Things That Make You Smile

 

Spotted this yesterday and it brought a smile to our faces.  I know you can take a dog for a walk and in France I’ve seen cats on a lead but this is the first time I’ve seen a parrot on a bike!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone, enjoy your holidays.

Once again it is a beautiful day here. Already the temperatures are into the twenties with sun shining and a clear blue sky.

Unfortunately these days off are spent doing nothing instead of moving into our new home but hopefully that will all be sorted next week.

The wind is blowing quite strongly today – funny how whenever blossom is on the trees you get a few windy days to ensure the blossom is blown everywhere!

It has certainly got busier on the island and there are a lot more tourists already. Yesterday the beach was fairly busy and although it was a lovely day I wasn’t ready to get into a bikini yet – not like some enjoying the sun!

Wherever you are:

Felices Pascuas, Happy Easter!

Today Should Have Been The Day

Today I should have been getting ready to go to Palma to see the Notary. Today should have been the day when we purchased our home. But it’s not.

Yesterday the seller decided he couldn’t spare the time to go to the notary. A brief text message from our solicitor notified us that the appointment was now off and he would phone after court – he hasn’t.

So I have now had to ‘undo’ all the arrangements that I made and have a long Easter weekend of sitting doing nothing when I could have been settling into my new home.

I was warned about the attitude out here but I guess you don’t understand it until you have experienced it. I thought I was prepared for it but on something as important (and expensive) as buying a house I thought it might have been different. It isn’t.

I could say more, but I won’t, for at the moment I feel upset and I may say something I might later regret.

Notary is booked

Almost exactly four months to the day since we moved here the Notary is booked!

We arrived here on Wednesday 28th November and we purchase our house on Wednesday 27th March.

It has been a long, and stressful, journey but we are nearing the end of the first stage.

We have our NIE numbers, our car has passed all its inspections and we now await the arrival of our Spanish plates.

I am registered for tax and everything else is in hand awaiting our permanent address so that we can receive our health cards, our residencia, registration at the town hall, the change of our driving licences to Spanish ones and anything else that I may have forgotten.

The assistance we have received from Mallorca Solutions has been invaluable as they have undertaken the minefield of paperwork and guided us in the right direction. It has been money well spent.

We now have an excellent abogado, know a great garage for our car’s needs, have my small private pension moved offshore and someone at the end of the phone to guide and assist us with any concerns that we may have.

While I have managed to maintain the standards of my workload from Mallorca without London barely noticing a change the next challenge will be to get satellite broadband to replace the Vodafone dongle that I am at present using.

But the worst is over.

With our purchase falling just before the Easter break it will give us time to go into our new home and give it a good clean through before our furniture can come out of storage and be delivered the following week.

We will have the time to check everything is in working order and start to get a ‘feel’ for our new home.

We bought our little house in the UK from new and remained living there for 29 years. The changes that we made over the years made it into the home that it was.
Now we have a new home. Built in 2001 this house has always been rented and so we will be the first to own and care for it. It may take some time but this little house can become the way we want it to be.

Our UK house had 29 years worth of memories, from our children at young ages to our grandchildren, now this new home will be filled with memories of our new life in this new stage of our lives.

Change is never easy and it takes some getting used to, but it is an essential ingredient in your life for avoiding stagnation and keeping you ‘alive’.

Just 3 more days and we move forward – wish us good luck on our journey 😉

Purchase Day

After another week of negotiations and wondering what will be the outcome it seems that this will now be completing.

Another request for a further increase was met with a very final offer from us and the request that it be decided once and for all by the end of this week before we rethink where our future home will be.

Then the estate agent emailed and told us that this time he believed the offer would be accepted -again – and this time it should go through.

Still not wishing to quite believe it I prepared for a positive outcome and transferred some more money from my bank account in the UK. How sad my account looks now! But hopefully now we will be able to get settled.

Then last night a phone call from our solicitor confirmed that he would book a Notary for Wednesday next week, if it suited us.

Monday would be too soon to arrange to get the bank cheques and on Tuesday he is in court. Thursday and Friday are bank holidays due to Easter so Wednesday would be the best day. Would it be suitable? Hell yes!

I still can’t believe it and probably won’t until the keys are in my hand and we are unlocking the door and entering the house! Of course being my nature I immediately start thinking about “where is the notary office, when do we pick up the bank cheques, how do we change the electric and water into our names?” Etc.

But after all we have experienced so far, and how far we have moved forward I can only breathe a sigh of relief that perhaps now we can get our furniture out of storage, stop living out of suitcases (so to speak) and I will have room to start exercising again and rid myself of this excess weight and migraines.

Now the next thing will be – where do I get a dog? 😉

A Day of Pondering and Calm

After this last week of chaos and stress while we have watched perhaps our dream slipping away I have been left pondering.

As feelings have been in turmoil and the focus has been on what other people have been doing to affect our future I am taking stock today.

“It is better to try and to fail than to fail to try and forever experience the inestimable loss of what might have been.” – unknown

 

I went for a stroll down to the beach and walked passed the places we have known and loved for over 25 years.  The past 14 weeks have blurred our memories and caused disappointment and resentment in place of the happiness and joy we have experienced in all those years.

But on my stroll I realised that all we love is still here.  Why should I let the actions of one group of people forever mar my memories.

I sat on the wall and looked out at the sea; I looked at our favourite places and remembered.  So many years and so many memories.

Twenty five years cannot be wiped out by 14 weeks.

For to fail at this venture would mean never to return here again.  Financially it would no longer be possible to holiday on a pension and one wage.

However our future is no longer in our hands – only fate holds the key (and the greedy estate agents).

There reaches a point where you have to draw the line.  To decide that to lose much more money would mean financial catastrophe.  Therefore I have a deadline.  A point in time by which we succeed here or fail.  At the end of that deadline we will have no choice than to leave.

But we would have tried.

An expensive experiment perhaps but far better to look back with no ‘what ifs’.

This week our future is decided by which way the hammer will fall.  But my memories on this island I love will not be ruined – just stained a little perhaps.

Could It Get Any Worse?

Yesterday I wrote of having a bad day, well today has beaten that hands down!

When moving to Spain part of the conditions that my employer placed on me was the promise that the work I do for them would continue unhindered and so far I have ensured that has been the case.

However today Vodafone made sure that I failed.  Last night there was a storm and today there was no internet.  As my work entails working online this has created a massive problem.

If, after one storm, I am left with no connection what on earth would happen if something more serious happened.  Of course there is no way of finding out when this will be fixed and therefore how long I will be unable to fulfil my promise to continue unhindered with my work.

With a bit of help from a nearby hotel I have been able to log in to my work email account and keep an eye on what has been coming in but I am unable to do much else.

To say that I am depressed is an understatement.

So we have an estate agent wanting more money than we can afford; an internet connection we are paying for but unable to use; rental that is continuing until (?) whenever and the fear that shortly the money we have set aside for a house may diminish below the amount that we could use should we have to return to the UK and purchase instead.

I have never been a quitter and I have always worked through the hard times but when our survival rests on my one salary and a pension I have to keep in mind that we do not have years ahead of us to recoup what we may lose.

So today I am left wondering what to do.

Do I carry on in the hope that everything works out ok or do I put a time limit/cash limit on when to say enough is enough.

I love Spain and Mallorca in particular but I don’t want our dream to become a nightmare.

I wish someone could tell me what to do for a change!

Ups and Downs and Hold Ups

Today has not been the best day since we’ve been here.

A phone call from our solicitor told us that the property we are after is owned by a bank by virtue of a mortgage.  The offer we have made will clear the mortgage only and therefore the estate agent will receive nothing.  Therefore they are requesting that we increase our offer.

He suggested that we let him know the maximum we can stretch to and he will try and negotiate for us.  After checking bank balances, working out the costs and fees I then gave him the most we could absolutely stretch to.  It still fell short by €3,000 from the amount the estate agent had felt would be acceptable.

Apparently estate agents here expect to receive at least 5% commission.  The amount we increased by would only give them 3%.  Whether this will be accepted or not is out of our hands.

Couple that with a lovely couple of pictures drawn by two of our grandchildren that arrived complete with handwritten messages where we were told that they loved us and missed us it tugged on the old heart strings.

I hate to admit it but there are times when the struggle here to get things organised and settled leaves me digging deep to remind myself why I am here!

Nature in action

Saw nature in action today when downstairs’ cat caught a salamander. It ejected its tail which carried on wiggling frantically.

Luckily the cat’s owner rescued the salamander and picked it up and put it somewhere safe but it only showed how nature has it all worked out. After all if the salamander is in trouble and it drops its tail then the predator chases the wriggling tail while the salamander remains motionless. Once the predators attention is on the tail it then gives the salamander the opportunity to run to safety. Clever hey!

But even better than that is the fact that it grows a new tail. Bet we wish we could grow new parts of our anatomy!

Sun is shining – it’s a beautiful day

Yesterday was a beautiful day, so was the day before and this morning at 8.30 in the morning it is 22 C and again the sun is shining. It just makes you feel good.

Even though we are still waiting for the outcome of our proposed house purchase the lovely weather just makes you feel that this is what all the hassle is for.

To wake up and see blue skies instead of grey, to be able to open windows and doors in March you feel that Spring and summer is on its way.

The car passed its ITV on Thursday but of course there is a minor hitch. The car although on UK plates was originally an American import and there is no sign of the VIN number on the chassis. So now we have to get one stamped on it and return to show the engineers and get it signed off so we can get Spanish plates on it.

Nothing is easy!

But slowly we are getting there…

The estate agent told us yesterday that they are still waiting for a reply from the sellers bank. They were expecting a reply on Thursday or Friday but nothing. Now it is the weekend so nothing will be heard until Monday. Hopefully next week then?

It was my OH birthday on Thursday and the same as for mine only a trickle of cards managed to get here on time. Oh well we are getting too old for them now anyway 🙂

Saturday there is no post delivered so it will be Monday now – how everything stops for weekends 🙂

But ‘when in Rome’ or rather in our case ‘Mallorca’ I have just got to learn to lose the manic pace of life I left behind and learn to chill. It might take a while but I will get there – eventually.