Thank you to everyone who commented on the initial post - it was great have, thank you!. We have been rather technically challenged until now so hence the lack of contact.
Anyway here goes our progress so far. We arrived exactly a week a go in Santander to a very rainy, foggy and snowy northern Spain (not unsurprisingly in December). The crossing was as to be expected around the Bay of Biscay in December - rough and for us, never to be experienced again! The drive to our new home was fine and perfectly navigated thanks to Tom from TomTom (Ester - the voice choice of my husband was duely sacked after 2 annoying hours and replaced by the more calming tone of Tom!)
The first couple of days were extreme highs and lows. Just to put things into context, this was a family holiday home that we had been coming to for eight years and so we knew it and the area very well. However, day one, Hubby was brought down by a virus and I had that initial oh help moment of how do we condense our three bedroom UK home into our 2 bedroom one here. The best medicine was to simply step back, have a walk on the Paseo, breathe in the sea air, have a cana and then think of the best solution. That we did and all the unpacking and re-jigging has been duely done.
And so onto really what week 1 meant for us:
Arriving the week before Christmas in some ways is fantastic - everything is full of joy and celebration. On the flip side, we literally had an incredibly tight schedule to complete for us, what was really important to help us settle, before everything shut for their holidays. My pre xmas Santa list read:
1) Get our 3 year old into School to start in January - which includes getting all the Ayuntamiento paper work in place to support it (Padron etc)
2) Internet and phone installed to get us communicating with the outside world agin!
3) Car sorted (actually not on my list but guess whos!)
4) Health care sorted
5) Having some well earned R&R!
Well, I know first hand that things can be slow in Spain but luckily for us, research, research and a bit of pre-planning and maybe some very good luck have brought great rewards and so all are in place! After studying Spanish for a while, we have really had a complete immersion including interviews at the school through to highly technical calls from the Telefonica engineer. Wow, my brain hurts but as we seem to have got a school place and I am now emailing at home, then hopefully, we haven't done too badly!
As for the Rest and Relaxation. It now starts here. Have a very Merry Christmas everyone and we will let you know how we get on in the new year. All the best for a great 2013
Team CL x