Apart from the weather. Why?

[potjoe]

:Sad::Sad::Sad:WOOOOOOOPS! now there as been a can of worns opened up.
Have lived in Spain for 5 years and have some very good spainish friends and they say no problem`s with the english with lots of money just the new "EU" one`s with NO money.john

 

[tay]

its not heavy unfortunatly its reality for some people.

 

[tay]

:Sad::Sad::Sad:WOOOOOOOPS! now there as been a can of worns opened up.
Have lived in Spain for 5 years and have some very good spainish friends and they say no problem`s with the english with lots of money just the new "EU" one`s with NO money.john

bueno, john. puedes preguntar a tus amigos una respuesta? soy de inglaterra y yo no tengo dinero y vivo en espana en autocaravana. que piensan tus amigos sobre este hecho?!!!!

 

[Road Runner]

bueno, john. puedes preguntar a tus amigos una respuesta? soy de inglaterra y yo no tengo dinero y vivo en espana en autocaravana. que piensan tus amigos sobre este hecho?!!!!

Casi millón de nómadas polacos adentro apenas durante un año están a muchos a aprisa que se absorberán en cualquier comunidad

 

[tay]

cuantos ingleses hay en espana? mientras hay fronteras en los mentes de la gente siempre estara el concepto de imigracion. para mi, con autocaravana, hay libertad de algun manera y si es posible de que yo puedo ir cuando quiero a vivir en muchos paises en todo el mundo, porque no el resto de mundo venir aqui? la verdad es que no he vivido en inglaterra desde 1994. y este verano volvi a quedar un rato y de golpe, vi el pais y la gente inglesa de nuevo. es una lastima que la gente atacan los imigrantes solo porque son de otros paises. la verdad es que la gente necesita atacar (con palabras y inteligencia) el goberno de este pais porque el goberno han hecho las leyes y la mentalidad de la gente es fragil cuando no tiene nada en la vida asi como esta con la majoria de gente en este pais. es una lastima de que la gente no tiene ganas de vivir agradable con el resto de mundo que quieren vivir aqui por un rato.

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[Road Runner]

Un problema es que el Reino Unido tiene una escasez de cubierta y están llegando los inmigrantes más rápidamente que están siendo built.One deben preguntarse si ningunos tuvieran haber venido nosotros estarían en una posición mejor para contener nuestros own?It limitados para causar la tensión y las casas de will.With España se están construyendo siempre para vender a los Británicos que la hacen que una esposa del crecimiento industry.My es un inmigrante ruso a propósito.

 

[hogan]

if you are on holiday then you leave your house at home. if you live in your van then you take it with you. not everyone in their van is on holiday.

when british people go to live in other countries (take the southern spain) they do not fit in with the spanish way they create enclaves of britishness. they expect the spanish (or whomever) to speak english.

We have lived here for 6 years no enclaves here,no English to moan about the weather,just us/our Spanish neighbours and a VERY cheap cost of living

 

[tay]

Un problema es que el Reino Unido tiene una escasez de cubierta y están llegando los inmigrantes más rápidamente que están siendo built.One deben preguntarse si ningunos tuvieran haber venido nosotros estarían en una posición mejor para contener nuestros own?It limitados para causar la tensión y las casas de will.With España se están construyendo siempre para vender a los Británicos que la hacen que una esposa del crecimiento industry.My es un inmigrante ruso a propósito.

que bueno hablar el espanol contigo road runner! es verdad lo que te dices estoy de acuerdo. pero pienso, quiza estoy equivocado no lo se, pero no puedo recordar la ultima vez el gobierno ha hecho algo bueno para este pais o la gente. y tambien, este pais es responsable para un monton de problemas en otros paises. recuerda el empirio britanica (no se como se dice en espanol!) !!!!! hay efectos de esas dias que aun siguen en el mundo.

construyen casas para los britanicos en desiertos!!!!!! y en 10 y pico anos no estara agua para estas casas y sus duenos! ahora no hay agua suficiente para los habitantes del sur de espana. entonces quiza llegaria el dia cuando los britanicos regresan a este isla como refugios pobres y quiza tendrian las mismas actitudes choquando sus cabezas que choqua los que llegan ahora solo porque quieren y necesitan beber agua potable!!!!!!!!!

 

[kijana]

Sorry to interupt this virtuoso display of idiomatic Spanish (how dare anyone mention Babelfish ), but I'd like to answer Jim's original question:

is it just the weather that makes you starlings flock south? Or do you have bigger and better reasons to live outside the UK?

I would like to answer this by recounting a typical few days here in southern Spain, and leaving you to make up your own minds. So take today as a starting point.

Woke up, bright blue sky, warm sun. Strolled down to the local restaurant, where the baker has delivered fresh baguettes not long ago (they're still warm). The bread is in a sack round the back. Because the restaurant won't open for another half hour, I take a baguette and leave the money on a chair nearby.

Breakfast on the baguette with some Seville marmalade Marion made from Seville oranges we picked from the tree about 1/2 mile from here last March.

Walk the dog for about an hour - a lovely walk through a eucalyptus forest, then up along a river bed. It's getting quite warm now, so I take off my shirt and stop to admire the Alpujarran mountains in the morning sun, their tops still showing a light covering of snow, and the little white Moorish villages shining in the early sunshine.

On my walk I find some wild mushrooms, and have to avoid a perambulating tortoise. I come across the droppings from the herd of wandering goats that passed through yesterday, complete with wizened goatherd and his little dog. They're lovely goats, with beautiful multicoloured coats.

When I get back, Marion has washed the shaggy cotton Alpujarran rugs we bought up in the mountains a few months ago, and has them spread out, drying in the sun. The clothes she's washed are hanging out too - they'll be dry within a couple of hours.

I've got some mods to do to the rear locker on the RV - I want to reinforce the locker floor to take all the stuff we make it carry. So I spread all the contents out on the grass, and faff around with my work. Most of the stuff is still outside on the ground as I write, but I know it will still be there in the morning, neither nicked nor wet.

Tomorrow we'll do our weekly shop at the street market. We major on fruit & vegetables: we can get two rucksacksful of fresh veg of every description: spinach; runner beans; turnips; carrots; cucumbers; celery; tomtoes; leeks; onions; garlic; parsley; peppers, etc, together with some excellent apples, manderines, and truly delicious giant melons. This lot will last us easily for the week, and will cost around €15, or about a tenner. Then it's on past the hordes of Moroccan traders with carvings, clothes, jewellry and the like, past the herb and spice stalls, and just along from the olive stand is the man selling spit roast chickens.

This is our market day treat: a sizzling chicken straight off the spit, its skin brown and encrusted with herbs and spices, packed in a container with generous dollops of the roasting juices. It costs €8 and we'll get 3 meals out of it.

Walking back from town, we take the winding path through the orange and almond groves. We stop off to fill our pockets with the walnuts and almonds fallen from the trees. We've got loads at home, but we still keep picking them up. A bit further along is a fig tree, and I grab a couple of ripe figs (being careful to avoid the sticky white juice that caught me out the first time).

The little finca in the next field has a couple of persimmon trees overloaded with ripe fruit. You can literally hear the luscious fruit splatting on the ground as it drops off. So I pick a couple of these for a sweet treat. When we were last in this area, it was at the time of ripe citrus fruits. Walking through the citrus and almond groves, we could fill any amount of rucksacks with windfall oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. Not to mention the rarer Seville oranges for marmalade (we had to brave marauding farm dogs to scrump those, but that's another story).

On Friday we'll go to the little covered market and see what the fish stall has to offer. It's only a little stall, with a small selection of fish - just whatever the fishermen have caught that morning. When it's sold, the stall closes. Last time I bought some whole monkfish, and half a kilo of enormous mussels. I bought the makings for a Bombay fish curry from a little shop run by a hippy couple with an organic farm, and we ate well. The mussels I did with some local white wine and garlic for lunch.

Last week we went up the mountains to buy another shaggy rug for the RV floor. We drove through small forests of oak, birch, beech, with the odd sweet chestnut tree (and the old boys with bags of chestnuts they've picked up). We bought some air cured Iberian ham, some goat's cheese, and a 5 litre flagon of the local Costa wine (for €1.80 a litre). This is the true local wine: brown, a little sweet, with complex fruity flavours and a deceptive punch. I'm drinking it now, hence this ramble!

Recently there was a festival in town. The Spanish love fireworks, preferably very loud explosive ones: must admit, the way the percussion rolls around the valley is quite impressive. We went up to watch the the fun, and the streets were packed. Whole families - two, three, maybe four generations turn out. The older ones are dressed in Sunday best, the yoof: well, they're like yoof anywhere. We left about 1 a.m, and had to walk through crowded streets. The bars (of which there are many) are jammed, so the pavements are filled with revellers drinking. We walked through them, nodding and smiling as we picked our way around them. There was not the slightest suggestion of anything other than country folk enjoying a night out: we never even considered the possibility of unpleasantness, because it just doesn't happen.

The forecast this week (from the UK television we watch courtesy of a 1.3m dish) calls for blueskies and daytime temps of 20 odd degrees, though the nights are getting cold. So still ok to wander up to town, maybe the long way round under the seven-eye bridge alongside the river fed from the mountains, and up the old dried-up river bed, past the fincas and tucked away smallholdings. We might meet the donkey carrying grass cuttings on his back, or maybe just keep an eye out for the hoopoe birds. Then we'll sit in the sun and have a coffee at the pavement cafe we use, and just enjoy watching the diverse array of locals and the town going about its business.

If we feel like eating out, a short stroll down the road takes us to the brasserie on the bridge. Here everyone eats the excellent 'carne a la brassa' or meat cooked on a wood fire. You can sit outside on the terrace, and look up at the mountains, or go into the dark and reclusive interior, with the smell of woodsmoke and hams. Behind the bar (usually populated by farmworkers taking a while to get home) is a brick arch, under which is a bed of glowing olive wood. When you give your order, the owner/barman/chef puts your meat (steak; rabbit; goat; leg of lamb) into a wire holder and thrusts it into the embers. Within minutes the meal is served, with the meat being deliciously chargrilled on the outside and pink & juicy in the middle. A while ago we had a whole leg of lamb, and it was cooked from a standing start to on the plate in less than 15 minutes! And it was absolutely delicious.

If you don't weant a meal, the bars around here give you tapas. You pay around €1.25 a glass of beer, but included with this is a mini meal on a plate. It can vary from a toasteed cheese & ham sarnie to a whole fish; ham & olives; roasted pepper on bread; shellfish, cheese, you name it. After 3 or 4 of these, and the beer that goes with it, you don't need a meal. And you get change from a fiver!

OK, so some of these things you can do in UK. But for us, the seasons don't really happen in England: just different shades of grey. What price the feeling of wellbeing engendered by waking up to bright blue sky in November?

We certainly couldn't eat the way we do here fror anything like the same money. We're still sufficiently new at this game to find enjoyment and interest just in observing the different way people live.

We don't feel threatened. We haven't spoken to a policeman. The locals are charming, the scenery is stunning.

I could go on, but I've probably reduced anyone still reading to a state of stupification already.

So in summary, Jim, I've got to say: if you have to ask the question, you wouldn't understand why we live this way. But I'm sure you do really!

Bruce

 

[Jim]

Hi Bruce

Your days sound remarkably similar to ours here in Wales,

OK we haven't seen blue sky for a while but we do know that the Cambrian Mountains are there behind the clouds because we saw them once last year. At breakfast our Robertsons marmalade tasted great on bread from the local Spar, we are lucky do not need to buy it daily as it stays fresh for three weeks. Of course we have no fruit growing here, only grass,

A short walk with the dog ends up with me and Rockie smelling of wet dog and any washing Sian has done is turning nicely in one of our two tumble dryers.

On Saturdays we can travel a few miles to our nearest market to purchase and savour the local delicacy of pickled Polish vegetables and vacuum packed Polish sausage, also if we are lucky there will be a dozen or so people selling rubbish from their car boots.

I will stop now, I don't want to ruin your day, with you getting all homesick on us

Nice piece of writing Bruce, I could smell the wood smoke.:thumb:

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[Suzy]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for that account, it made really good reading. I know you are having a wonderful time and I for one would trade places in a nano second!

Still back to my reality and work beckons, :Sad:

Enjoy your day

 

[Road Runner]

Are you on a site Bruce? where are you at the moment? (sorry if I have missed that:Blush

What a wonderful write up on your new lifestyle.

Can you swim at this time of year?

Envious? YOU BET!!!

 

[kijana]

Thanks for all your kind words.

Glad you stopped, Jim - we were on the point of packing up and heading back to misty moisty Blighty :Sad:

To think of you having all those vac-packed Polish sausages, when all we can get is yards (sorry, metres) of chorizo just stuck on hooks - not even in the fridge. And these hams:

You know you love your HGV's, Suzy. We're only doing this because we're not sufficiently switched on to run our own company

RoadRunner, we're south of Granada, near the Sierra Nevada national park. We're staying in the grounds of a cortija belonging to a guy we met last time we were out this neck of the woods. And we are about 30 miles inland from the sea, so the only swimming would be in mountain streams. Bugger that for a game of soldiers!

Cheers

Bruce

 

[justme AKA Grath]

Chorizio

Thanks for all your kind words.

Glad you stopped, Jim - we were on the point of packing up and heading back to misty moisty Blighty :Sad:

To think of you having all those vac-packed Polish sausages, when all we can get is yards (sorry, metres) of chorizo just stuck on hooks - not even in the fridge. And these hams:



You know you love your HGV's, Suzy. We're only doing this because we're not sufficiently switched on to run our own company

RoadRunner, we're south of Granada, near the Sierra Nevada national park. We're staying in the grounds of a cortija belonging to a guy we met last time we were out this neck of the woods. And we are about 30 miles inland from the sea, so the only swimming would be in mountain streams. Bugger that for a game of soldiers!

Cheers

Bruce

Hi Guys.
Now you are talking!!!! Chorizio, one of my favourites!!!
If I remember right when you are coming from the Valencia area up via Teruel there is a place called Doroca N234 on the way to Zaragoza. I believe that the hung meat there is suposed to be the best around!!:thumb::thumb:

 

[billym]

Por favor,
deja de hablar en ese idioma tan molesto

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[vanessa]

when british people go to live in other countries (take the southern spain) they do not fit in with the spanish way they create enclaves of britishness. they expect the spanish (or whomever) to speak english.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. This is simply a stereotype. Sure, many Brits abroad refuse to speak other languages ... but NOT ALL!!

We live in France, in the Limousin. We live in a small hamlet of less than a dozen houses; ALL our neighbours are French, most are over 50 and did little or no English at school. For us, this is perfect! We fully intended learning the language when we bought the place - and know that the easiest way to do that is to integrate with the locals - which is exactly what we have done. We watch ONLY French TV, which also helps us learn the language.

***

So, to answer the original question ... we chose to live here because we can have a lifestyle here that we cannot have in the UK ... a lifestyle that has nothing to do with money (or at least, very little ... we still need to live!!). We have effectively stepped back in time over 50 years. Money isn't the be-all-and-end-all that it is in the UK. "Stuff" isn't important (although we have an awful lot of it!!). Everyone has time for everyone else, time to stop and chat, time to do things for each other. We have space to breathe, and clean air to breathe at that!!

There are down-sides, red tape being the biggest one round here, but it's a wonderful place to live.

We have SEASONS. Winter is cold, nights can be down into the minus-20s - spring is warm, summer is (usually) quite hot but not unbearably so ... autumn is beautiful.

Add to that, the extra brain-exercise we use daily to understand and get to grips with the language ... formal language for forms etc, technical language for various things from central heating to building blocks to cars, and "current" language for everyday conversation.

Yep, we love it here!!

 

[C7KEN]

There are enough posts on this thread explaining the reasons we live in spain however I must add this. To those that are constantly moaning about the concrete junge down here, to a point you are spot on. The concrete use is astounding. However dont forget about all the new hospitals, schools, roads that are appearing. The Spanish are coming from behind but for sure will be more advanced than the UK within ten years. they are on the way up and the UK is on the way down. I could live anywhere in the world and have settled on the costa blanca because it has similarities to southern california but the cost of living is much lower. When I am out walking the dog on the sand dunes at guardamar (under a clear blue sky) I sometimes think about the remarks made by all the moaners from the UK. My advice is to you, stay there and moan. The Spanish youth can enjoy themselves without needing a punch up with everyone around ,can that be said for the yobs in the UK. There is no contest believe me. The good things about the UK will soon be gone. Do the immigrants go to english country pubs, football matches and all these typically UK weekend activities, I dont think many do. I do not regret coming here, it just saddens me that I have taken so much money out of the UK and given it to another country because our goverment decided to give the UK away for free.
Hasta Luego

 

[2escapees]

So why did we choose to live in France? It was not just because of the weather, but yes it is better although we still get a few frosty mornings. Yesterday it was bright warm and sunny and no coat needed. Today it's cloudy thats life. The real reason is lifestyle; there attitude is completely different, no keeping up with the Jones's, no great fixation on house prices, Diana etc.

Plus it is a great motorhome friendly country, aires de service everywhere, no road tax, cheaper fuel, great insurance and space. The population of France is the same as the UK but is more than twice the size. OK France is not PC if you want to survive you have to learn French, no translations into endless languages to help people cope with the benefit system!

And yes you can get toastie bread in almost every supermarket, but you can get a lot better food and it is mainly French!!!

:thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

[vanessa]

... no great fixation on ... Diana etc.

Plus ... cheaper fuel ...

Sorry, gonna have to pick a bit here If you watch French news and French TV, you'll find plenty of fixation re Diana!!

Also, due to the strong Euro, fuel prices are creeping up and up in France ... the difference for petrol between UK and France is now minimal at best (around 6 centimes of a euro), and the "wrong way round" at worst (ie in more expensive fuel areas, it's actually MORE expensive to buy petrol in France)!!

Diesel is still a little cheaper in France, due to the fact that in most areas it's still considerably cheaper than petrol, but this is changing.:Sad:

You're spot on about space and pace of life thoughWouldn't want to have to go back, that's for sure!

 

[2escapees]

Vanessa

That's why the TV has an off switch! Our local paper never mentions Diana!!

Diesel is 1.16 today that's about £0.85 that's at least 15p cheaper than the UK. And in our area almost everyone drives diesel vehicles. The real problem with the cost of fuel is the weak US dollar and that is going to take a while to sort out.

:thumb:

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[vanessa]

Diesel down here is, at best, 1€23 a litre. Petrol is much more, around the 1€40 mark.:Sad:

I don't understand this about the weak dollar ... surely if the Euro is strong, anything paid for in Dollars is now cheaper. The real truth of the matter is the OPEC nations effectively holding the rest of the world to ransom with the cost of oil.:Angry: