I started the day by informing our friendly estate agent [nope, still feels odd] that the man had once again not put in an appearance to fix our entrance door. He seemed genuinely depressed for us. However, on a much…

Following the advice we’d been given to “just change the lock on your door”, the saga continues. Yesterday an aluminium carpintera was supposedly turning up between 3:00 and 3:30 PM to fit a better security lock and make our entrance…

This morning at 9:00 AM the man from the Ayuntamiento [town hall] was coming to fit our water meter to get the first of our services going. 9:00 AM turned out to be 9:30 AM , when he turned up,…

While we’ve been looking in furniture shops for dining room stuff and sofas, we were also on the look out for beds. Beds, it transpired, are a confusing issue. First of all, sizing. I am used to a standard double…

Houses are strange, deceptive things. When you see even a large house simply marked out on its foundations, it looks quite small. Once a house is built, even a modestly sized one can look quite spacious when it is completely…

When we signed on the dotted line to become new home owners in Spain, we were warned of two things: the house was now uninsured and, since various keys had been distributed to various agents, we should “just change the…

Francine and I are both keen on decent coffee and coffee at home in Spain is a bit of a thorny topic. Over our set of trips out house-and-dog-sitting, we’ve settled on a pre-packaged ground coffee rejoicing in the name…

… is mainly mixed with rain. Snow? Spain? Yes, amazing though it might sound, this morning we had a snow shower. Well, I suppose to be more accurate, it was sleet, the fluffy frozen stuff being mixed with precipitation of…

Day 2 of officialdom. We now had our NIE numbers and had managed to purchase a house. However, before we could do much else we needed to open a Spanish bank account. We have our house but it lacks both…

So, yesterday we’d managed to locate our Spanish meatball’s office after a considerable amount of effort. Today, we were to meet them for the first time and have a busy time in their company with our first brush with Spanish…