We spent the summer in Wales whilst the purchase of a casa in La Gloria went on without us; we'd given a poder, or power of attorney to our allegedly bi-lingual lawyer, Ingrid. Upon our return to Spain in September we would be ready to launch into this latest project - the restoration and extension of a glorified shed with overgrown garden in an Andalucian village of about 700 inhabitants.
What a relief it was to not have to return to toxic Adreimal, and to be starting afresh in a new place. No more being surrounded by the expat crowd of scrounging wasters on the one hand and snotty liberals judging us as not cool enough for their gang, on the other; not to mention the many hostile, money-grabbing Spaniards.
Not that we expected to find Nirvana; nowhere's perfect. But there was just something about La Gloria. You could tell just by breathing in the air of the village. If you walked 20 yards, someone would say 'hola.' That was a novelty. Naturally, serious problems were looming (such is life); but at least this time they would be of a different nature to the problems we'd experienced during our two years in Adreimal.
The plan was to live at our cortijo while the casa in the village was being 'reformed,' to use the Spanglish expression (as though the house's character were in need of an overhaul after a spell in prison). We had registered the children at La Gloria's escuela primaria, a friendly village school with immaculately-dressed teachers who seemed to genuinely welcome the prospect of their first British pupils (our five and six-year olds).
And the village house would be ready to move into within a few months or so we hoped. As long as part of it was habitable we were willing to rough it whilst the rest of the building work went on around us. In the meantime we would be up a track in the countryside, in a cortijo with no mains electricity and no drinking water. The Spanish never lived in these houses in the winter (just mad Brits) and we had no idea what it would be like. But we had no choice until the village house was ready.
The casa itself had first been spotted by me in the January of our second year in Spain. At the time, Adrian had forbidden me to even mention buying any more property of any description, either in the UK (as part of our rental business) or Spain, but he hadn't been able to stop me helping others. So I would do favours for friends or acquaintances, even driving them around for nothing, because I enjoyed looking at houses, ruins, bits of land, anything really. It was mi pasatiempo.
And if they say you need vision in the property business, well, when I saw the casa I saw the potential immediately. We walked through the scruffy little building, our shoes sticking to the floor that was splattered with avocados and oil and stepped out into the densely overgrown garden with its avocado, orange, mandarin, fig and lemon trees, and I parted and peered out through the branches of the heavily-laden trees. What I saw was the most sensational view of a hazy mountain range, with layers of other ranges fading out into the distance. It was rare enough to get a house with a garden in the village, but the location of this one was magnificent and the view could not be spoiled as the land was on the edge of the village and fell heavily downwards to the much lower terrace of the neighbour's huerta.
The person I was helping that day in January was Layla. I'd come down with her and her sister, my friend Jenny from Adreimal. I'd advised her that she'd be far better off buying in a lovely Spanish village like La Gloria than up in Adreimal with its hundreds of unkempt expats and inexplicably rude Spaniards. And when Jenny saw the casa she felt the same way about it as I did, although curiously she never felt the same way about Adreimal. As neither of the women spoke much Spanish, I agreed to translate while Pepe López took us around various properties. As usual, he first showed us silly houses; one consisted of a windowless corridor and was in the village a further 15 minutes inland and higher up, which was apparently as cold as Adreimal in the winter; another in La Gloria resembled a prison with numerous cell-like rooms on four floors, with high-voltage electricity cables and a pylon dominating the garden (I didn't want to think what that might have been used for in the 1930s). The casa stood out as something really special.
'She'll be mad if she doesn't take it,' I said to Jenny.
'Yes, it's fabulous, darling,' she agreed. 'Quite bijou. It would be perfect for you, Layla,' she declared. 'You could have a double bedroom and ensuite upstairs and a little salon and kitchen downstairs. And imagine a darling pool and maybe a jacuzzi, with no-one overlooking you. And the views are just to die for.'
'How much will it cost to make it liveable?' Layla asked.
'¿Cuánto costaría para reformar la casa?' I translated to Pepe.
'Pues, solo dos millones,' was his reply.
'He says 2 million pesetas, which is 12 thousand euros,' I said to Layla. 'But you can double that.'
'¿Que?' Pepe seemed frustrated. 'What are you saying? I can't understand you.'
'Si, that's why I'm translating,' I replied to Pepe, straight-faced. 'No tengo la culpa, it's not my fault if you can't speak English. I just translated what you said.'
But Layla wasn't sure about the place.
'I'll sleep on it and let you know tomorrow,' she decided.
'Well, don't think too long,' I replied, 'as this one won't stick around.'
Later that evening, Adrian and I were having a drink with Simon and Charlotte in the village bar when I mentioned how I'd spent my day. When I said how great the house was, Simon started to interrogate me, but I refused to be drawn on the location, in case he tried to gazump Layla.
'If she decides against it, I'll let you know where it is and you can go and see it,' I reassured him. Adrian just read El País, feigning disinterest in all matters property-related.
The following morning I rang Layla.
'I've decided it's not for me,' she said. 'I'm going to stick with Adreimal.'
Having got to know a few people in the town and and not knowing anyone apart from us in La Gloria, she felt she might get lonely in a village. I rang Simon and Charlotte immediately as promised, and told them Pepe could show them. I expected to then hear that they were snapping it up. At 53,000 euros it was a bargain.
I was astonished then, the next day, when I heard Simon's verdict.
'We've done the sums and it doesn't make financial sense as an investment. It's far too small and you'd never get permission to make it any bigger. We're not interested and I've told Pepe.'
A couple of weeks later I heard that a Dutchwoman had put in an offer. That was the end of that or so I thought.