Our Andalusian Adventure

So it's our first week we have just arrived at our new home and i feel like i'm in a scene from the new Mamma Mia film where 'young Donna' is renovating the villa, the film i have to say is brilliant and well worth seeing even if like me your not a Abba fan. Lily James who plays 'young Donna' is fantastic and makes the film for me and i'm now totally obsessed with her. Anyway, back to my story and once we had flung open the shutters and started to clear the dust we breathed much needed life back into this lovely old house. Needless to say we quickly fell in love, even inspite us not finding a horse in the cellar! As the girls still had another two weeks until they started school we wanted to have a bit of a holiday and explore our new pastures. After all this was only the second time we had visited! We visited the local bars and beaches. I had hoped that by now my head and ears would get used to going up and down the mountain but i'm still suffering, any tips? Our nearest beach is Torre Del Mar a lively long stretch of sand and bars. I heard it really comes to life at night, i hope to experience this for myself soon child free. That's if we ever get a babysitter! For us the best beach we have found is Almayate reminded me of a deserted island, palm trees, small beach houses, beautiful azul waters and not a high rise in sight. I have witnessed many strange sights since being here but finding a cute, jet black shetland pony on the beach has to top it. It did make me wonder how long it took him to aclimatise and does he also suffer with mozzy bites?  Our dog Ted quickly found his feet and loves his mountain walks and of course the sunshine. He however is not a fan of the pool and cannot for the life of him understand why we would want to go in it and splash around. I wish i could say the cats have settled in quickly, Duchess (the tabby) is still very cautious about things, but they both now go off on their little adventures and so far have returned unscathed. Duke is turning into more of a day explorer and is around most of the time sleeping on the sofa.

Six days after we arrived all of our worldly possesions also joined us right on time and mostly in tact. So began the mammoth task of unpacking and directing the rather sweaty removal men who i did feel quite sorry for. Well I did ask them to carry a large sofa up into our bedroom..... I do love our house but it has no storage (something we need to create upstairs) it has been really hard to try and find places to put everything for now, the majority of it is clothes, bags and bags and bags We did pile most of it in the guest bedroom but of course all our visitors are starting to arrive so we couldn't ignore the mound forever. Please don't feel sorry for us we still managed to nip out for delicious tapa and vino blanco several times. We still can't get over the prices here 1.50 for a glass of wine or bottle of beer, which i have to say is really good wine (i'm very fussy) and 0.90 for a tapa!! Moy bien 

Four weeks since my last blog and it would make your head spin the amount of different tasks we've had to do.

So, we flew out on the last Sunday of August having to get up at some ungodly hour of 3am, Paul crawled out of the house with 2 cats and 1 dog all ready in their flight crates. (The pets have to arrive 3 hours before their flight). My father in law kindly took us to Luton airport an hour later so we could catch all flight altogether. People above and pets underneath in the hold. I was very aprehensive about flying the pets but it did make a lot of sense in the end and i had to try and block the worry out. We flew with TUI and they were fantastic, the stewardess asked us about our journey and once she realised we were leaving the UK and starting a new life she surprised us with 2 bottle's of wine and sweets for the girls and a lovely note from them all wishing us luck - How kind 

After a very quick flight to Malaga, we arrived and as we had to hire a car we waited a eternity at the check in desk, then we had to find the export depot to collect the furry ones. This was not easy and the directions were rubbish, after searching for a while we did find them if only the entrance in was clear we could of saved ourselves another 20 minutes!! We were finally reunited with them 12 hours after saying bye and yes they were shellshocked but 24 hours later Ted and Duke were absoloutely fine Duchess on the other hand was still very wary.

Once we had collected them from the airport we then had to meet the estate agent nearby, then we could finally get to our village and show our girls their new home  Exhausted but so happy that we all made it and the sun was shining!! 

Skip forward a while we've all really enjoyed getting to know the village, settling the girls into school, trying to pick up the language, fumbling our way through the ways and wonder of ur new destination. We already feel heathier, fitter and our heads feel clearer. It must be all the lengths of the pool, clean mountain air and all the walks we've been on trying to find the best view We do feel very lucky it is a stunningly beautiful place and have met some great people already and today we have internet, ha ha what more could we ask for. 

I will try and write a more detailed blog of our last 3 weeks next week when i will hopefully have more time....