FROM PARADISE IN

SPAIN TO EX-EXPAT

I’VE just made a life-changing decision. A decision that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago.

I’m going to spend the rest of my life back in the UK.

Yes, the moaning old grumpy who hates the cold and the wet of England is to become an ex-expat. Even if my decision does mean re-engaging with the nightmare of overcrowded cities and endless traffic jams.

Much as I love Spain, there is one thing my adopted homeland cannot provide me with. And that is the love and support of a caring ­family as I open the final chapter of my book of life.

I thought I could live without my nearest and dearest - or at least without seeing them on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. But I was deluding myself.

 For the last four years or so I've soaked up an idyllic Costa cocktail of sunshine, sea and sangria, believing I could go it alone in my peaceful Iberian paradise.

Although I had ongoing health problems, they seemed to be under control and even the onset of Parkinson's could not dim my enthusiasm for La Vida Espanola. That's exactly how it was until two weeks ago.

Then everything changed dramatically -  triggered by the sudden, inexplicable fatigue which came over me.

I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open at moments when I needed to be wide awake. Like when I was driving my car on a busy road.

I knew something was wrong but a full medical check-up revealed nothing.  For an old dear approaching her 70th birthday, I seemed to be in relatively good health. Blood and excretion samples tested normal and an ECG showed my heart was pumping perfectly.

The tiredness, ventured the clinic doctor, could be down to my body metabolism adjusting to Summer Time.

An odd disgnosis maybe, but it somehow seemed to make sense.  Particularly as I had returned from a visit to England a couple of days before the clocks went forward and was now TWO hours ahead of where my ageing brain imagined it was.

As a naturally happy person who invariably resorts to  laughter to counter adversity, I didn't dream that I might have a psychological problem.

After all, I had been able to deal comfortably with all the slings and arrows life had chucked at me.

So the realisation that I might actually be suffering from depression hit me like the tsunami of tears I've shed this past fortnight.

I didn't think to tell the doctor I've been breaking down for no apparent reason when I am alone at home - usually as bedtime approaches and I realise how vulnerable I am.

Tears are rolling  down my cheeks again as I write this but I have made a decisive decision.

As time takes its toll and I begin to succumb to increasing frailty, I need my family around me more than ever.

I won’t be going for a good few weeks yet, but right now I feel like jumping on the next plane out of Alicante. Mind you, with my luck I'd end up in Malaga instead of Manchester.

The 10 days I spent last month with my daughters and grandchildren in Lancashire and Cheshire were really special. And perhaps the most special part of all was the bond I built watching the Teletubbies with the youngest of my six grandkids, two-year-old Buddy.

My elder daughter Hayley’s only son was delivered three months prematurely by emergency Caesarian and weighed less than a kilo at birth.

For a week or more, the tiny tot’s life was in the balance, but today he is a miracle mini man with the happiest smile, the cutest quiff of brown hair, and the ability to melt hearts with a Tinky Winky of his eye.

That's why Granny Donna is going Dipsy without him. And why she’s coming home to see him grow up.