of us we got a whole load of stuff hauled up and secured on the chilly roof. Had to tuck a plastic sheet over the back foot or so of it as the tarp just wouldn’t fit, but we knew a similar arrangement had held up on the trip from Newcastle so we were sure it would be OK.

At last we were off towards Folkestone – for the only Eurotunnel crossing of the day that could take roofracked cars. We were a bit dismayed by the state of our roof load – the tarp just seemed to be disintegrating probably just from the sheer cold – but a nice guy in WHSmiths gave us a load of stuff they strap newspapers up with. At last we were on the train and going over to France, eating service station sandwiches and enjoying the glamorous side of international travel.

We rolled out of the train into a very cold and snowy Calais, and finally put the French Tomtom maps to the test in reaching our prebooked motel. The maps worked fine and took us to the door, but we were a bit dismayed to find how very not secured the parking was. Had to hope the landy with its shredded load looked like a heap of junk no one would touch! With fingers barely unfrozen enough to operate the automated check in we found out way to our room which was tiny, warm, clean and basic. We found the bottle of wine we had brought, and I think I was pretty much asleep before my head hit the thin hard pillow!