General Chat

Malcolm
I am enjoying your well written information.
My eldest son has lived in Spain for many years and worked in the Univercity if Barcalona and also had several businesses. He sold the shops just in time and now is in a regular employment with a major money company connected to the government.

He is very artistic and paints and also dabbles in ancient motor bikes. Revamping them to there original state and sells them on. Last week he married a German Lady who also has similar employment. Wedding on the beach in Masou ( spelling may be wrong)!

The languages being spoken occasionally reminded me of the Tower of Babble!
Actually it was an excellent day. His step son aged 7 speaks German, French, English and of course Spanish...

Hope a few others add today

It was a wonderful day.

Noise here in Salou is not as much of a problem as it was, say ten years ago. In those days drink driving was a huge problem with kids driving around all night, heavy metal music playing and the "botellon" (a drunken party or youths) taking place on the beach below. There has been a massive clampdown and now you rarely see any cars after midnight. Those that do are pounced upon and breathlysed. We stil get the occasional noisy crowd on the beach at 5 a.m. after the disco's come out and theres a 90 horsepower tractor which tows the clattering beach cleaner at 5.30 for an hour so I tend to get up and have a cup of tea and read a book. Madam sleeps through it all! Double glazing has helped a lot!

Now that the August holidays are over it's time for the locals to party. Last week it was a celebration of Jaume 1 with parades (yes, drums, trumpets and fireworks at all hours) This week it the "Diada" Catalunyas national day with strikes, parades and protests accompanied by drums and trumpets. Next week it's Santa Tecla, one of TWO patron saints of Tarragona. Soon be Christmas, then New Year, then 3 Kings. As someone pointed out a long time ago - every day is a holiday somewhere in Spain.

There's actually quite an advantage for the foreigner here. If you don't take all these holidays your business is much more effcient than the local competitor. It's worked that way for me.

My internet connection is also Telefonica and is awful. I'm contracted for 1 Meg but my monitor shows it is usually running at half that. I pay extra for my webcam so the total is around €70 a month. No point in changing to another supplier as they'd have to use the same line. No way is anyone going to run fibre into a six month tourist resort. Our Town Hall have jsut installed free wi-fi on the beaches (Yes, people do take their I-pads to the beach!) but we don't have coverage at this end of town.

As for languages, I speak Spanish fairly fluently and I can also write it (usually better than many locals) I can speak a good deal of Catalan and understand all of it written and spoken, however I am rarely in a situation where I need to speak Catalan. As I commented before, although i'd enjoy seeing some good television I have never reinstalled satellite since we sold our last house ten years ago and moved here. I watch Catalan and Spanish news and weather, and that's it. If I want to see the Footy (I'm not a massive fan) I go to Shankly's sports pub and have a pint with the lads!

Nudge

wisechild

I must say that if we did not have the Internet at our hands I know that we would have been back in the UK .
OH uses this for his music, writing Quiz night info, following his beloved West Ham United, Cricket and ay others that attract his attention.
And helps others if they cannot manage their comps for one reason or another.
Without Skyp I would not have seen my newest granddaughter just less than an hour after she was born or be in regular contact with the rest of the family and my friends, all this covers Holland, Ireland, many different places in mainland UK. Australia. Germany, and a few others.
Can you use Amazon for buying books etc. they are very efficient. We do not use them very frequently but the service has never let us down.

Well the workmen have started drilling somewhere not to far away and the chatter between a couple of them is setting Jet & Joe barking. It not for long as they are now sitting with me.

Best wishes to everyone
:-D :-) :-) :-)

Bridget.
We have the same problem here in Menorca with San Juan in June when people from all over flood into Ciutadella & for 3 days they are sleeping everywhere , making as much noise as they can & drinking (& taking drugs) anything they can get their hands on.
The rest of the year it´s a peaceful little town, but suffering very badly from the recession, as is the whole island.
Our flat has been on the market now for 5 years without even 1 serious offer & for that reason we are reluctant to leave it & move elsewhere.
I would love to have a good source of reading material & reasonably priced internet access. At the moment I use dial up because the only provider of broadband, Telefonica, charge over €40 per month on top of line rental & calls. The WIFI connections aren´t much cheaper & they are all slow. Generally they promise 3 meg but we´re lucky if we get 1meg, so the cheap option isn´t that much slower.
I´ve been here now for 7 years & have been with my husband for 5. I´m reasonably content with life here. Just hope the economic situation starts to improve soon.

As I sit in my chair having been woken by loud loud music, singing, etc I know this is another reason to add to my desire to return to the UK.

We are now almost at the end of the summer season and next Sunday it will be the festival of the Moors and Christians. I have written about this previously and how magnificent it is. BUT why is it necessary to have every night, the loudest music you could imagine from about 22.00 hrs to 07.06 in the morning for seven days!!!

Apparently most people who attend this do not work this week, so no worries for them.
Fortunately my granddaughter aged 7 months sleeps through the noise!


Malcolm, I also long to visit art galleries, museums, the theatre, music festivals, etc etc. I want to be involved in the local community,politically and in general. No chance here especially because there is not just one language to use but several.

I have enjoyed the weather, living in an area which bans using pesticides sprayed everywhere, all fruits etc are organic...as a result the fruit must be bought every few days but the taste is just so good we do not mind shopping every other day.
Not many coughs and colds but when they are a nuisance they are very nasty indeed.
The beautiful view from my house is the sea and the Castle which I have written about in my daily Diary on one of the many threads. Watching the sun rise has been amazing. Hardly ever does the sky look the same as yesterday.
The clean air...now that will also be missed but I believe that clean air has also improved in the UK in the last few years.

Well the music and the singing has stopped. Wonder of wonders,,,,so I am going back to have some sleep~~~~~




:-)

Malcoim

Thank you for joining us, I found your comments very interesting.

Maybe my need to go back to the UK is not just because of family. I did not choose to live in Spain, I wanted to live in the France / Spain area. However I have enjoyed much of my time here and will have good memories to write about.
However I have learnt that England is my home, no good moaning about it from a distance.......go there. See more of family and friends anf get involved with the community, politics etc.....

Any way I still have to sell the house first,no other house the same as we are not on a modern site and is not a new build. We have wonderful views across the sea and much history.

Meanwhile I will enjoy life where I am

Good night to you all

:-)

Yeah, me too! We might just do that and keep our place here for a few more years. What I really miss is being able to have a garden. The soil here is just sand and very dry. Even my pot grown tomatoes are a disaster!

I loved working in the Canaries...telephone cables between Gran Canaria (La Sardina) and Tenerife (El Medano), Gomera and my favourite La Palma. Very sad that much of the Gomera and La Palma forest has been destroyed by fire. Here in Catalunya about a third of the forest has been lost to fire since I came here. As an ecologist it makes me very sad to see what happens because of carelessness.

I also need some quality Museums, Libraries and enthusiastic local culture - even just a good enthusiastic amateur Panto. Outside of Barcelona you're starved of quality culture and after 30 years I need to pig out on good art and intelligent people.

Hello Malcolm. What an interesting post. I wouldn't mind being a swallow and Doing part of the year here and the rest in the UK. To do this I would have to sell my house and downsize quite a bit to allow me to have two homes plus all the overheads that would go with them. I can.'t imagine leaving here just yet. I do totally agree with you about the humidity espeically if you are going out somewhere nice and decide to walk. I prefer to wait till the sun goes down.

Hello expats all! Good thread. I think you just need to Bump it now and again.

I've lived in Salou, near Tarragona for thirty years. I came here to work in the small offshore oil industry in 1981. My options were to return to Aberdeen so you don't need to ask why I decided to stay in Spain. I learned Spanish in 18 months using linguaphone tapes (remember those?).

I bought out my employers business in Spain in 1986 along with a co-worker, Victor from Chile. We ran a successful Oceanographic consultancy until 1992 when he moved with his wife to Tenerife and I continued to work alone, buying a small boat and doing survey work all over Spain.

My favourite jobs were for Fibre Optic cable installations on the beaches of Nortb Spain, the Balearics, Andalucia, Portugal, Morocco the Canary Isles and even Madeira and south of France. Geological surveys, photography and other research on beaches, expenses and travel all paid....can't be beat! I've also positioned more oil platforms than I could count.

Ten years ago I bought some toy and sweetie machines so my wife could make some pin money in the tourist pubs. We expanded into Pool Tables, Vending machines and games machines and when she was making more than me, I went to work for her and sold the boat!

Now we're ready to go back to the U.K. We've owned our apartment here for ages and it's on the front line (coast) see our view on www.salou-spotlight.com my website webcam is there.

My wife, who is Dutch and I've become tired of the intense humidity in the summer and i'm tired of living in a tourist town. It is pleasant in winter and there's some lovely country around us where I go walking but the summer is just awful. I have to say that now most expats instal SKY, socialise in expat pubs and just don't learn any Spanish which strikes me as a narrow way to live.

We're gradually winding down the business and will be visiting Scotland this year to look at potential areas to settle.

wisechild,

I have said that I will leave it as it is, but thanks for your suggestion which I rather like.

Today it is very warm indeed, and I am using the " I am making sure that my 9 month old granddaughter is in the shade, with plenty of attention from all of us. The temp is about quite hot around 32 this afternoon.

I had a little thought whilst writing this........I wonder if we could move forward by talking about moving to places which previously we did not know which could include moving for example from place to place rather then just abroad?

Or else we leave it as it is.

:-)

I agree. It´s fine as it is.
If you want to change it, how about something like "Expat chat"

Today is a beautiful typical Canarian day with blue skies and sunshine and a light breeze. So far not too hot but that will change as the day goes on

Well Berona

I am delighted with your response , so no changing name of the thread!

Thanks

I think the current heading says it all, Bridget. I'm happy with it the way it is.

Not everyone who emigrated has returned to their origins, so the present title seems adequate to me. What do others think?

PS

Do you think that I should slightly change the name of this thread? For example

"Did anyone in your family emigrate and then return to place of origin? "

Other suggestions please.

Goodness me,

Yesterday when I wrote my
Ast entry I had no idea that there would be so many replies and such interesting views.....thank you everyone for adding your points of view.

I have no regtets about moving to Spain, it has been a valuable experience and would recommend it to anyone. However after the terrible accident that my granddaughter had just over a year ago I started to think that I wished I lived back in Blighty,,,,,,,,then my Army son was posted to Northern Ireland and the cost of travelling by air just went so high that I knew we could not visit to often...yes Skype is an amazing experience and bee a great way of being in contact but not the some as holding her etc.
As I said, the house is just on the market and I know housesetc are at snails place and cheaper than a couple of years ago..........maybe it will happen maybe not, who knows but I do not want to stay here forever,

It cost my son. His wife and their daughter nearly one thousand ounces to travel here and return to Ireland...now that is an amazing hike in air travel.

So sole asked that so many people relied and I hope we are able to continue keeping this thread alive...any ideas for the name expansion of this thread...which would new people to join us.

Enjoy your day everyone and a special Hello to Brenda. Please stay with us

Hi Ann ...I've pm'd you xx

Wendy, among Mike's friends and acquaintances is there anybody Spanish/English speaking who would agree to act as interpreter if your girls need it at any time?

Hi Marion...my husband was super organised and had everything in a file ready for " when required" I am not so organised but have everything together but the language would be a major obstacle for my girls hence the consideration of moving back to the UK. Before Mike died I never once gave it a thought now it crosses my mind frequently. In the meantime I love living here and being retired.

Wendy