The Story So Far!

We had moved, lock, stock and barrel to Gran Alacant (near Santa Pola) on the Costa Blanca.

Liesl had stayed behind in the UK for a day with a great friend, Dave to get the house ship shape and ready for the new people to move in.

The next day another set of sterling friends, Chris and Linda gave her a lift to the airport (Chris even too time off work!) where she met her sister Adelle for a tearful farewell. Liesl then left to fly ahead of me and arrived a day before I did.

With the help of more good friends Bob and Jackie, she readied the apartment for the arrival of the furniture (and me). To be honest, without these (and many more friends and relatives like my brother Nick, his wife Sez, my longest suffering friend Donnie and too many more to name) it would have been much more of an ordeal than it turned out to be – everything went pretty smoothly really on reflection!

Just as “my old man” had said, I followed the van all the way through France and Spain for 3 days until we arrived at the apartment, then we set about the work of cramming a detatched four bedroomed house with double garage into a 3 bedroomed apartment – well it didn’t work, we had loads of stuff without a home, we just had to be inventive where we stored things – suffice to say it’s a good job that we don’t have a cat!

I had taken 6 weeks holiday from work to help complete the move and setup our lives in Spain, we hoped that the house sale would complete during that time, however when we got to the final week of the time off work (note that I didn’t refer to it as a holiday!) it was clear that I would have to return to the UK to continue to work until the sale completed.

I returned to the UK on the 5th December 2006, it was cold! Amazingly Dave offered for me to stay with him and even for me to use his car, which was incredably generous of him, whilst I was there so we got into a routine where I dropped him off at the station in the morning and then drove to work and then collected him in the evening after I had got home, I think that he was constantly disapointed that I didnt have the dinner ready for him, on the table for when he got home! Chris and Linda also offered for me to use their second car if I needed it whilst I was back in the UK – it really was humbling to know that these people were so willing to go out of their way to help me.

Thankfully the house sale exchanged on the 8th November and my work accepted 2 weeks notice, I am sure that Dave was glad to be getting rid of his lodger so that he could get his house, car and life back and so that the steady stream of ‘visitors’ could once again beat a way to his door – joke Dave, honest 😉

… and then I was back in Spain before the end of that month – boy it was good to be back, but now what????

We had always talked of me setting up a small computer business in Gran Alacant, but we had done nothing practically about it – now was the time to start! I had already read a book about the best type of business to setup, but after visiting the FAB (Foreigners Advisory Bureau) I decided to take their advice and plump for a simple partnership agreement business with Liesl, it was much cheaper to setup and didn’t have the administrative cost overheads that the S.L (Spanish Limited Company) business I was intending to setup had. The business was going to take 2 weeks to setup, it’s now half way through the first week and I have to return tonight (the Spanish work strange hours!) to sign the papers – scary but exciting!

Liesl has been under tremendous pressure to continue to work at a job that challenges her and it’s been very hard for both of us because of this pressure. Its also difficult as we have not had much time to make friends or speak any Spanish – the Spanish here speak such good English that when you attempt to communicate with them in their own tongue, they simply reply in English – I guess they want to practice their English as much as we want to practice our Spanish, although its pretty frustrating.

The plan moving forward (in no particular order) is….