New Adventures!

It has been a long time since I came to Tea and Toast and did any blog writing! In my defence it has been a hectic summer, we have been house hunting for over a year and it all hotted up, pardon the pun, over the summer. Cut a long story short we bought a house!

Not only did we buy a house but we bought one in a completely different area than we were first looking and with much soul searching we are moving away from the Girona region further south to the Tarragona region in the Ebro area. We have loved our time here in Girona and undoubtedly we are going to miss it, the lovely Costa Brava, the hilltop towns and villages, the rolling countryside, the mountains of the Pyrenees, being so close to the French border and friends of course. However, the Ebro Delta which will be on our doorstep is a wonder in itself. Wilder more natural, National Park, long unspoilt beaches, riverside towns and villages, mountains and fertile lands of vineyards and fruit trees. 

The house is a one story villa, a feature high on our list of priorities, no stairs, future proofing for old age to make all areas easily accessible.  Lots of outbuildings to play with, gardens and land mainly laid to pasture and trees of olive, carob and almond. A huge plot, to us, of 4.5 acres. Which didn’t look so huge on Google Earth but walking round it once we had signed on the dotted line and collected our keys a lot bigger in real life!

There are so many little corners and garden areas bursting with colour and rather overgrown and blousy, rather a lot of cactus and agave neither of which are favourites of mine, but am sure I can recycle to friends and neighbours!

So excited to get stuck in and start with renovations. Luckily we are able to stay in our current house while we do the bulk of the work although we are itching to get in there it is likely to be after Christmas and it is a bit of a trek at just under three hours travelling. 

We also have a static caravan on site which is in need of a huge dose of TLC but it may well come in handy as a bolt hole for overnight stays as the construction work is underway so we don’t have to cohabit with brick dust in our cornflakes and every other crevice! 

I will be recording progress as we go along, so far we have sorted through the contents, the previous owners pretty much left the bulk of their furniture and a lot of bric a brac which we have sorted into good quality saleable, useable charity and bric a brac charity. Have a chap organised to clear that all away on the proviso that they make money off the saleable and useable stuff and take away the surplus. I’ve also organised some basic repairs which start this coming weekend and we are awaiting quotes and start dates for the construction works.  To facilitate all this I have created a colour coded spreadsheet with each job broken down into tasks and images to aid comprehension, an inveterate list maker this gave me great pleasure, how sad am I?! I am now on to sourcing materials with some tips from our contact down there who will be helping me manage the work so I don’t have to travel to keep it on track.

The only major hurdle we have had is that the house came with a resident cat. A lovely, sweet natured, affectionate cat but as we already have three of our own who are decidedly less sweet natured and rather territorial this created a bit of a headache. We had the help of a friendly neighbour who would go in and feed and water but the prospect of the poor creature being alone and going into winter we made enquiries with local sanctuaries about adoption or at the least fostering. With no joy in the short time we were there we have brought her back with us and she is currently acclimatising in our downstairs living room to which she has taken with no bother. We are waiting until she is truly settled before letting her out or letting her meet our three and not quite sure how that is going to pan out! For now she is a contented kitty. 

Back down there in a couple of weeks to check on progress with new photos coming soon!