Life and relocation to Spain

It seems a long time ago that we landed jobs for Spain in September and tomorrow the adventure really begins as we visit the area for the first time and start to take care of some of the necessary business.

We've spent some time emailing people in the area with reference renting a property and have a small range of viewings to take care of in the coming week. The school where we will be working has two properties for us to look at. Both are have three bedrooms and their own swimming pool. One is an older styled property and is unfurnished for 500 Euros each month. The other is a newer style renovation and is available fully furnished for 800 Euros a month. In addition we have two further properties to view. The first is identical sounding to the 800 Euro property the school are offering and may even be the same property coming from a rental agency in the same town. The other is a private let from a gentleman who is moving away from Spain for work but is currently unable to sell his property. It is a far more luxurious sounding property but may well not be able to get within our budget.

Today we have also downloaded the application forms for our NIE number. The NIE number (sometimes referred to as an NIF number) is an essential document for living and working in Spain. It is basically the same as a UK National Insurance number. The application process is relatively simple. The forms can be downloaded and completed in advance and then need to be presented to a police station. This can be done in the nearest large town. The recommendation is to arrive at the police station at 8AM to avoid waiting any longer than is necessary. Along with the completed forms you need to take along your passport, a photocopy of your passport, two passport sized photographs and a photocopy of the form itself. The only slight stumbling block is the requirement for a Spanish address in order for the form to be processed. However, I am advised that so long as you have a friend or colleague who will let you enter their address you can proceed with the application. When you eventually have your own address you then need to register a change of address to ensure your correct details are on file.

The gentleman with the larger property to rent has been hugely helpful in directing us to information about both the details of moving and the area itself. It was a slight shock to discover that funnel web spiders and black widow spiders are both native to the area. In the case of the black widow spider it is the most common spider in the area. It does make the move all the more exotic to be considering the changes to wildlife that will share our garden.

Our itinery for the week is as follows:
Monday: Arrive - Purchase a Spanish SIM card - Make necessary phone calls to organise viewings on the properties.
Tuesday: View properties.
Wednesday: Spend the day in school and hopefully find time to eat out in the evening at the local bar in the village close to the school.
Thursday: Possibly spend more time in the school if required.
Friday: Obtain NIE numbers and start relaxing into the weekend.

This gives us Saturday and most of Sunday to relax before coming back on Sunday evening.

Emily is excited at the prospect of seeing her new school for the first time and meeting teachers. I'm sure she's also hoping we will find time to buy some of her new school uniform because she would love to show that to family back in England before she leaves. We're hoping that at the very least we have initiated the NIE process and have found a property we want to rent at a suitable price. We are also hoping that we will be able to decide on a moving date so that we can start in motion the final preparations when we return to England. The likelihood now is that we will want to sell both cars and buy a van. In addition there is still a lot of furniture and goods that we need to sift through if we are going to be streamlined enough for an efficient move.

The weather report suggests rain and showers until Wednesday albeit with temperatures over 20 degrees. Thursday will brighten up with sunshine and temperatures upto 28 degrees so getting the business end of the visit out of the way in the first few days would be good as then we should have time to relax and enjoy the sunshine.

So - a busy week but hopefully a productive week beckons.

Conversations about where to live in Spain, how to move to Spain, which car to take all seem to be on hold at the moment until we visit and make a choice on the property we want to rent. The aim is to secure a property from early in August with the intention of having a few weeks to acclimatise before starting work in September. There is a wealth of information trickling through about what might be expected from property rental in the area. There are some fantastic properties to be rented but many may be well out of our budget. In addition, there is a budget market that may not quite deliver on what we need for a comfortable life. I have been advised that viewing property at this time of the year sometimes leads to overlooking the apparant need for central heating. It seems strange to be viewing in sunshine and instead of asking about the air conditioning to ask about the central heating but nights in the winter months can be extremely cold and a fireplace is just not enough to stay comfortable.
On a positive note, here are the photographs of one property we intend to view when visiting in a couple of weeks time. They came through this week and certainly managed to give us a 'wow' factor.

This is the main bedroom. The property has three bedrooms and as will be seen in a further image this bedroom does have a great aspect, giving out onto a sun terrace.

The en suite for the master bedroom - kind of self-explanatory really.

This is bedroom 2. Although a little dark you can see that it is large enough to fit two single beds comfortably and also gives out onto a sun terrace. A pleasant enough aspect for breakfast on a sunny morning.

Often Spanish kitchens are quite small affairs and the Spanish certainly don't seem to be quite as obsessed with fitted kitchens with integrated appliances. This then is a good sized kitchen and certainly looks reasonably equipped.

And finally - the garden. This is the photo that wins the property for me and has it definitely on my hit list of properties we would like to view in a couple of weeks time.

The property itself has three bedrooms and is a new refurbishment that has not yet been lived in. It is available fully furnished for the price of 800 Euros per month. This makes it on the upper end of what we wanted to pay but with two double sofa beds in the lounge it would make a great holiday get away for friends and family as well as being a decent sized family home. Obviously when we have made our preliminary visit in a couple of weeks I will post more images.

Back home the gritty reality of trying to prepare this house for rental and prepare ourselves for moving is just beginning to take its toll. It really is tiring work and because of the upheaval involved a little stressful at times. We spent last weekend power washing the patio and pathways so that the property can be best presented. With the new carpets and clean decoration downstairs it really is beginning to look the part. There are however a host of minor tasks still to do int he next couple of weeks. Sally is part way through painting Emily's bedroom. As the 'box' room painting is a nightmare as all items need moving in to the centre of the room and even then there is hardly room to move around. Frustratingly it looks like the room will take three coats of magnolia before the lurid pink and purple walls of the disney princess themed room finally disappear. The kitchen floor is still waiting for my attention as are the changing of dripping taps and the painting of the kitchen.

Financially we are moving a step closer to being ready to go. Last night we had a visit from our financial advisor and have signed up for a life insurance policy that will cover both Sally and I for 20 years. There appears to be only one life insurance company comfortable with us taking out a policy in the United Kingdom and then living in Spain. The life insurance though became a necessity because when we move I will no longer be in the Teacher's Pension Scheme which currently provides our life insurance needs. We have also arranged a home insurance that can convert in three months time to landlords insurance so with a little luck we won't need to change companies.

And then, I watched the news last night about the inflation in this country being basically out of control in the coming months. I've often suggested to anyone interested enough to listen to my ramblings that inflation in this country is a fabrication and that the real figure is far higher than admitted. Now it seems as though the price of living in the United Kingdom is set to rise and the pay is not going to rise alongside. Maybe this is an international problem but it also seems one that the current government does little to alleviate. Of the 51 billion pounds that will be spent on fuel in the next 12 months, 31 billion pounds will be tax. Surely there's scope there for a little cutback in the taxation rate to help folks have a little more money left over at the end of the month.

I always know its time to leave a party when I hear myself speaking religion or politics so before I get embroiled in my 'why Britain stinks at the moment' rant I'll sign off.

Our minds at the moment are buzzing with the variety of different options for moving to Spain. Do we sell both cars and buy a van? Sell one car and buy a van? Sell one car and buy a trailer? Do we rent furnished or unfurnished in Spain? I think we've reached a point now where we will be unable to move forward on these decisions until we've made our preliminary visit to the area at the end of May. Only three weeks away from being able to make some concrete decisions but in the meantime, so much more to do.

Jason completed the bathroom floor but then we had to wait a couple more days for the next team to do the kitchen ceiling. The bathroom floor and kitchen ceiling are now complete though so that is one more significant task out of the way. Alongside that, the insurance company now don't seem to want me as a customer which is a financial advantage. Prudential have offered a figure for the coming year of over £500 which is bizarre considering Tesco offer a similar buildings and contents insurance for a third of that. Not that any of it matters too much as we will only be paying about three months of insurance and then we'll be switching to a landlord's insurance when we leave for Spain.

In amongst this we have been trying to downscale on the rubbish we have accumulated by taking cars full of junk to the tip. The attic and the shed have been the biggest hit and some items from the attic were placed there when we first moved in seven years ago.

The house decorating is moving on apace now. We have so far decorated one of the bedrooms. (The other main bedroom is reasonably decorated and may not need painting, but Emily's lilac princess room may well need at least two coats of magnolia to hide the colour.) The bathroom is decorated, the downstairs cloakroom, the stairs and landing, the front room and the dining room. The only rooms left to decorate now are the conservatory, Emily's bedroom and the kitchen. When the carpets got laid earlier in the week the house looked so good there was a brief and fleeting feeling of 'why are we leaving?'. The answer to this came in the form of a telephone conversation with the head of the school in Spain. I phoned to thank her for sending a copy of the local newspaper and some paperwork about the school. I asked how much work I needed to put into finding the rental property and how much help the school would provide. Fortunately the school have an arrangement with a local agent who keeps properties back for the school. They currently have two properties overlooking the school that we will be able to look at when we go out in three weeks time. Both are 3/4 bedroom properties and on the mountain overlooking the school. Both located therefore, five minutes from work, ten minutes from the main town of Alzira, and about fifteen minutes from the beaches. The first is offered unfurnished and described as an older style villa with its own garden and swimming pool. At five hundred Euros a month it sounds a bargain. The second is a brand new villa with a mosaic swimming pool and is offered fully furnished to a high standard and with all white goods. That one is available for 800 Euros per month. I have also had an email from another contact in the area who has a villa for us to look at that sounds like a compromise between the two described above. At 650 Euros per month I'm assuming it is unfurnished. It has four bedrooms and a garden and swimming pool. It also has UK television and mainline telephone and internet connectivity which isn't always easy to acquire and would certainly help us stay in touch with family and friends back in the UK.

The property though wasn't the answer to the feeling of doing the right thing by moving. That certainty came from a discussion about planning requirements in the new school. Currently I am required to plan a termly plan in each subject and in addition a detailed literacy and numeracy plan running often to more than ten sides of A4 paper each week. The new school has the planning ready. No re-planning is required, just a little tinkering to ensure the planning provided matches the current class. That is a gift of at least three hours a week back to my own life. In addition much of the other paperwork that I have to complete in the United Kingdom will be non-existent in Spain. My time at the end of the day and the weekends really will be my time and consequently as a family we have so much to gain from this move.

So, I'm off now to write the Individual Education Plans required for my current class. That is twenty sides of A4 paper on top of the usual weekly planning. The move to Spain can't come soon enough and I'm sure will seem like a breath of fresh air compared to the UK systems we endure.