'our journey to a new life' ...Part One

Hi

Sandie asked me to do a blog on our house, she wanted to see photos of the outside and inside, and how we first decided to live in Spain. For those of you that feel this long and boring, well just do not read it ah ;O) here it is.

I will tell you a little bit of how we came to be living in Spain. We would never have dreamt in our wildest dream that we would live anywhere abroad.

We were selling our property in order to live in Sheffield to be near my sisters.

The first house Dave fell in love with was an ‘upside down house’ we travelled up to Sheffield to view it. I did not like it at all, I had very bad vibes from it.

I felt a strong feeling of sadness and, well evilness all the time I was in the house. I cannot explain quite how bad this feeling was, the walls were closing in on me, and I felt extremely low and sort of breathless. I hated the feeling and could not wait to get out. Unfortunately Dave was so very ‘in love’ with it that after many hours of discussing with Leeta and others, I gave in.

I made an appointment for my Daughter Leeta to view it with us. As the owner was showing us round, I turned to smile at Leeta and she was not there, Dave whispered that she was waiting out side. I thought how very rude of her, we made this appointment with the owners especially to show her round. Once we left I found Leeta in the street a few doors down, I asked her what ever happened and why did you leave, she just said “Mum I am very sorry, I could not stay in there, it had such bad vibes it was suffocating, I felt an evil presence all the time we were walking around, I had to get out”. That freaked me as I felt the same way but Dave laughed it off, as did a few others.

It was called ‘an upside down house’ because it was upside down in as much as the bedrooms and bathroom, toilet and roof patio were on the lower portion, upstairs was the kitchen, dining room and front room with the T.V. and fire place etc. you looked out of the window to a slated roof below!!! The garden was on the upper level. It sort of was built on land that had a gigantic step, so the garden was upstairs and the lower half was below ground level! It was a large ‘L’ shaped garden with a well and small pond. I must admit it was as David put it ‘A real fairy garden’ but even there I felt uncomfortable. Anyway at the last possible moment the owners withdrew the sale, we had spent money going ahead with it, but to me I was delighted we could not have it, as was Leeta...

The next property we once again set our hearts on was beautiful, we had now sold our home. We had previously brought a wonderful caravan from Babs and Mo that came in very useful to us now. We were now living in the caravan full time. (Thanks to the upside down house falling through)

Anyway all was going great with the sale until a few days before we were about to sign the papers, (A young female teacher was selling the property we were about to purchase) our solicitor found out that the powers to be had been lying about the lease hold, it had a 99 year lease on it! The estate agency denied this right to the bitter end, but we had to go along with what our solicitor had dug up. The teacher was astounded and swore she never had a clue about the lease, huh, I don’t think so.


We had previously brought a wonderful caravan from my sisters Babs and Mo. We have spent many a great holiday both with them and without them. I can tell you a tale of an awful thing they did, but that is another story!

Anyway, we were living in our caravan in Hythe. It was September and bitterly cold, the site was closing down soon on over night stays, and we needed to be re homed quickly.

We moved all our shattle into my Daughters home in Leicestershire, it was grossly over crowded, Leeta was sleeping on the settee in order to give us her bed, and we did feel bad about it.

We were going back and fourth to Sheffield to try our luck with property, but nothing was coming on the market in Deepcar, which was the only place we would view, as anywhere else seemed pointless, we wanted Deepcar only.

My brother Doug and his wife Liz were going to Spain at the end of September, they were going to view apartments as they wanted to retire to Spain. they rang us up out of the blue and asked us if we would like to go with them, they were thinking of perhaps living there, we said “thanks, but we needed to stay put in order to rush to Sheffield at the drop of a hat to view property, quite apart from the fact we had no spare cash as we were having our furniture stored etc.”

My brother can be extremely persuasive as any one that knows him will tell you, he told us the apartment they were staying in was for four people and so we could stay with them free (apart from the air fare). In the end, one week’s holiday in Sunny Spain with Liz and Doug sounded a good idea in order to give Leeta a breather.

We had already sold our caravan to the people parked next to our one, they were to take it over on the last day the site was open, when we left it :O)

We stayed with Doug and Liz at there home the night before the flight.

The flight was booked and it seemed we were on our way to Spain the next morning. we were sitting in the cafe eating breakfast in the airport the next morning and missed our flight! We had to return to Doug’s for another night, we were lucky as we did not have to pay extra for the flights the next day!

Anyway, the apartment Doug and Liz were staying in, turned out to be for two not four! So we had to rush around to find us an apartment near to them that was affordable to us :O( We eventually found one just round the corner.

We had a good week, we looked at many flats but it all seemed beyond Doug and Liz’s finances. During the week we went with Doug and Liz to a 70th birthday party of one of their friends ‘Dolly’ Gerry is her hubby. You have all heard us talk of them and Leeta knows them personally from way back. We had a wonderful time with them and have been very dear friends ever since.

Towards the end of the week we saw this detached house for sale and just as a ‘nosey’ Doug rang the agents and met them to view.

It was of course the house we brought. It all happened so quickly, we had viewed it, seen a solicitor, had the money transferred over and brought the house in just one week! The owner’s husband had to fly out from Germany to sign, and because of this we had to return one week later.

We spent that week, just Dave and I in the same apartment we had previously stayed in.

We walked past our new home at least a zillion times per day! We did manage to view it once more before we left for England.

We were living in our new home in Spain by December the 22nd! It is hard to believe that we were living in England with no home of our own at the end of September and living in our new home in Spain three month's later at the end of December. Not bad ah! The house was actually brought and ours in a little over one week!

I will write some more tomorrow as I am afraid this will get to long and boring.
Tina

Spain