"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." 320 days of sunshine my ….

Fellow campers... Barry & Carol 

Not a lot of news and not a lot of action at the moment…

We are already well integrated into Spanish life… eating at 7 – 8pm, drinking too much employing a Romanian gardener, a quote from ‘Barry the builder’, buying German bread from Lidil (they just can’t make bread can they!)… blaming Franko for the trains and just about everything else (just google him Taryn… ‘General Franko, Spain’ ; ) and worrying about the record level of unemployment (27%) as they say in the expat community “TIS… This is Spain…”

Joking apart… The unemployment situation is no joke for them or us.

Brit abroad... puts a toe in the water

Apart from some concern over the 320 days… It has rained for the last couple of days and doing some detailed analysis it now seems possible that some days may count as both wet and sunny bringing the number down to around 300 totally sunny days! This could be a deal breaker unless our estate agent Fernando can do something about it. He has already ferried us to the bank, police station, tax office and God know where else and provided a mobile phone and two bikes for us to use and to get the deal done. Estate agents really earn their money (5%) over here.

Els Poblets

Apart from the house buying hoops we have been going through we have not been feeling that good. Jane developed what can only be described as a bad head cold / flu and me following with more of a conventional cold a few days later while Jane is left with a hacking cough. We can’t remember the last time either of us had a cold  so it is a bit of a shock but it all part of travelling and you are unlikely to feel sorry for us.

A you would expect we are not doing a lot of travelling at the moment so bit of a recap some more detail / photos… House buying is not for the faint hearted and in a foreign country with an alien system in a foreign language, buying from someone with a third language is going to give you a few sleepless nights.

Jane hits Denia

The area south of Valencia is beautiful. It has a bit of everything and is the kind of area that it is easy to imagine yourself spending some time in. So we camped up… contacted a few estate agents and looked around the area of Denia. It is a cosmopolitan town but more touristy than we wanted for a home… and we really like the area where the camp site is - a bit out of the town. We settled for the local estate agent - whose whole family live in the same street that his office is in so has more to loose if he does not give a good service. We looked at lots of villas that we could not really afford in the area we liked most. We found a villa that was obviously a real home – lived in all year round etc. It had lots of ‘extras’ like central heating, fruit trees, a fish pond and was in the village of Els Poblets. In the centre, an area that can’t be further developed. In Els Poblets there are 10 bars, 12 restaurants a few shops and a couple of banks. People live here all year… Swiss, German, French and Spanish all around although as you would expect many of them like us will have periods away / back home. The Swiss guy who owned the villa (Alfredo) is a retired IT engineer who had already moved to Denia. Even though he spoke only a little English we all got on really well. We think he really likes us. We made him an offer, considerably lower than the asking price, all face to face (that was a bit scary) at our second viewing and Alfredo said if we upped that offer by 5000 Euros it was a deal!! much to the surprise of the agent who said  “bloody hell – I don’t think he has understood”.

'Alfred' style Nispero cake... note its a historical reference

There was some confusion as to whether Alfredo actually understood the offer that was on the table but he did J and we bit his hand off… and then shook it… quickly, before he could change his mind. The market is depressed and this property had already been reduced and nearly sold twice but we think we got a lot of villa for the money. The villa includes everything that they, Alfredo and his wife (doctor), did not want or could not fit into their new apartment in Denia. So we think it means we have effectively bought a furnished villa. Not everything is to our taste but a great start... lots of green : ( There are things that we must do and lots that we want to do…the light green toilet fittings must go, and we can’t get our motorhome under the car port (sun shade) but no major costs – we hope.

New bird in Den's life?  'Mullida'  (Fluffy)... the dove from above

We want to learn Spanish, don’t need English TV and can live without knowing if it raining back in the UK… but we have a sneaky suspicion that most of the 800,000 will have said that at some stage!

You can see some more pictures and plans at the following location. It is Alfredo’s (the Swiss owner) web site so in German and note some of the picture are when he moved in 15 years ago.

https://picasaweb.google.com/sialwe/Xironets10b?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKLi3qPe4Z76eQ&feat=directlink

Have fun in the UK sun : )

Den and Jane X