The Luxury Of Making Space For Life To Happen

We sauntered silently into the month of November and, although it was just another Saturday for Shazza and myself, in the religious calendar it was ‘All Saints Day’ which, here in Spain, meant that there would be religious gatherings at many of the Churches, both large and small, in every village and town. Although neither Shazza or myself are what you may consider ‘actively’ religious worshippers, meaning we rarely attend church on Sunday’s, but we had taken part in a service in the town church on one occasion a few year’s ago, more because we were just being nosey and joined the large crowd that had gathered outside and, due to the large numbers attending, the service was held outside. We stayed to watch the full service, along with the locals, expats and other tourist’s alike, although naturally, the service was all conducted in Spanish, but at the end the head priest, for their were three priests delivering the service on that particular day, and in perfect English, also thanked all of us non-Spanish members of the congregation for attending the service, a nice touch we thought. We have not attended one of these services since though, as from that first experience we knew how difficult it would then be afterwards to get a table at any one of our favourite Cafe/Bars 😂

What is notable here in Spain is that ‘All Saints Day’ is another opportunity for much social interaction and merriment although, this event is very much generally a family and close friends occasion, and not one that falls into the category of a ‘Fiesta’, so none of the usual ‘Pop-Up’ Bars and fairground attractions. It is primarily an occasion for all generations of a family to come together to break bread and drink wine, not just the sip of wine from the chalice and thin circular wafer taken during the ‘Mass Service’, but the more substantial offerings taken during lunch in the local restaurants. The church service, the one in the main town, is held late morning and finishes just before noon, allowing people to go for a stroll along the promenade, or to take their ‘Little Darlings’ to play in the parks and burn off some steam whilst the other’s sit, or stand, just generally chitter chattering between themselves before the start of the official Spanish lunch period at 2pm. The dress code for this event, well as usual there is none, although the older generation tend to dust off their best bib and tucker, because that is the way they were brought up to be dressed when they were children when attending a religious service, as for the more modern younger generation these days, well that is always a case of whatever they feel comfortable in really, more casual attire, for this is more about getting together as a family, rather than a fashion contest. Many of the ‘Spanish’ restaurants are pre-booked months in advance, so getting an available ad-hoc table is, generally speaking, very unlikely, although, this only applies to the local Spanish restaurants in the town itself, the Marina, being a mainly tourist enclave always have tables available in their wide choice of establishments.

We went for our usual morning walk and refreshment stop, as we got into the town and walked past the row on row of restaurants, the tables were being readied for the forthcoming on-rush of diners, their were numerous place settings with tables pushed together to accommodate the six, eight and even ten pre-booked groups with almost every table having ‘Reserved’ signs placed upon them. Now of course this just had to be a day when Shazza and I had elected to eat lunch out and, as always with us, this had been a spur of the moment decision and we had forgotten that it was ‘All Saints Day’ 🙄 However, we are always confident that we would find somewhere to eat and, if the worst did come to the worst, and we could not eat at a restaurant in town, then we would just saunter back to the Marina and find something there, it would be no big deal and it was actually en-route back to where we had parked the car anyway, so we were pretty confident that we would not end up having to return home starving 😉

As we walked through the back streets, where it was shaded from the direct heat of the sun we kind of got sidetracked, as we passed by another Plaza, which just so happened to be yet another location of another one of our favourite Cafe/Bars, well it would have been rude not to now, wouldn’t it 🙄 This one however was not on the seafront and so is always generally dominated by Spanish customer’s, rather than foreign tourists. We found a table located in the centre of the throng of people which was represented by all age groups, groups of women chitter chattering whilst their children played football in the centre of the Plaza, some of the older generation, yes even older than myself 😂 who nodded their silent greetings in our direction, we smiled and nodded back, as you do, and then their was a young couple, obviously a blossoming romance as they couldn’t take their eyes off each other and were continually leaning in towards each other and exchanging gentle kisses 😍 We were not the only people watcher’s out that day, as the people sat around on the other tables were nudging each other, looking in the direction of the young lovers and smiling, of course the young lovers were totally oblivious of the dozens of eyes focused in their direction. You could see the difference in the opinions of the onlookers, the women all smiling and planning this young couples wedding day celebrations, the men folks eyes told a different story as they whispered to their male counterparts, out of the hearing of their female companions, ‘Just wait until she snares you into putting a ring on her finger lad, then believe me, things will change in that department’, then the men chuckled and their female companions asked ‘What was so amusing’, stupidly, one must have revealed their thoughts and got a slap on the arm for doing so 😂

This is what we both enjoy about this lifestyle, which I guess we could enjoy anywhere when I think about it, weather permitting that is of course. But to feel the warmth of the sunshine, to have beautiful views that extend for miles, the sounds and the sights going on around us, the opportunity to enjoy very nearly twelve months of the year being able to get out for our walks if we so choose and not dominated by the weather or climate, but generally, we just enjoy the leisurely pace of life, being in no hurry to be anywhere in particular and coming to terms that actually, nobody else is either 🤷‍♂️ Except that is if your stomach is beginning to feel as if your throat has been cut, yes we were more than ready for lunch now and so we headed back towards the seafront. Like the Cafe/Bars, their are numerous restaurants but, funny old thing, Shazza and I have our favourites which we tend to stick to. We agreed that it would be nice to try and get a table at our favourite seafront Fish restaurant. At first it wasn’t looking very good as we saw the tables and their ‘Reserved’ signs, but the waiter came out to greet us, we know several of them just through our regular use of them, they know now that we are ‘locals’ and not ‘visitor’s, he cast his eyes around the outer terraced area and then smiled, he pointed towards a table for two, positioned nearer the back of the terrace but which still afforded nice views of the beach and sea, and of course the promenade, with all the essential ‘People Watching’ opportunities. We sat with our drinks, Shazza a glass of Cervesa sin Alcohol, (Alcohol free) and myself a small beer (with alcohol) and then later, during our meal, Shazza enjoyed a second beer and I opted for my more usual glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine, it would have been rude not to of course 😉 We selected dishes that we could both share, rather than individual plates, Fresh slices of Tomato coated with with finely chopped Garlic and Olive Oil, then bubbling hot, and slightly spicy, Prawn Piri-Piri with bread, Fried Pollock fillets in Tempura Batter and Half a portion of small squid in Tempura batter, each dish served separately making the whole dining experience much like the lifestyle, something to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. The walk back to the car did enough to aid the digestion of our filling meal, followed by, once we returned home, the mandatory afternoon Spanish ‘Siesta’ 😴

The tranquil days that followed just blended into each other, although we have certainly started to feel the shift in the temperatures now, and whilst the sun may still be shining, the early morning temperatures are beginning to feel just that bit cooler, and again in the evenings, once the sun slips behind the mountains and darkness falls, which is now around 7pm. During the day’s we can still just about get away with going out on our walks, or doing the shopping, wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts but there have already been a couple of occasions when I have had to resort to wearing lightweight full length ‘Chinos’, and a lightweight hoodie top, mainly due to the chill factor that comes with the breeze, felt more so when sat having our cafe con leche’s but not so bad when we are moving and, as yet, we have not had to resort to digging out our heavier denim jeans which, hopefully, will not be required until we get towards the end of December and into January 🤞

Shazza and myself don’t tend to do very much forward planning anymore, well not unless we really have to that is, in fact these days when we are asked by friends or family what we are doing, we are more likely to respond with “We have no plans”, when asked about Holidays, Christmas or even what we are doing at the weekend or the following week, for these days we tend to just make each day up as we go along. Sure, we have got some regular routines like shopping and cleaning the apartment, but the actual days that we do them are not exactly enshrined in stone, and yes of course there are certain times in the year when we have to do ‘some’ important stuff within a certain set time period, annual tax returns, residency permit renewals, even car service and ITV testing, all that sort of stuff, but generally speaking my OCD Buddy has all of that in his calendar and gently pokes me in the ribs just prior to needing to focus when such events are due, but apart from that, basically these days, each day belongs to us to do with as we like 🤷‍♂️

Many year’s ago, when I used to look forward to being able to retire, I did wonder what retirement would look and feel like. I had spoken to former colleagues who had retired before me, some said that after the first six months of enjoying not having to be ruled by the alarm clock, and the daily routines of going to work, and after they had caught up with the long list of any outstanding DIY or Gardening jobs that had been on the back burner, that after that initial period of relaxation, they felt lost, they missed the social aspects of a working environment, and the comfort of having a specific daily routine. I already knew that no matter how many outstanding DIY jobs that there were on ‘my’ particular long list, that that list would just continue to get even bigger as I found myself with much more time available to avoid them 😂 Other’s though had loved it, finding more time to engage in personal hobbies, or finding new one’s, or spending time with family and grandchildren, going on more frequent travel trips to places both near and far, and being able to stay for longer if they so wished.

So, we actually retired ‘properly’ in October 2022 and so the question I guess is, how are we both finding our retirement ? It is a ‘real’ question and one that we actually have both discussed between ourselves and, to be completely honest with you, we can honestly say that it looks, and feels, pretty much a lot like we thought that it would, although at that earlier point in both our lives, when at least I was first thinking about it, we obviously did not know that we would be spending our retirement year’s in a totally different country to the one that we then called home. But, would our lives have been very much different if we had remained in the UK to live out our ‘Golden Year’s’ 🤔 Apart from the obvious Climate and Language differences, we pondered and deliberated over the question and we both came to a similar conclusion in the end, that everything would pretty much be the same. the only real unknown for us was in respect of the ‘Costs of Living’ in the UK, or put another way, how well could we manage back in the UK living a similar sort of lifestyle on our personal pension incomes, maybe one day, who knows, we will discover ourselves the answer to that particular question 🤷‍♂️ One factor that you cannot put a price on though is ‘Quality of Life’ and yes, we consider that we have a damn good quality of life here, but, and it is a big but, had we not have experienced life here in Spain, who is to say that we would not have had a similar quality of life in the UK, for surely it is what you do with your life that determines how enjoyable it is 🤔 Shazza and I quite often have these contemplative discussions between ourselves, and agree that it is easy to let media articles distort your views and images of things, and so we try to look beyond many of those, which are often biased in one direction or another, and they seem to just want to provoke a feeling of disgruntlement, unhappiness, insecurity or scaremongering to do with all facets of normal daily life and that I have to say, applies Globally, and not just to the UK. Just in case you are now wondering whether this is leading to us announcing a major upcoming change to our current lifestyle status, no we are not contemplating returning to the UK anytime in the near future, but it is always good to keep you options open, for you just never know what may be just around the corner, we have had a peek and cannot see anything just yet 🤭

Now where am I going with this I hear you ask ? Because usually when I start to ramble on about certain subjects in these blogs, there is generally a catalyst for doing so, although it can sometimes take me a while to get to the actual point 😁 Since publishing my last ramble and over a period of just a few days, I had read a number of media articles that gained my interest, enough to actually go past the headline and read the articles themselves.

The first was an article in the UK media, about a young British working couple, with two school aged children, who had recently returned from Spain, after choosing to live there permanently, but very quickly decided that they wanted to return to the UK. Of course I was interested to learn what they had discovered about ‘Living the Dream’ that hadn’t turned out that way 🤷‍♂️ They stated in the article that ‘It wasn’t the same actually living in Spain on a ‘permanent’ basis, to what it was like when they had been coming here, on numerous occasions, on their holidays’ 🙄 They had initially encountered issues associated with their residency application, or at least the husband had, and of course they encountered the slow, often illogical, Spanish Bureaucratic processes. Then they had an issue with their long term rental property and so purchased a Villa, with a pool, but then, after the purchase, discovered that they had major problems with that property, subsidence which required urgent, and very costly, remedial work. So I could sympathise with their plight, one thing on top of another, the worries of not being granted residency, problems with two properties, it was certainly not the perfect start to the dream and yes, we had been there as well at one point, and I had been ready to throw the towel in, but patience, a little bit of hard work on our apartment and also a lot more patience with Spanish Bureaucracy and it all payed off. But after reading the article I remember thinking, that one of the problems was in their own pre-conceived thoughts on what permanent life in Spain would look and feel like, based on their previous ‘holiday’ experiences. You certainly have a different sort of mindset when you are going somewhere for just a holiday, than you have when you are actually living permanently in a totally different country, or at least, in my personal opinion, you should have 🤷‍♂️ Even with the problems with their Villa, although they did not mention whether they had got it surveyed prior to purchase, which would have highlighted the issues, something that you would normally do in the UK before committing to such a large outlay of capital, but I think their problems may well have started before that point with the vision in their heads as opposed to reality 🤔 Shazza and I have lost count of how many places that we have been to over the year’s, either on a holiday, or during our motor-homing travels, and said at the time, “Wouldn’t it be nice to live here”, but then when we thought realistically about both the Pro’s and the Con’s then generally we had a different perspective on those places. Some of you who have been following my rambles for a very long time 🙏🙏🙏 may also remember that even coming to live here permanently in Spain, in the very property we actually live in now, was absolutely never on my own long-term radar, France would have been my first choice to be completely honest, but now just look where we are, and thoroughly enjoying it. So for me, being probably a bit judgemental, and of course probably not in possession of the full facts, only what the reporter had edited and included in the article, but it seems to me, on just reading the article, that perhaps this particular couple let their hearts rule their heads and that there was a lack of any real Prior Preparation and Planning. But all’s well that ends well, as the saying goes, they are now all settled back into UK life 👍

Then, quite coincidentally, within only a day or so of reading that first media article, I just happened to be scrolling through a selection of my Canal Narrowboat Vlogs on ‘You Tube’, and yes some of you will recall that back in 2013, before electing to go down the route of the Motorhome full-timing lifestyle, we had considered purchasing a Narrowboat and becoming full-time liveaboards on the British River and Canal systems. However, even now, some twelve year’s on, that is an ‘itch’ that Shazza and I still continue to have, but we agree that it is one that we will probably never end up ‘scratching’ as we continue to list both the ‘Advantages’ and ‘Disadvantages’ of such a lifestyle, especially now having to consider our growing seniority in years 😉 Anyway, the list of ‘Disadvantages’ now far outweighs the ‘Advantages’. So back to the point, our attention was attracted to not one of our favourite Narrowboat Vlogs but to one that had the title, “Why we gave up living full time on our Narrowboat”. I looked across at Shazza and said, ‘Let’s see if any of their reasons for giving up, are the same downsides that we had thought about”. Now this was not a retired couple but again, a youngish 30’s something we guessed, but on this occasion, they were a childless couple, who had selected the lifestyle, for many of the same reasons other youngster’s have taken this route e.g. unavailability of affordable housing, cost of living, mental health issues and because they could both work remotely etc. etc. But like many of the other’s they had also elected to publish weekly ‘Vlogs’ on ‘You Tube’ about their new adventures and, because Shazza and I are both becoming very judgemental, we also assumed that like many of those other’s, they had assumed that they could earn a reasonable income from their ‘Vlogging’. Don’t get me wrong, many have and still do earn a decent income, like the many that also publish a ‘Vlog’ about full-timing in their Motor-homes and also the Self- Sufficiency one’s, you know the one’s to which I refer, ‘I bought a cheap property and land in France and grow my own produce in, Portugal, Bulgaria etc. etc. etc.’ Don’t get me wrong, some of them are actually really interesting to watch, hearing both about their back stories and then watching their progress, we have many of them on our own list of ‘favourites’ that we have been following for several years, some even started out as Motor-homing nomads and have since diversified. Being of the old-school generation, we do also often wonder whether the ‘You Tube Channel’ is their only source of income, where do they go from there, if or when, that income starts to dry up 🤷‍♂️ My daughter of course tells me off, “Dad, they are young, they are living life and enjoying it, the future is the future and they will cross that bridge when they come to it” she says. Of course, she is absolutely correct, after all, although we were hardly youngster’s, there were quite a few people who thought we were insane to sell up our home and all our worldly possessions to go off and live full-time in a Motorhome and, although we were then debt free, there was very little left in the coffer’s if it had all gone wrong, but look at us now, Immigrant Pensioners stranded in a foreign country 😂 But there is much more to ‘Vlogging’ and Publishing than just speaking into a camera or showing nice scenery, it is time consuming, editing takes hour’s even days and their is no guarantee that you will get the subscriber’s to your particular channel when there are so many other’s out there doing exactly the same thing 🤷‍♂️ But at least this couple both had ‘proper’ jobs and so any additional income would just be a bonus 👍

However, from their viewing figures we could see that, if gaining any sort of reasonable income from it had been their motivation for starting ‘the channel’, then they were failing miserably. This of course was not one of the numerous reasons they said was responsible for them deciding to go in a different direction, without the Narrowboat I hasten to add. So some of the reasons they listed were, having no regular social life with ‘permanent’ neighbour’s or friends………. hang on a minute 🙄 It was they that had opted to become ‘full-time’ live aboard ‘Continuous Cruisers’, meaning that they had to move on from their ‘temporary’ moorings every fourteen days, rather than them electing to rent a permanent mooring in a Marina 🤷‍♂️ Then they complained that the constant movement was too transient 😲 but isn’t that the point of being ‘Continuous Cruisers’, the clue is surely in the wording on the type of licence they themselves had chosen 🤷‍♂️. Now the Narrowboat they had purchased for their particular adventures was 60ft long x 6’ 10” wide, pretty much the maximum length and width if you wish to cruise and explore the ‘full extent’ of the interlinked British Canal and River waterways system, however, they found that the space in their ‘Narrowboat’ was too restrictive, did they not go and look at it and thought about the space they would have, or needed, before purchasing it 🤷‍♂️ Then of course the quite important and extremely relevant matter of living in a steel tube on water in the extremely unpredictable British climate, generally with regular rainfall for at least 9 months of the year, meaning wet and muddy towpaths, and at least 3-4 months of Frost, Ice, Snow, Strong winds and freezing temperatures 😲 The list of complaints went on, not always being conveniently close enough to life’s essentials (Supermarkets, Club’s and Bars, Retail Outlets and other transport links) and so, with all of these things combined, they have said that, …………… yes wait for it, for you already know what is coming………….. it was now having a major impact on their ‘mental health’, which I believe is now one of the most common medical disorders of the younger generation 🙄 To be honest the list of their complaints just went on and on and on, even worse than some of my rambles, if that is indeed possible 😂 Of course we agreed with many of the issues that they had identified, especially the weather and seasonal stuff, but we had already said, that had we have chosen that lifestyle, over the Motor-homing one, then we would have prepared ourselves mentally for it, as for the lack of social interactions, well you know how anti-social Shazza and I are, so that aspect actually went into our ‘Advantages’ list 😂 Anyway, we only got half way through the half hour episode, then turned it off as listening to all the moans and groans was beginning to have an impact on our own ‘mental health’ 🤭

Shazza and I then got into a conversation, about both of these couples, the one’s returning to the UK from Spain and the Narrowboat one’s. How much real thought and actual research had either of them gone into, ‘before’ they decided to jump in at the deep end 🤷‍♂️ Now of course, we knew from our own Motor-homing adventures, that you cannot foresee every single pitfall, obstacle or disadvantage that you may encounter along a particular adventure, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if there were no moments of ‘stress’ or if their were absolutely no ‘Unknowns’, but surely you should at least be aware of the more likely one’s that you would expect to encounter, before you did actually decide to take the plunge 🤷‍♂️ But yes I know, to be fair to them, perhaps it is possible that neither of them had an OCD Buddy that they can rely on to poke them in the ribs about stuff they need to at least think about 🤔 But of course, even in our earlier adventures, although I had planned everything to within an inch of our lives, we still encountered some of those unforeseen ‘Brown Trouser Moments’ 😂

So, fortunately, my equilibrium and mental health were to be restored, when I came across a much more positive article, not in a local Spanish media publication or on a ‘You Tube’ social media channel but in a European News Media Publication. A British woman, with a young family, had recently moved from London to Spain, and what had actually attracted my interest was not that it was a story from another Expat living somewhere else in Spain, but here, in our own local town of Sabinillas and, as I read the article further there were certain similarities with what I am continually rambling on about to you my reader’s 🤭

Now reading her account of the ‘Queues’, to be honest I hadn’t heard of this invisible system before, and yes, I had been frustrated several times when queuing, like the good patient Brit that I am, when someone would walk in and appear to push in front of everyone else. However, I had also personally experienced this invisible queuing system when I had gone into our Post Office, although I didn’t know about it at the time. Now it did have one of those ticket machines where you take a number and then wait for the board to tell you it was your turn, but on this occasion the number board was out of Sync with the ticket issuing machine, indicating that I had actually missed my turn even though I had just taken the next available ticket and so it just appeared to be a free for all 🤔 There was no formal queue, which is quite normal, unless you are at a checkout in a supermarket, and I looked around with a confused expression on my face trying to work out how many were in front of me and how many had come in after me 😲. Several people went up to the desk before me but then there was a pause, although there were still three or four people stood around waiting 🤷‍♂️ A woman pointed at me and then pointed towards the free space at the desk, it was my turn and, until just recently, on reading this article, I hadn’t understood what the hell had gone on during that visit to the Post Office. There are some things that language speaking tutorials just don’t teach you and you have to just learn either by experience of living here, or reading a useful and informative media article 😉

Needless to say, Shazza and I have not been up to anything much to tell you about, just enjoying ‘The Luxury Of Making Space For Life To Happen’ 😂

And In Other News……………

Sometimes, when I am perusing the media headlines there is a photo with a headline that just makes me chuckle……….

Until my next ramble……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida es Buena