We’re on the move again this week.  Seem to have done this far too often in recent years, and you think we’d have learned a lot from this.  Well, I hope we have.  Here’s some stuff we have picked up, generally the hard way…

•  If people offer to help, nail them down instantly to times and places, before they melt away.
• Don’t place anything, ever, in a black plastic binbag, that is NOT rubbish destined for the bin.  Do not be tempted to put bedding, laundry etc into bags that make them look like they need helpfully chucking out, especially when multiple journeys/helpers are involved.
• You can’t have in your possession too much bubblewrap, tape, boxes or marker pens
• Levels of dirt acceptable in your own home / your own dirt, eg inside fridge trays or bathroom drawers, are ‘eurgghhh!’ when you are moving somewhere new and they are someone else’s dirt you must get rid of first
• Labelling any box ‘misc’ because you just shoved any old crap into it instead of sorting as you packed, is just going to backfire on you when you are cursing through the unpacking later
• Do not label anything with post-it notes, they do NOT stick well to boxes, and leads to chaos.  ‘Does anyone know what this “FRAGILE!!!” relates to..?’
• When packing up clothes and day to day stuff, think about pulling out and putting aside the stuff you need for the last few days before you move BEFORE you start.  Even pack yourself as suitcase as though you were off on holiday - then shove the case under the bed and you can pack up everything else in the room for the movers.
• Removal firm advice leaflets recommend keeping an ‘emergency on arrival’ box at hand with you at all times, but think carefully about exactly what you need in YOUR box, for those first 5 minutes after getting to your new home.  Whether its firelighters, a screwdriver, a corkscrew or your mobile charger, what can you not live without/wish to avoid searching for at that moment?
• If you really were going to eBay it you’d have done it by now.  Go to charity shop, go directly to charity shop, do not pass go and do not move clutter from one house to another
• Same with anything you were going to alter, mend or repair.  Let it go.
• Finally, if someone kindly brings you a bottle of something bubbly to welcome you to your new home, don’t think you’ll just pop it in the freezer to chill down for half an hour.  Unless you *want* to spend your first morning in your new place clearing moet-et-broken-glass icecream out of your new freezer that is.

Half term this week - for English schools at least - but what a contrast to our fond memories of this time last year, when with visitors from the UK we went for picnics in the mountains and walks on the beach, kids playing and paddling, parties in the park… Today it was a welcome change to sit outside and have a coffee, for a scant hour or two before the sun retreated and coats went back on.  It’s slightly milder, and it’s good to have had a little taste of springtime to come, but sadly it isnt truly here yet.

It was a very pleasant morning though, first face to face get-together for our latest project, http://www.oldschoolgate.com… this site/forum is basically an attempt to create exactly I was looking for 2 years ago, when researching our relocation.  It’s such a challenge planning a move for a whole family from over a thousand miles away, with scant precious visiting time to check things out.  How on earth did people manage before the internet..?  Between google earth, agents websites, and expat forums, I was able to use our reccy time as wisely as possible and find out as much as we could before taking the plunge, but I still felt a gap for specifically kids-related things.  It was hard to find out information about schooling, kids activities, fiestas etc, and how to go about basic things such as registering for health care or buying PE kit.  It was fantastic to find some incredibly knowledgeable and supportive friends who helped so much with such things, and I wanted to try and channel that knowledge and make it more accessible for others in the future.

Similarly now we’ve been here for over a year, we still find things we havent a clue about because we havent had to deal with them yet, and being in the international school system it’s harder still to hook up with other parents  - the catchment zones cover huge areas, and many children arrive by bus anyway.  The ‘Old School Gate’ is symbolic of the ultimate hob of gossip and news that has sustained generations of Mums around the world, the folk wisdom that gets passed on to those in need of it, ready to pay forward and help out the next person who asks for help.

If you, or anyone you know, has kids anywhere near the Costa Blanca… or if you’re researching or considering a move to the area - please check out http://www.oldschoolgate.com. We’re a new community of international, diverse, friendly and interesting parents, and we’d love to chat.  More meet-ups planned soon… as soon as the weather gets better anyway!

And if you’re not in the area but like the idea of an Old School Gate for your own community, give me a shout about that too.

Well, with Summer Time officially commenced, I have faced facts and joined a gym.  Had to be done - between the wonderful food and cheap wine, Spain is officially bad for my health.  Combined with the typical homeworker tendency to sit on one’s backside all day, it’s a great recipe for said backside to spread indefinitely.

It’s not helped by the difficulties in walking around here.  It’s funny, because going for an evening stroll, a ‘paseo’, is very much a part of Spanish culture.  However where we live it’s just not easy - streets are narrow and without pavements, hills are steep, and every other house has a loud and aggressive-sounding guard dog to freak at you (and make you leap off the non-existent pavement into the path of the car struggling up the steep hill in the middle of the narrow road).  I do try and walk when I can, eg down to the mailboxes centre a couple of times a week, but the local leg of the journey in our urb is dangerous and weird… and so not done, people slow their cars down to stare at you, or ask if you’re ok or have broken down!

I do have to say that if you don’t mind driving somewhere first, there are numerous beautiful walks and strolls to be had - whether up in the hills, or along the beach, or whatever.  I just do find it weird that I cant start my walk on the doorstep easily.

Anyway, the gym.  I have to drive to it, naturally, but its only 10 minutes or so up the hill in Balcon al Mar.  Run by a very friendly Dutch couple, and has lots of scary equipment… in fact the only thing it hasnt got is a big room empty of equipment for general aerobic leaping about in, which is the kind of class I usually go for at a gym.  But they have lots of complicated looking gear to make you fit with.  I enquired about doing pilates once a week, and was told in a very blunt but polite way that there was no point doing any toning until I had done several weeks worth of fat burning!  So that’s what I have signed up for initially.

Fat burning class is 1 hour long, the first half of which is ’spinning’ - like cycling, only without the dogshit and lorries - and then half an hour of circuit on the ‘Easy Line’ equipment - a minute of step, then a machine, then step, and so on round about 8 stations.  Its quite fun, and a very friendly and supportive group of people.  They also have a power plate machine, which is a kind of migraine-generator that you stand on, and it’s supposed to vibrate your cellulite away.  They play cool and funky music, which helps a lot - I couldnt stand the mixes used at gyms in the UK.  They are very scientific about measuring your heart rate, and I need to get a proper monitor.  They’ve given me a cheststrap transmitter, but often when you’re in the bikes room there are too many people close together, and the monitor on the handlebars in front of me is probably picking up the triatheletes on either side instead of foretelling my imminent infarct as I try like mad to make it register in my predicted ‘fatburning zone’.

Anyway I am trying to find the space in the week to pop along and do 3 classes a week - that’s what I’ve paid for but so far averaging 2.  Watch this space, beautiful beach body here I come.  Maybe…

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.

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!

Every now and then we find ourselves drifting along feeling like everything’s pretty normal now and we’re getting the hang of stuff, but then something pops up and slaps you in the face to say ‘hey remember EVERYTHING’S different now and don’t you forget it!’

Usually this is in really lovely amazing ways, such as waking up to see sunlight on next doors palm trees glowing orange through the bedroom window, an awesome dawn, or the kids first paddle on the beach… I hope I never stop getting those ‘OMG we’re here! We’re actually living by the sea, by the Med, like I dreamed..!’ moments… if it ever gets to that point I deserve to get sent home.

Occasionally though your face gets rubbed in it in a not nice at all way, such as last Thursday, when we both took time off work to try and register on the ‘padron’ like dutiful citizens -as well as making access to state healthcare more straightforward, the main reason one does this is for the benefit of the local town hall, it’s their electoral register and they receive funding on a per-head basis for local services. So we filed up with what we thought were the right bits of paper, only to be told our rental contract was no good – well, we could see her point as it was a bit scrappy and altered etc, we explained the landlord was out of the country so she said come back with a receipt for the deposit.

Bit despondent we headed home, pausing in Javea for a couple of shops, whereupon we saw the local plod pulling people over. Richard immediately got a bit paranoid, because the amount of regulations and things you have to carry etc, its very complicated. He was muttering away to himself as we got back in the car, ‘spare bulbs – in the glovebox – tools to change bulbs – passenger door – hi vis jackets…’ I told him to snap out of it and stop being silly. He even contemplated taking a longer way home to avoid their junction, but then we thought no that’s daft and turned left onto the clear and empty road as we had done many times before.

We were immediately waved over by a sweet young Policia, and politely informed that the extremely faded graphic in the centre of the road was in fact cross hatched and it was illegal to cross it, we mustn’t do it again. We haltingly thanked her and it was all going smoothly and swimmingly, until the point she established that we weren’t yet legally registered… at this point everything changed, and you saw Euro-signs ‘ker-ching’ in her eyes. “Then it’s a fine” – delivered from that point in patronisingly impeccable English, she relieved us of the seemingly random amount of 63 Euros… whilst we listened to her colleague pull over a Spanish driver alongside us, warn him for the same offence, and wave him on. Only non residents have to cough up on the spot, presumably such a minor violation is scarcely worth the paperwork to collect by post, but new arrivals are fair game. We just barely had enough cash between us – had we been a Euro short she had the power to frogmarch us to a cash point or impound the car if she took a fancy to it, we were utterly powerless and treated completely unfairly. We left shaking with rage. The actual ‘offence’ could have been questioned legally very easily given the state of the road markings, but the blatant way in which it was applied so unfairly was gobsmackingly outrageous…we felt completely powerless, given our limited language and status here… no one in Spain had before made us feel like that and we hope it’s a long time before it happens again.

The following day we were made aware of a big difference in another way, waking up to really weird weather – dull grey skies, high winds but WARM… it was very strange. Cassie came home from school insisting her teacher had said it was a tornado, we think she meant sirocco (we hoped!). Next day was Saturday and it was much brighter but seriously high winds – we watched the palms from the bedroom window bending to the ground, glad our villa was actually in quite a sheltered nook (certainly compared to some we’d viewed). It was quite fun to be cosily (well, draftily) inside, an uninvolved observer – until the power went off. Not so much fun! Panic over, all back on 20 minutes later… for around 5 minutes. Then it went off, and didn’t come back on.

Richard managed to get through eventually to someone at Iberdrola, the provider, and established something was indeed wrong and they were trying to fix it – soon it would be fixed. Well that’s ok then.

It wasn’t fixed on Saturday. Richard took the kids off to the Port to collect Cassie’s new school skirt from the tailors (about an inch and a half had to be taken from the side of it to make it fit), and when he got back they’d witnessed some serious devastation down at the beach – recycling bins overturned, hoardings down, etc. Most of the town did appear to have power, the outage was quite localised, so at least I knew internet cafés referred to as ‘Saros Office - Plan B’ were accessible – but we couldn’t imagine it’d still be a problem come Monday surely..?

Candlelight and torches were just about fun for one evening, as well as the interesting game of trying to eat the entire perishable contents of the fridge, but the kids were anxious going off to bed with the winds still howling and no landing light. We left their LED fairy lights on, and blew out all the candles, as we washed in the last tepid water from the tank.

In the morning still no power, and the interesting challenge was our first non-family guests expected for lunch! First things first and we hit Scallops for breakfast – hadn’t actually been there since Cassie’s birthday, but today required caffeine for a start. Without mains gas we were without so many basic things, and the electric company could only promise the problem was still being worked on and would hopefully be sorted ‘later’. We could see trees down in the roads nearby, and hopeful signs of men working on cables in the road… but cancelling lunch wasn’t an option not least as my phone battery was on its last legs and the house phone had run down completely!

Failing to turn up a camping gaz stove from anywhere open on a Sunday in Javea, we went back and improvised a cold lunch for Sam, Jim Charlie and Timmy, who had taken such lovely care of Merlin over Christmas (actually we got a brief 5 minutes of power – oh great its fixed, plug everything in – oh no its off again!) They were great company, everyone was polite about the salads and cheese, and as it was a bright sunny day and the actual gales subsiding we then lit the BBQ to boil water for tea and coffee after! Followed by a couple of pizzas and things that were mouldering in the large white box we normally used as a refrigerator.

The kids had a brilliant afternoon tearing around with their friends, and whilst it wasn’t quite how I’d envisaged our first Spanish BBQ experience it was fun improvising. And our lovely lunch-guests then invited us all back to their place, out in the campo with its own generator, to make free with their hot water and all get showered – friends indeed. They even finished off our grilling and plugged in all our portables, and offered desk space for morning if we needed it… we were so grateful.

When we got back we saw lights on! But by the time we got in the house they were off again. It transpired we could have lights – great – but the plug circuit was damaged somehow, every time we re-enabled it the whole lot tripped and we were back in the dark on a count of 3. Hours – seemingly – of switching, isolating, testing, tripping (and swearing) later we finally isolated the problem to the security light in the garage… so we switched that off, flipped the trip, and held our breaths…. Lights still on! Bit by bit we plugged everything else back in, and it worked.

Some things we’ll try not to take for granted in future. Keep full charge on all laptops and mobiles for a start…. Spain is indeed different!

The rest of the week at school seemed to go alright. Kids are just so amazingly adaptable… Cassie promptly latched on to a game involving the collection and swapping or trading of WWF gaming chips, which brought with it common ground and friends, in her class and elsewhere – it’s a small school and it seems to be easy to mix with other years in the playground and other areas. She seems to like her teacher too, and whilst most of her friends seem to be boys this is what we’re used to from home, and at least one of them appears to be Spanish. Lara too has been enthusiastic about getting to nursery every day, although by the time we pick her up at 4 she’s absolutely shattered. I think the daily routine is going to have to involve some seriously early nights… we are also really looking forward to getting up in daylight, hopefully soon. We really love the light evenings in Spain, it’s brilliant to be so far west in the CET timezone we have natural light at 6pm in January, but it does mean an alarm going off before 8 feels like night time!

Richard and I have had a busy week too, getting the office sorted for next week. Somewhat taken aback by the prices of both new and secondhand desks, we ultimately settled for the more cost-effective and easy-to-store option of a garden trestle table! A couple of hipermercado office chairs and rather a lot of gaffer tape later (the phone port is on the wrong side of the villa) and the Costa Del Saros is ready to open for business. My new ip phone seems to be working ok now despite the lack of an ‘ip fija’, and I can chat to colleagues and clients from my old 020 number! People only need to know I’m not there if they actually *need* to know…

On the technical front we’ve also got the hang of watching UK telly in the evenings, on the laptop via a UK proxy server (that convinces the likes of iplayer we are in a licence-paying location). At first it felt a bit weird huddling round a laptop but it’s good to catch up with the new series of Hustle and a couple Christmas specials we missed during the move! Actually it’s surprising how little I find I miss most of it, looking through the schedules it’s sometimes hard to find anything, having decided we’re in the mood to watch TV – mind you that’s not so different from home either. The girls are managing with a lot less TV too, though between DVDs and the PS2 their overall screen-time might not be that much reduced just yet. Hopefully time will bring us the more outdoor lifestyle we moved here to find, it’s still too cold here..! But Cassie has been learning to play chess, and Lara is bringing home Disney Princess books in Spanish from the school library, so there’s plenty to occupy everyone.

We have rearranged the living room this week, so we can huddle closer to the woodburner as well as the laptop. The villa has a huge open plan living room which will be gorgeously cool and airy in the summer no doubt, but is currently a challenge to heat cosily. Being close to the flame is warming to all the senses, and getting a fire going in the first place is viscerally satisfying in a very primal way – it’s also my personal specialist subject, and I have now reached the stage of considering the chemical firelighters a bit of a cop out (the exception being when the wood is very damp due to lack of forward planning). I expect to move on shortly and evolve beyond the need for matches, sparking flames from rubbing bits of wood together or something (or maybe not). But the woodburner has a blower incorporated to waft hot air into the room (only took us a week to locate this, maybe I am not such a Fire Goddess after all…) which is quite effective, especially when the damper underneath is open and you get a strong air current blasting through. Sometimes it’s nearly as strong as the icy drafts that seem to come through from all corners of the house and outside… we are experiencing a very cold snap presently, the same one as the UK I believe.

This weekend we decided to visit the slightly-inland town of Jalón, which is somewhere we are actually quite interested in living in – trouble is it’s a bit far from the primary school in Javea (although quite near to the senior school so longer term we will see). Jalón has excellent ‘rastro’ Saturday mornings, which translates somewhere between a boot fair and antique market. Kinda anything goes – just a long line of stalls in the riverbed, where you can buy things from clothes, food, junk, crafts, furniture… you name it. We came back with some tall glasses for the kitchen, a big bag of oranges, some pick and mix sweets, joss sticks, plus the girls bought some secondhand toys with the ‘Spanish Gold’ Santa brought them, so you get the idea.

We followed that with the slightly more conventional retail experience of the La Marina shopping mall in Ondara, where we finally bought Cassie’s birthday bike! Unfortunately we couldn’t get a helmet in her size that met with her approval (well she is a bit mature for tweety pie or winnie the pooh). We’ll have to get to the expensive bike shop in the port next week instead.

On Sunday we had a quieter day, we’d actually walked for miles yesterday with all our shopping and were all pretty tired. Later on Cassie and I walked down to the Arenal, but it was very cold and blustery. She was watching a kite surfer, but had better not get any ideas! Looks very difficult and dangerous. It was really too cold to watch her on the climbing frames for long, and we soon retired to a coffee shop where Richard and Lara met us, and we introduced girls to the Spanish tradition of churros y chocolate - which was received very positively. It was great to look out at the worsening weather from the indoor comfort of the café – watching the headland of San Antonio in the distant sunlight one minute, then disappearing altogether as a shower moved in, finally bathed in a watery rainbow. Once the rain had moved on we ran back to the car, and home to get another fire started – brrr.

Some days start waaay too early – and some are technically still actually the middle of the night. Alarms ringing before 5 are most definitely in this category. The girls barely seemed to wake as we bundled them into the car in their pyjamas, and then found all the entrances and gates locked at Mum and Stephen’s hotel. Eventually we got in, hopefully without waking the entire building, and deposited the girls with them (Mum thought they might all go back to sleep – yeah right!), then the two of us headed off to Alicante.

We reached the airport just after 7:30, where we met Lynn and Jo from ‘NIE in 1 day’ – a firm specialising in getting you that all important ‘Numero de Identidad de Extranjero’, which is similar to a National Insurance number for foreigners, but far more widely required – for example, we can’t get a mobile phone, put utilities in our own names, set up a business, open a bank account, register as residents etc etc etc without it. The cash cost is actually quite low but the grief costs we have heard about are shocking – hours of queueing, waiting for numbers, coming back tomorrow or next week or next year etc etc… we had had this service recommended to us and decided this was one occasion to throw money at a problem to make it go away.

And the early start would have been required whatever! Essentially we sat in a café for nearly an hour whilst Jo stood in the cold to be first in line for when the police station opened at 9. Between them they got all our forms filled in and signed and checked and checked over etc, and hustled us through to the front of the queue when the doors opened. Sure enough we got the first 3 numbers, but when called to the desk we learned (through our agents) that the procedure had changed and we had to first go to the bank and pay the tax charge before the forms would be stamped (apparently exact opposite of last 3 years), and the price had gone up – just as of that morning, no advance notice etc. Never mind! Our lovely ladies whipped us over the road to be first in the bank queue too, and took care of that business, then we were back in the Oficina at the nick getting things stamped and sealed and accepted. Then it was done! As it’s a bank holiday tomorrow they planned to collect our numbers on Wednesday, email them asap, then post on the final documents. By now the sun had risen over Alicante (which we’d only ever really seen from the airport or bypass, seemed a nice lively city), and we had accomplished a really major ‘ to do’ off our list, or so we hoped. I am sure we could have figured it out and sorted it ourselves, eventually, but god knows how long it would have taken.

On the way back to Javea we made a quick detour… the big electrodomesticos shop in Benissa DID sell (a limited range of highly priced) kettles! They didn’t have bags for our vacuum cleaner, but at least we can now make a quick cup of coffee.

Richard picked up the hotel team, turned out no one had had any more sleep, but it appears good value had been made by our girls when it came to the hotel breakfast buffet. It was actually a lovely day, and I sat on the roof terrace for a while watching the rooftops and palm trees, and wondering at our luck in simply being here!

Having been disappointed and frustrated by the weather on her birthday, Cassie could not be denied any longer the opportunity to test out the swimming pool. Undeterred by feeble arguments such as ‘its January you nutter’, she hoiked on her wetsuit, hurried to the water’s edge…and then stopped, with one foot in, when she suddenly realised it was a tiny bit freezing. I told her the clock was now running, she would be in a warm shower in 5 minutes come what may, and it was up to her – she sat on the side for a minute or two, finally jumped in, swam about 2 strokes out to the other side then clambered out gasping. I bundled her into her birthday ‘Bob Esponja’ beachtowel and quickly inside to get warm and dry. Hopefully that is now out of her system until spring and more suitable weather! But that’s my Cass, the thought of living with a swimming pool outside and NOT plunging in was just too, too much to bear…

Leaving Lara napping, Mum Stephen and I set off to walk into Javea again – this time continuing on past the Arenal and all the way down towards the Port, a good long hike, in beautiful weather. Sunglasses on and coats off as our stroll picked up speed, the bay looked beautiful, and I had another ‘can’t believe we’re really here’ moment as we made our way along the shingle.

Once we reached the port, we found the restaurant Stephen had spotted in a guidebook closed – a lot of places close Mondays round here, and tomorrow is a fiesta bank holiday anyway. We walked along the Esplanade and found a café on the end that had tables still in the sunshine, and Richard met us there with the girls and we ordered a load of tapas. Cassie climbed over the wall to the beach and threw pebbles in the sea, but before the food arrived the sun went in behind the row of buildings and suddenly it was January cold again – so we moved inside to eat. Outside we watched the preparations going on for the ‘Three Kings’ parade, but staff in the restaurant were unsure when the parade would reach them, so once we were all done we walked down to the harbour itself where crowds were gathering. Sitting on the chilly wall we watched groups of costumed revellers convening – Kings attendants, marching bands, Nativity characters, angels with a star, and donkeys pulling carts laden with presents. Finally the ‘Kings’ arrived, via a big motor yacht in the harbour, and climbed ashore and onto large horses, from which they joined the parade and waved regally to all the children. The attendants threw sweets, and Cassie didn’t do badly at elbowing to the front and grabbing her share. It was all enthusiastic and happy, and being taken quite seriously/done thoroughly, despite the smallish crowd (which seemed to be mainly Spanish families rather than expats or tourists) and the cold evening weather.

After the parade Richard drove Lara and her grandparents back to the house, and Cassie and I started walking back – mainly to keep warm, though we did turn and watch the fireworks on the square when they started going off as darkness fell. Richard made it back to get us by the time we reached the Parador and we all headed back to the house. I couldn’t understand why I felt so tired, then I remembered the 4:45 alarm, the miles of walking and getting chilled through! Girls were off to bed nice and early, whilst grownups didn’t seem to want much to eat – does over-ordering on tapas pass with experience or is it part of the culture I wonder? So we had a quite last evening with M+S before an overdue early night.

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.