How we’ve survived the last few weeks I will never know.  It has been seriously hard!  Chris, my son, asked me how and what was so hard and I just couldn’t put into words why we felt that way! Perhaps it is our age, perhaps our health or perhaps we underestimated the energy we would need to move lock stock and barrel to a new country, again.  Perhaps it was due to all three.

It all started with saying goodbye to some very good friends.  We have been lucky to have a handful of people we could rely upon in Cyprus.  The kind of friends that are there for you no mater what.  We all know that true friends are like gold dust and we truly feel blessed.  Bill and Sue, Dave and Doreen, Hercules and Effi, Gay, Christakis,  just to name a few.

In the short time we had to prepare for our journey, we made detailed plans to ensure our move from Cyprus to Spain went as smooth as possible.  However, plans can only be as good as the people  involved.  If those contracted to do a job or made promises to deliver don’t, then your plans have to be adjusted.  Sometimes our plans got adjusted on a daily basis!  We have been so disillusioned by others being money orientated, power mad or just plain devious.  We are honest people and pay good money for a fair job – but it is not that straight forward sometimes, is it!

The only ‘plan’ that sailed through the process without hiccup or change was for the accommodation and transportation of our two dogs, Barney and Charlie.  We went ahead of the boys by 11 days.  Annie’s Animal Ark (Anne Parsons) made all the arrangements to get the boys over to Spain, resourced giant crates and kept us informed all the way.  Her fee for the work she did was  not just fair but brilliant.  Then there was Tony and Gina Potter.  Tony cares for visiting dogs in his own home and the boys simply love him.  For us to leave the boys with Tony and know that they would truly have a great 11 day ‘holiday’ was such a relief.  Charlie has one mission in life which is to clean everyone and is a fairly confident boy but Barney is, and always has been, a very fearful boy.  Walking  with Barney outside of his own safe domain can be a nightmare.   God forbid if there is a parked car on the street that is not normally parked there.  He would simply refuse to pass this highly dangerous situation and use all his strength to return to the safety of his domain.  Being 38 kilos and having a strong front end (having 2 operations on his back hips made the front half a power pack), if Barney wants to go, you go to.  This is all down to him having a bad start in life in Cyprus as a pup and we were very worried that he would not survive the journey but with Tony and Anne taking charge all went so much better than we could have imagined,  Thank you so much to you both.  You come highly recommended by us all.

We have now been in Spain for 2 weeks and each day we get closer to getting our paperwork and general life sorted.  We will have our new car on Friday, (fully insured with a tracker fitted hopefully), which will allow us to return the hire car – hooray!; with a good wind we will be official residents of Baza when we get our Padron at the end of the week, (we need an address which is registered with Baza town hall and, as we could not use our first cave’s address as it is not yet registered with them, we were stumped. However, we should be proud owners of another two caves by the end of week which are registered); and we will have internet in the new caves within a week – now breathe.

If you recall one of the caves is fully reformed and is almost ready to move into.  This will be our home until our original cave is complete.  Once we are settled in we can work on the front area of the caves to transform it into an area of peace and tranquility with sun beds, hammocks and outside eating areas.  The second cave next door is unreformed, but once complete, will provide us with an additional rental cave for anyone wishing to stay in a truly amazing area.  These two caves will be known as Cueva de la Paz 1 and Cueva de la Paz 2.  (Cave of Peace).

When the contracts for the new caves are signed (we are crossing fingers for the 3rd November) we will have 5 days to clean inside and organise any small repairs that are necessary before we have to move out of our rented cortijo (farmhouse).   I then need to arrange for delivery of mattresses (bases are built in), a couple of chairs, microwave and bedding and we can move in.  Our container from Cyprus should be arriving sometime after 9 November (we hope) so we should have a homely cave by then.  More fun to look forward to!   Chris is flying out hopefully on the 16th so it will be all hands on deck.  Did I say he could have a holiday?  I lied!

We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our future in Spain can begin and I will work hard to ensure we enjoy every minute.  Hopefully the family can come over as often as their lives allow, which will be wonderful for me as I do miss them loads, and it will be something different for them.  New experiences to share and enjoy.

I am ending this blog now as my Cerveza Limon is ready to be consumed.  Enjoy, I know I will:-)

xx