General Chat

Enjoy your time with your friends and family. I hope the weather stays dry for you.

Wendy

Good evening to you all from sunny Attleborough in Norfolk.
Our travel from home to UK was very smooth including tha train ride Calais to uk .
How fast thar service is, is so amazing.
Tired now so will only say it feels wonderful to be back.
However I do also like my home and friends in Peniscola but still want to be back to my homeland.

Good night
:-)

Just slightly off track but I have just finished reading a book called More Ketchup Than Salsa by Joe Cawley. It is based on his true story. He and his brother and their two girlfriends decide to give up working on a fish market in Bolton and buy a bar in Tenerife. It is just so funny and, although I think a little poetic license has been used, it is all so believable. It is in Tenerife but could be anywhere in Spain where all the same rules and regulations apply. Where it always 'manana' when you want something done and a dozen or more pieces of paper and a six month wait to get anything official attended to. I downloaded it to my Kindle and just couldn't put it down until I had finished it.

I think (& it´s only my personal opinion) that whatever nationality you are, if you choose to live in another country, you should be loyal to that country & respect it´s laws & customs. I can´t see any reason why anyone should expect more than the indiginous population are entitled to.
Uzzie, what a shame you missed the boat with the health care. Luckily. I´m over pension age & was entitled to be cared for by the Spanish system from when I moved here. Mind you, apart from the health care, any pensioner concessions are getting fewer & fewer.
Spain is in a financial mess & I can´t see things improving any time soon, but I chose to live here & I stick by my decision.

I know that I have answered this thread before BUT

I never at the time when I moved here got into the health system, some recent things have made me decide to do that. UNFORTUNATELY just as Spain has decided to stop expats from draining their economy ..so instead of going off my OH´s social number I now need my own and proof that my OH can afford from his wages pay for any costs I occur. Yes it´s a pain as I should have done it years ago BUT I still prefer living here than the thought of having to live back in the UK. I also agree that they should put a stop on non working expats draining their economy.
I couldn't go back to the UK , I would get less than those born there lol what would the UK say to me if I went I want a half million pound house my taxes paid and you pay all my bills.
I stand by my decision to leave the UK and move to Spain.

Well, son and family caught the plane home. And we have everything ready to leave for the UK at around 23hrs when the roads in and around Barcelona will be almost empty. Once we are past there we will have a few breaks, OH decides which route he will take. We hope to get to France for the tunnell crossing and then our feet will be on UK land!

I hope this thread stays alive whilst I am travelling.

I will be back ASAP

Bridget

Don´t you just love them for it Bridget. Once you get used to the idea that YOU are the offcomer & the locals are not even considering changing things to suit you, life becomes easier & if you don´t speak the language, learn it. It´s not rocket science.
I have the advantage of liking to chat to people, so if I wanted to talk to the neighbours, I had to learn their language, not the other way round.
None of the pandering to the minorities that you get in the UK.

Wisechild

I could not have written your message any better, it is truly spot on!!

Ha Ha Ha.....Nobody at the Town Hall (Ajuntament) asks where the money comes from. If there's one thing the Spanish are good at it is Partying and woe betide the Mayor who cuts the Fiesta budget.

All Spanish towns have Fiestas for various reasons religious, cultural, harvest. The biggest one is called the Fiesta Mayor and every town and village has one. Regions and Provinces also have a Fiesta Mayor so every town and village celebrates those too. Then there are the National Fiestas so everybody gets those also.

Our town, Salou, actually has TWO Fiesta Mayors..one in February and one in October. We also have a Saints day on 16th August each year which is the culmination of a weeks special events. I can't count the parades which are held the biggest of which is the "Cos Blanc" a confetti parade in which air cannons shoot twenty tons of confetti up ino the air while 50 floats pass below. It's massively noisy and very colourful. LOcal business does very well from all this as people come from all around and even may from abroad to our local airport of Reus especially for the Cos Blanc.

If you want to see my view google salou-spotlight and look for the webcam link. It's on 24/7. This morning it's a bit cloudy but there are plenty of people on the beach. Saludos!

I think the thing that has struck me most about the Spanish is that while they welcome people from other countries & are friendly & helpful, they carry on living their lives & following their customs. Nothing changes to fit in with the life style of the incomers. They are expected to adapt to Spanish ways & quite rightly too in my opinion. You never see them cancelling fiestas because they fall in the middle of the tourist season & it will be inconvenient for the visitors to find shops shut, no buses, banks etc. They just carry on.
What a pity England hasn´t taken a similar stance.

Good morning to you all.

Last night it was the Moors and Christians Parade and celebrations. This is always a spectacular event and lasts for at least two hours and often much longer. So, here we are in a so called depression and this year the event was the best I have seen or heard about!!

At midnight the fireworks display was up to the usual standard and as we watched on the verandah we all agreed that it was a magnificent display and then happily went to bed! AHHHH.....exactly one hour later I was woken with the most enormous bang and the fireworks had stated again!! OH managed to sleep through it all, how I will never understand!!

So I and my Cocker Spanials sat together and watched everything and I wondered where does the money come from??? So many people unemployed. So many houses, apartments, caravan sites etc are empty, the holiday period was shorter this year than another we have seen in nearly 10 years BUT events of most discriptions are the best we have experienced.....

Another thought about living abroad.....do we ever truly understand the indigenous population and their ways??

One experience I have enjoyed since day one of arrival is exactly what I am doing now......sitting quietly either on the verandah or in the living room and looking across the sky and sea as the day opens the colours of the sky and sea are constantly changing, the birds twitter, there is a sense of great peace and wonder. I cannot imagine that I will do this in England.
Here we do not have as many street lights as in the UK, well there are a lot of lights but not all are on. This means that if one fails another automatically turns on and one can see magnificent sky's.
The many different birds are twittering, the bats have left for the day, there is a sence of peace and quiet. No lorries, cars, motorbikes etc on the roads, absolute peace.

Wendy, thanks for telling us where you would choose to go, may be those who have lived in America or who have spent a decent amount of time there could tell us what they enjoyed / didn't enjoy.

I was fortunate enough to visit the USA several times, with my first husband and with my second husband. With my first OH I was in a privileged with the places we stayed in, especially in New York . Our four children came with us each time and were cared for with a "nanny"! We went to some truly great restaurants in New York city. Wined and dined and loved the shops, hustle and buslie.
We travelled into the countryside which was very different to where we lived in Essex England.
We went into the towers which sadly was destroyed when they were blown up. OH worked there I think it was in level 15, which was high enough for him as he really does not like heights! We lived in the hotel directly opposite the Towers.
The shock of "the Terrible Day" will never leave me, I was in UK and OH1 was in New York as by then we were divorced..........never dod I have a better telephone call than when he called to say he had not been in the building as he was meting another colleague for an external meeting..........

San Fransico was great fun as we're many other places, so I hope you get there one day.

Most of the places I would like to visit now are where I would not need to spend to much time, I would choose seeing the Northen Lights as I have longed to go there but it is very expensive!

Other places I visited are Italy, Germany, Holland, Canada, Many parts of USA, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Belgium, Norway and Sweden. Great experiences but now looking forward to going back to the UK to live there at some time in the next year......

:-D. Bridget

Spanish Eyes...If I could go to another country for six months I would choose America as there are so many places I would like to see there.

Wendy

I have just watched Coronatioon Street and in it Gloria turns up after living in Spain for years she has come to visit her daughter, they haven't seen each other for ages Stella, the daughter, asks her mother what she's being doing in Spain and Gloria keeps going on about the fabulous bar she owned and ran and about her handsome partner who is Mr Big and has mafia connections.. Eventually the truth came out that she just worked in a dry cleaners, which she accidently burnt down, and her partner had nothing to his name.

This little scenario made me think of some of the people that come to retire here, something happens to them on the plane coming over, they leave the UK as a warehouse man and arrive in Tenerife as the head of ICI.

True story...a couple came over and he said he had been a police inspector, a judge and in numerous other high up occupations his wife was a top lawyer. Nobody was impressed and just let him rattle on. A few years later someone else arrived who really had been a police sergeant and quite by chance in the same force as the first person and he recognised the inspector immediately.

It turned out that the inspector had never got past being a constable and had left the force under a cloud. He had then started up a window cleaning business. With his cover blown he denied knowing the sergeant and claimed it was a case of mistaken identity but the sergeant knew too many facts for this to be true, names of his children etc.

This is a very small island and the truth will out eventually.

Wendy

Couldn´t agree more Malcolm. I have English friends who have lived here for nearly 20 years who hardly speak a word. If they want something, they write the word on a piece of paper & wave it under the shop assisstant´s nose.
I´ve been here 7 years now & although I can´t claim to speak the language like a native, I can hold a conversation, crack jokes, explain myself etc. It was hard work learning a new language at 60, but in my view, needs must.

I'm picking up on an interestng point by SpanishEyes where she says that a 7 year old living here speaks several languages.

One thing that tends to worry people "taking theplunge" and moving abroad is "How will it affect the children"? Well the truth is that young children - the younger the better are wee sponges for language. Stick an Englsh speaking three year old in a kindergarten of Catalan kids (who speak both Catalan and Spanish) and i'll guarantee you within a month that child will be orally competent in all three languages.

It gets better when the parents are from different countries. Example, our nephew whose parents are Dutch and English. He was speaking five languages - Dutch, Englsh, Catalan, Spanish and German by the time he was five. (The German came as he spent a lot of time with other cousins) He is now thirty and chief receptionist in a major hotel chain here and has learned Russian as well.

It's the parents who need to worry. SKY T.V. and British pubs. Not a word of Spanish in their heads after twenty years! Finally, when my ex boss was returning to the U.K. I recommended him to have his two kids take exams in Spanish as soon as possible. They passed the A Level at the ages of 9 and 14!

Should be a thumbs up emoticon but they're not working!

Hi Ann...yes it's true Ann and her OH arrived on 26th April and I told them that apart from the odd light shower we had not had any rain since October.
The next day, the first of their months holiday, it absolutely poured non stop all day and all night!!! Worried that they had not even had time to shop for food I was emailing them with a list of what food I had to offer Luckily the apartment has english television and wifi and as Ann and her OH both bring their lap tops they were able to find something to do until the rain stopped. It hasn't rained since but as they are back in Tenerife in October maybe I should have my umbrella ready!

Thank you Ann for the lovely compliments on my landlady skills. You two are also lovely guests/clients who over the years of coming here have become friends.

Wendy x

Wendy, I think we should get a mention for 'enjoying' your last shower!!!

I have to say folks Tenerife Sun is a lovely 'landlady'!!

15 minutes down hill and a heart attack up! :-D

I can forecast rain for Tenerife in October :-D

I use Arrakis for my phone /internet. they are franchised to BT & although they have to use the Telefonica lines, it´s much cheaper than Telefonica. At the moment I pay €42.50 per month which gives me line rental, 400 minutes calls within Spain, 800 minutes calls to England & 24/7 dial up access to the internet. Broadband has recently become available for €20 per month more, so I shall probably change for the winter when I use the PC more.
On Monday we had the first forest fires of the year. luckily they were caught quickly so not too much damage done. Like the Canaries, we´ve had vitually no rain since May, but no water shortages & water is cheap. The Council tax, electricity & food prices have almost doubled in the 7 years I have been here, but there are still so many reasons for wanting to stay in Spain. The people are generally so nice & although the winters can be pretty awful, at least they are shorter than in England.
I hope that people will keep the thread going too.

Hello to you all, yesterday at 6 pm the thermometer on the terrace said it was 48.5 C. It was in full sunlight but even so it has been too hot lately. We have got a constant breeze that makes it a lot more comfortable. I tend to do housework, ironing etc early and then read and use the Internet during the day. Our winters are mild during the day and cold at night I would not like to give up my electric blanket. Tenerife is known as 'The Island Of The Eternal Spring" and I think the name suits it well.

I too would be totally lost without the Internet. Our service provider is Movistar which is part of Telefonica. My bill arrived today, it is for one month, so I can tell you that my total bill is 62.25 euros this is for ADSL (Broadband) line rental, maintenance and calls, all local calls are free on the tariff that I have. Here it pays to have maintenance cover as we lose the connection on a regular basis and with the cover they give you a refund for every day you are off, it also means they get you reconnected as quick as they can so that they don' have to pay you whilst others can wait for days. Out of my 62.25 euros my calls were only I.56 !! We also use Spantel which uses the same Telefonica line and gives us very cheap calls to UK and I have a mobile also with Movistar. We pay for 3 mb but it just isn't available here but it does usually run at about 2 to 2.5 so not bad for a small island.

Our water and our rates are both very reasonable and cheaper than in the UK and bearing in mind that it hasn't rained since April 27th we have not had any water shortages and are still able to water the garden every day.

Food has gone up in leaps and bounds both in the supermarkets and in the restaurants but wine remains cheap to buy espeically local wines of which there are many!! So if ever really broke I could always give up food and just stick to drink, just joking.

I am not disturbed by noise as I live 10 - 15 minutes downhill into town but sometimes hear the fiesta music as it rises up on the wind. Our road is quiet, not much traffic, and the house has a wall around which sound proofs it a bit.

I too miss the theatre and when I lived in the UK I went to London two or three times a year to do a bit of shopping, see the sites and a show. We often went on organised coach trips and I loved them. I have a Kindle and so I download most of my books, some are free, and I swap paperbacks with other English people here. In the north of the island where I live, Puerto de la Cruz, there isn't a very big English population and many of them having arrived here in their later years don't, and won't even try,to learn the language. I appreciate that it isn't easy to learn as you get older but I still think that an effort should be made. I see so many people battling on in English to a Canarian and then getting annoyed because they are not understood.

I have downloaded FilmOn and can watch all the English television programmes including some from Sky on the PC or iPad. It is free to download, good quality sound and picture and I recommend it to anyone wanting to watch English TV. We also have English channels on our television but only 1, 2, 3 and 4 for this we pay 90 euros a year. There is no television license to pay here so the 90 euros is not so bad.

I'm pleased that I came across this thread and hope it continues to run for a long time.

Wendy x