In exactly two months' time, I'll be flying to England to spend Christmas with my children and grandchildren. If it wasn't for the family, I'd be staying put in Casa Donna and confirming that in Spain on December 25, real life is a beach.
The other option was to induce my two daughters and their fellas, plus half-a-dozen offspring, to part with copious amounts of dinero and join the holiday airlift to the Land of the Christmas Sun.
Since most of those dinero would inevitably have to come from my already overstretched bank account, I opted to cut the Costa and brave the hell-ements of the British climate.
I can think of few places I would less like to relocate to in December than over-populated, rain-sodden, ice cold, traffic-polluted London. So I’m going instead to over-populated, rain-sodden, ice cold, traffic-polluted Manchester, the city which was my home for nearly 40 years before I came to Spain.
I am going to the Capital of the North for one reason only...and that's to see the people I love most. My intention is to rem
ain with the family until the New Year but I already have doubts whether I’ll stay the pace.
The rain may be wetter and the football better in Manchester than it is in London (that's open to argument as well) but the Spanish lifestyle offers another dimension to life and I am enjoying it more than I could ever have hoped.
Instead of suffering Capital Punishment or Northern Frights at the hands of England’s rapidly-growing scum society, I’ve got the seaside holiday heaven of Guardamar (Guardamarvellous to me) virtually on my doorstep.
There is literally miles of sandy Mediterranean beach just down the road. When I was working, I could drive the 10 kilometres to the office at any time of day in less than 10 minutes, with no fear of ever hitting rush-hour or school-run traffic.
I have enough bars and restaurants within 15 minutes of my home to dine out every night for the next 20 years without ever going to the same place twice.
And I’ve made more friends since leaving Britain, both English and Spanish speaking, than I did in half a lifetime back home.
I no longer feel any pull toward the land of my birth.
I’ve been living in Spain on and off for the last decade and my first thought when I wake up every morning to be greeted by bright sunshine is “Every day’s a holiday’’.
When the children were young, we used to spend most of our holidays in Spain and I would greet every day of those vacaciones with a special feeling – that wonderful sense of difference. Of being in a foreign land where the sun shines every day. Of freedom from the everyday grind of work and household chores.
Now I live the dream of those two or three weeks a year virtually every day…albeit cursed with the aches and pains of old age.
There is something surreal about waking up morning after morning and squinting into the sun blazing through the bedroom window. About peering out into a leafy garden that resembles a sea of colour and tranquility.
I'm in Heaven...and I didn't have to die to get there.