Starting out a new life in Spain

Its one of those strange things, especially after reading the books, Spanish Lessons by Derek Lambert etc that I cannot fathom certain things. Now in Ireland the children would like to go out to "Quasar", "Bowling" and all those sorts of things. However here they want to go the "Square". Of course all this is a the village square and they are content to knock a ball around, play tag and generally have fun of their own making. This is of course fantastic as they start to explore friendships not only with the expats but also with some spanish children. My wife and I are gently (and not so gently) saying you must go and play with the spanish so that they start to hear words

Mind you last night they were playing after a meal at a local place and they were using Spanglish which made us smile

Anyway back to the square...everyone and their dog gather there and chat...we now sit, listen and smile as we remind ourselves of those chats years back when we said "this could be us if we want to".

I do wonder how the marvels of the square will dissapate over the months, but judging by the enjoyment it brings to us all then it doesn't appear that will be anytime soon..

It of course helps that I have been unable to get any telly sorted with the demise of the rebroadcasters, so where re we going to go tonight after a spot of dinner...you guessed it the Square....

We have 3 children so starting school at the age ranges was never going to be a walk in the park...so what would by recommendations be

1. Take a translator at all times...if you can't speak Spanish then don't think you can bumble through, its not worth it. I use a local one and she has been a god send as she has children in the school

2. Learn Spanish as soon as you can, interestingly our local ayuntamiento runs lessons for next to nothing, which seems better than paying a heafty € on a language school

3. Make sure you have all your forms and be prepared for utter confusion and go with the flow.

4. Bottom line..if you don't know ask...

Our children have started in their local Primary/Infants and they are settling in, with our eldest in the local Secondary, they will all be put thro the PASE track for those children who don't speak Spanish/Valenciano and more than likely at the end of their year they will have to stay back a year which seems quite common, don't get worried about this as they will then fly thro that year.

So far we have been hit with homework with the . in place of , which caused much laughter, my daughter being called Taxi as they can't pronounce her name and my wife and I running from school to school not knowing what the devil is going on

We have the youngest two finishing at 4-30pm, which is great for my wife as she can get all the things she wants done and I get peace and quiet to work at home, off thing though, they have a break from 12:30 to 15:00, and then back to study, whilst the oldest finishes at 2pm

We find it all so much cheaper than Ireland, certainly the school fees for the secondary at €5 compares well with Ireland, at €500!!

All in all fun and games, and no doubt they will all be speaking Castellano and Valenciano long before I do...

Luego...buene suerte

It has always been a dream of mine to move to Spain, so moving to Ireland 10 years ago from the UK wasn't quite what I had planned. Though now, we find ourselves in Spain...as the song goes "How did I get here" (Talking heads)

It seemed as if the weather would never change (should have learned that after 30 years in wales) so after 2 years of planning through the worst that UK and Irish Summers could throw at us we decided it was time to leave Ireland, of course we still hadn't sold our our house and the job wasn't sorted, (I had always said I would never do it unless they were) we moved, locked stock and barrel to Spain....Moraira

We lumbered into town with our belongings on the 12-08-08 and it has been a whirlwind since, from getting unpacked, to starting the kids in school, from having people to stay all in the first 4 weeks...

This Blog will take you through some of our highs and lows of trying to get everything arranged, with my better half telling me that I need to relax more and go with the flow, and my rantings of how things should be sorted by now

I hope you enjoy each part of it....and look forward to reading and commenting on other peoples blogs. I can now give actual advice rather than being an armchair person who has just read the books, though I have to admit they have helped me no end in my attempt to be the first person to get it all completed before I arrived (of course I failed on that as well!!)

Bye for now