Well everybody here we are!

Leading up to retirement last year I bored everyone with my plans of selling up and moving to España, well that part is now reality! It took 14 months from retiring to sell our house and arrange our move, but as of Monday 7th august 2017 we are renting a cave house in Los Olivos just outside Castilléjar and north eat of Granada.

This is a short-term arrangement whilst Suzi and I find a place to buy, arrange a Spanish bank and get our non-resident national insurance sorted. If selling a house in the UK is anything to go by, I am sure this will not be simple.

We are looking for a large country finca or a cave house with some land in order to grow fruit, vegetables and keep some livestock – pigs and chickens. with this in mind we have several set up to view over the next month.

the process of moving out here was not easy from an emotional perspective. We have left family and close friends behind and are acutely missing them all at the moment. Our children have been great and I am so proud of them all….they have made the process a lot easier. However we both leave elderly mothers, and siblings behind and this was hard to do! As for friends well you all know that you are welcome to stay with us and generally our eventual home will also be a kibutz/commune type affair, where people can come and contribute as they are able.

Both our pets Ken (Jack Russell) and Karl (Panther) are now aclimatised to being continental – must thank our PetMover/Removal man for being so great and getting them here untraumatised.

We have seen a couple of the surrounding towns and even joined a local ex-pat social group, although my plans are to ‘go native’ – including learning to speak Spanish, something Suzi is beating me on hands down.

Our local bar (Ven y Vera) is small and rustic – something those of you who know me will realise might need some getting used to – NO ‘Real Ales’ and few ‘craft Beers’!!!!! There is also a local open air ‘Lago’ or pool that is open from June to the end of August to which we have made one small trip.

well this was an introduction and I will post as often as I can in order to recount our great new adventure…I literally feel like Bilbo Baggins.

More posts soon.