Diary of a Downshifter – Part 14 Downshifting to Spain
After 18 happy months in Finca Granadero we decide to move on. There was no rational explanation for this other than the fact that we had got itchy feet and I wanted to live nearer Gibraltar and in better bee country. We looked for many properties [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 12 Downshifting to Spain
My next move in the Sharam electricity saga was a visit to the company offices in Velez Malaga accompanied by grovelling explanations about misunderstandings, absences of mind, invalidism; genuine error of judgement and so on but all seemed to be of no avail. The electricity was [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 11 Downshifting to Spain
Sharam’s new home needed to be remote because of his continuing requirements for daily challenge and I knew that the small place down the track from us belonging to an English couple from Birmingham might well do the trick. They only frequented the place a once [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 10 Downshifting to Spain
Within a year, we had turned a very pretty Andalucian country cottage that had been turned into seaside villa back into a very pretty Andalucian cottage only now with better facilities such as electricity, water, a wood burning stove and an operational septic tank, and we [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 9 Downshifting to Spain
Now that the house was literally out of the mud we were able to start turning it back into a small Andalucian country cottage. We wrecked and re-did the bathroom; we ripped out the false plasterboard arches which concealed beautiful wooden beams; we placed wood and [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 8 Downshifting to Spain
I’d never done any plumbing before but I did have that book – The Readers’ Digest Book of DIY and so armed with this I set about re-plumbing the entire house whilst Annabel knocked down false walls with hideous arches, revealing the beautiful and original eucalyptus beams [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 7 Downshifting to Spain
In common with many old Spanish houses in the countryside, ours was dug into the bank. This meant that when it rained, the back wall of the house would become damp. When it really rained, the wall would start oozing water and when the rain increased, a [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 6 Downshifting to Spain
Everything started out as it should have done. Antonio and Carlos picked me up an hour late and we went immediately to a bar for some fortification. Had I known how the rest of the night was going to pan out, I’d have had ten more and [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 5 Downshifting to Spain
It was now time to acquire some bees. After all, that was why we were there. We heard from a friend that an old boy was downsizing his bee stocks and contacted him in Velez Malaga. He turned up about an hour and a half late for [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 4 Downshifting To Spain
After stalling this potential thief who was the owner of the supermarket in the nearby village of Los Romanes, we contacted our lawyer. Once you have a set of deeds in Spain, you can keep them, even after you have sold the property. New deeds [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 3 Downshifting To Spain
So we had arrived. It was unnerving to think that this was it. The cottage was fairly sound but still lacked electricity and in fact compared to what was to come over the next few years, it was pure luxury. Many days later the electricians came [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 2 Downshifting to Spain
On October 3 1993 we set off for Plymouth and the ferry to Santander in a Luton Van driven by our friend Graham and us in the lightweight Landrover and trailer. It was strange to think that ‘that was it’. No more salary. No job. No [...]
Diary of a Downshifter – Part 1 Downshifting to Spain
This diary tells the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies and daily routines of a typical overseas downshifting couple which grew into a downshifting family. All of it is true and it all began in November 1993 when my wife Anna and I left the UK [...]
