At last, the sun has come out on the Costa, just in time for Easter.  I’d guess that for the kids Easter break this year, we are enjoying similar weather to that we had February half term 2009.  We keep saying how lovely it is to see the sunshine, and it really truly is, but there’s still a chilly breeze to go with it.  Anyway the sun, along with the light evenings, are a joy.

It’s perfect weather for walking.  And here’s another area in which a year makes a huge difference - last year, before she was 4, Lara’s idea of a long walk was all the way down the beach to fill her watering can and bucket.  We felt we were actually taking quite a risk moving without the bulky pushchair, and her favourite word was ‘carry!’  (accompanied by outstretched arms, firmly planted feet, and a yearning expression.

Now however, she’s a true little hiker, and even slightly amenable to safety instructions and commonsense -  this opens up so many more possibilities for days out.  We had a fantastic walk to the Fort at Bernia, must have been at least 8km round trip (slightly longer for me doubling back for a dropped cardigan but she can’t be responsible about everything), both the girls took the whole thing in their stride without a hitch.  Well, apart from Lara’s close encounter with the track, face down, on the home strait (I did say slightly amenable to guidance and I obviously hadn’t repeated the ‘don’t run!!’ injunction quite frequently enough, as it turned out).  Thank goodness it was only a few hundred yards from the carpark as she needed piggybacking from that point on, but was still a brave little hiker - she’s just now a brave little hiker with a rather scabby nose and elbows.

Walking for pleasure is such a wonderful thing in this region, I am so glad we can now do more as a family, particularly as our one car status makes planning separate walks such a challenge.  Plenty more planned soon!

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.

Just got back, after a few days back in London. 

Quite a strange emotional journey, the first trip back to the place that used to be home.  Of course it’s always hard leaving the family, but it was made harder this time by Richard severely twisting his ankle and being barely able to walk / drive etc… I hated leaving him to it, even with as much preparation as possible doing all the parenting for even 4 days is hard work, we all know that.

I had a lift to the airport with a friend who had guests on the same flight, so that was a  huge help.  Arriving back in Stansted I was met by Mum and Stephen who took me back to their place in Cambridge, and it was really lovely to see them again and in their familiar context – it was all so familiar, it was as though Spain had never happened in a weird way!  But then talking to the kids and Richard on Skype reassured me that both worlds can go on existing simultaneously somehow.

I took the train into London the following morning, and visited clients and colleagues in the rainy grey city.  I had very little time in my schedule for retail therapy – it was as though my London head had taken over in frantic overscheduling, and some people I had hoped to see I never caught up with at all!  I did manage a very pleasant dinner with Nina and Mark, who also put me up that night.  Also that evening I had the weird experience of visiting our old house – but no longer our home – in Molesey, which I expected to be emotionally challenging but was in fact fine.  It was good to see our tenants clearly contented and keeping the place in decent order, and it didn’t look or feel like home so that was just alright.  I delved into the office lockup for a load of summer clothes, and our old Sky box which Richard had high hopes for.

Next day a colleague living locally kindly drove me into London, as my luggage load had increased substantially.  It took over 2 and a half hours of nose to tail traffic, barely breathable air, under slate grey skies…  I thought about driving along the coast road to the Port in the sunshine in Javea, with the orange groves to one side and the Montgo glowing orange in the horizon… and I smiled quietly to myself. 

It was wonderful to see everyone, as my back to back meetings included a lovely Saros reunion lunch.  Working with these people every day it wasn’t like we’d missed each other in the usual sense, but as we only manage to get together face to face a few times a year it is always very special, and from a meeting point of view we also accomplished a lot.  I am already looking forward to our big summer party, even though I know I’ll be speaking to everyone again on Friday once I’m back at my desk.  I am so lucky to work with such a great bunch of people, who mean a very great deal to me.

I didn’t shed any tears though as I waved goodbye to London and sped away from Kings Cross back up to Cambridge, where I had another lovely evening with Mum and Stephen hearing all about their recent exploration of India and seeing all their amazing photos.  I also had lots of beautiful gifts to try and cram into my bulging rucksack, which came in just under the Easyjet weight allowance somehow!

Next morning I was headed for home, and as I finally saw the blue skies and sunshine of Spain, lighting on the faces of my lovely family who drove to Alicante to get me, I knew that now I was truly back where I belonged…

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.

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!

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!

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.

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…

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.

At last the day my babies come home!

Lot to do first though. Once again back off to the shops. We managed to find some overpriced plastic drawers for Lara’s room, 2 small oil-filled radiators, a clothes airer… but STILL no kettle (we do however have a lead on a place in Benissa that might sell them, if we can somehow contrive to pass by said shop when actually open – siesta hours still catch us out especially when on childfree lie-in time)

Also in Benissa we briefly visited Iceland, a very odd out-of-Spain experience, packed with incredibly expensive British brands. I limited myself to a few quorn products and a rip-off Guardian International, but saw people cheerfully piling trollies full of Heinz beans for 1.30E – what credit crunch..?

Home again and sorted Lara’s room out, both now looked lovely with all their toys out and new bedding and fairy lights etc. Mum texted to say they were taking off on time – felt so odd my babies flying without us, I really really hoped their ears were OK now. Eventually Richard set off to go get them, and I carried on tidying up and making dinner. The house looked really pretty and homelike at last (even if a lot of unsorted bags were temporarily stuffed in cupboards), in candlelight it even looked clean..! With all the blowers blasting and the fire blazing it was also warm and cozy, at least as much as we could make it.

At long last the door opened and in came the family – I couldn’t stop hugging Cassie and Lara, it was just so brilliant to hold them and see them. Everyone seemed tired but relieved to have arrived safe and sound, and they did love their rooms. Lara was specially delighted to be reunited with the Christmas presents they had played with briefly before we packed them all up to bring - knowing they were flying out with cabin bags only we’d been the anti-santa and snatched all their favourite toys away when we left! Everyone liked the house, and we managed a brief glimpse outside (in darkness of course but I’m sure they got the general idea). I think Mum and Stephen were relieved to see we’d fetched up somewhere civilised and warm etc

We had cava (both girls liked that too actually) and then enjoyed the pasta – first real meal I had cooked in our new kitchen come to think of it. For pud we had a donut-shaped cakey thing that seemed to be related to the forthcoming 3 Kings fiesta, as out fell a paper crown, a tiny king figurine, and what appeared to be a dried broad bean.

After that we finished off the wine, and Richard drove M+S back to their hotel. The girls were finally bedded down in their new rooms, very late, but definitely in the right place.

If we had hoped the late night would prompt a late morning, we had reckoned without the excitement of waking up in a new house, new country, AND it’s being ones 9th birthday! Cassie was up long before her sister. Shame it was a wet and rainy start to life in Spain.

We ate chocolate brioche for breakfast, and she opened her gifts – not too much to unwrap as it happened as she’ll need to come with us to choose her bike next weekend. Then Richard picked up Nana and Stephen, who had bought her karate mitts and a ‘voucher’ for a gi for her new karate club, which she was delighted with. We were then able to show everyone round outside, as the rain had stopped, and it was good for the girls to see the pool and the view from the roof etc.

 
Cassie had chosen to have her birthday meal out at Scallops in Javea, and as we hadn’t been able to get hold of Sam about whether she was bringing the kids over later, we thought we’d go out for lunch.  I walked down through Javea with Mum and Stephen, the rain had stopped but it was quite cold and blowy.  Also muddy, as I found out by slipping over at the side of the road!  Even for Scallops I looked a bit of state, but the wind was so strong at least the mud was nearly dry when we reached the front.  Very little seemed to be open – Sunday afternoon and mid-fiestas – but Scallops didn’t let us down.  Richard turned up with the girls (and my clean jeans) in the car, and joined us at the table.  With the menus del dia ranging from 5.95E to 10.95E everyone was able to find something they wanted (including a pizza for Lara that would have fed most of the table), even if M+S did wince slightly at the ‘vino inclusivo’.  Cassie seemed to have a brilliant time which was all that mattered.

It wasn’t really weather for a beachside paseo, so we came home for coffee, and in the afternoon Cassie explored her new PS2 games and we all chilled out.  We managed to connect the printer and sort out our documents for tomorrow, and I was quite pleased to get a fire going from wood that had been out in the rain all morning (quite a lot of paper and bought firelighters were admittedly employed).  Then later we had  birthday cake (more of a tarte but it went down well, even though barely hours ago we’d all vowed never to eat again when we left the table at Scallops), and we got the girls off for an early-ish night.

Cassie did get a tiny bit of blogging done, and if you’d like to wish her happy birthday via the link on the left she’d love to hear from you (email me - mail@mayamiddlemiss.com - if you don’t have a password).  I’d also love to know what you think of my more extensive ramblings!  Also have uploaded a few more photos, if you check the ‘gallery’ link above.