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last updated Monday, 14 December, 2009

Isn't it odd how you can see a program on television and convince yourself that you could do everything so much better......

An overwhelming desire to own a country cottage in England, live the "good life", grow vegetables and keep chickens suddenly grew like Topsy and became a quest to find a run down, olive farm in Andalucia, southern Spain.

This decision was not based on any deep held affinity with Spain, nor was it even based on pleasent experiences that we had had as holiday makers. In fact we had only had vacations at resorts on the islands of Spain so it could be said that we had no real idea of the culture and way of life of the average Spanish person, let alone rural olive farmers.

Innocents abroad........

We kept a journal of our adventures from 2003 until late 2005 which you may find fascinating if you are intending to move to Spain....

.... or totally boring, if you have already moved to Spain and recognise that we made the same mistakes as you, as well as inventing a lot of new ones.

We lived for the first 18 months in the pueblo of Ruté, Córdoba, in a house which we bought at a "pre-foreigner" price and set about restoring it to an idealised, English version of Spanish rustic. Life in the pueblo was noisy, interesting, quirky and sometimes, downright perverse but we enjoyed our time there and learned a lot about the way of life and customs of our adopted country.

Our plan had always been to complete the village house and then rent it to holidaymakers when we had moved to our farm. We took many bookings and a week before the first was due, our next door neighbour informed us that they would be demolishing part of their house and rebuilding over the next year or so.

Plan B had us dealing with estate agents again and we sold the little house in 2 weeks.......

After many weeks getting builders quotes for the basic work at the farm, we decided that there was a considerable mis-match of the price that builders wanted and the budget that we had. As avid DIYers, we took the bold (and foolish) decision to do the work ourselves. As time unfolded, the farm turned into a major project and I can safely say that if I had known just how much work was involved when we bought the house, we would never have bought it in the first place. Not exactly a mistake, more a creeping realisation that aging bodies can't do some of the things that young bodies can....

However, here we are 5 years on with a comfortable home, a cottage for letting to holidaymakers, numerous cats and dogs and the hope that we can continue to fill our days with interesting things that don't involve bricks and mortar (or in Wendy's case, tiles and cement !)

So what happened to the good life, growing vegetables and chickens?

Another lifetime, perhaps...