Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Difficult one Tpin. I haven´t lived in so many countries but we did do more than the standard 2 weeks holiday in most places, sometimes even returning. I love Africa, I love the difference, the wildlife, even most of the people. When we lived there I often wished I wasn´t there, when I wasn´t there I wished I was. I also love the far east, especially Singapore. If I was rich that´s where I would be. The only places I have never wanted to return to are Tunisia and Malta. Malta because it´s so devoid of wildlife, no trees, no rivers, it´s just so barren.

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Hi Clumsy do you speak Spanish fluently .
If so was it difficult to learn

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Hi Clumsy, what do you think about the Spain/Gibralta problems?

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

I wouldn't call myself fluent by any means Meg, passable would be more like it. I do find their many verb tenses difficult.

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Hmm, to be honest I don't give it much thought Tiffany. I really don't know why anyone would want it to be honest, I found it a really depressing place. I can see why it was wanted during the last war, strategically placed I guess, but I can't see it being of much use in modern warfare. A friend and I went a couple of years ago by coach, we passed over the Spanish border side, the border control came on the coach to check passports, very pleasant and polite. We got to the British side and the border control man got on the coach, boy oh boy was he unpleasant ! He walked up the coach glaring and saying "passports", looked at them, virtually threw them back at us. There were 2 elderly Russian ladies on the coach, they had been told it was unlikely they would be allowed into Gibralter without visas, but they decided to take a chance anyway. The border control man got to them, looked at their passports and said " off this coach now, you are not allowed into Gibralter", he stood there waving his thumb at the coach door like a hitchhiker. I don't think there was any need for him to have been so unpleasant.

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Hi clumsy. I'm intrigued by your decision to try living in Kenya. Much though I too love Africa, I would think it is a difficult place to live. What age were you when you made that decision and do you think in retrospect that it was a bit ill-conceived?

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Hi orang-utan. You are right, Kenya is a difficult place to live, it's so frustrating it's untrue, it's also expensive and whatever you want costs you.
Kitu kidogo is the key word, something small, which means anything from £50 upwards, you won't get anything official dealt with unless you pay the tea money. However we loved Kenya, we had visited many times and had many friends there and decided when we both retired we would spend a year or two there, our plan for retirement was to come to Spain eventually.

Plans changed due to my closest friend taken suddenly very ill whilst we were away one weekend, it was horrendous, a brain tumour. A day I will never forget. My friend had driven 250 miles with no problem, a few short hours later she was desperately ill with a brain tumour. I was given sick leave from work and I stayed a week in Canterbury with her, Canterbury hospital couldn't do anything and transferred her to King's College, I stayed with her the whole time, they couldn't do anything either. I won't go into more detail, but my friend was then transferred back to Chesterfield hospital, then to Luke's in Sheffield, then home, then to a hospice. This was 8 months of hell, I rarely saw my own home, if I wasn't at work I was with her.

The last thing she said to me was "......... whatever you intend doing, do it now while you can, if you hadn't ducked when you did that little arrow might have hit you and not me". Those words really did change my life, I took early retirement from work at 52, Mr Clumsy had taken early retirement a couple of years before but was agency driving so no problem.
I really wasn't myself at that time, I knew that too, so did everyone else, but I had to do it, Mr Clumsy humoured me, I truly was totally distraught.

Yes looking back I'm sure I would have gone about things differently, but we did it, I have some regrets about certain events but not many and it certainly was one hell of an experience. I found a whole new me, not sure if that's good or bad, but I certainly learned the vast difference between holidaying in foreign countries and living in one, I learnt an awful lot. :

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

Thanks for your full and open reply. Sorry to hear about the awful time you had, but I'm sure your friend would have been very glad that her words made such a positive difference to your life.

My next question - When you first moved to Spain did you find it difficult to adjust or did you feel settled straight away?

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

It was more complicated to move here then than it is now, lots of paperwork, form filling, fingerprinting etc, but our solicitor was with us for the difficult bits, it was more time consuming than anything. For people moving here these days it's a doddle compared to what it was then. Once we found our way around life was much easier, but we settled quite quickly. There were, (are) many people and many organisations to give help to newcomers, and despite what I hear from some people, we always found the Spanish patient and helpful and always polite, despite the way some people spoke to them. The trouble with some British people is that they expect, well virtually demand, that everyone speaks English. We heard it very often "they can all speak English they just want to be difficult !"

We made new friends, English friends from Kenya also moved here shortly after us and our oldest long time friends from England also moved here a couple of years after us. So yes, I think it fair to say by the time we had been here a few months we were well into the swing of things. One thing that really does annoy me is hearing people say, "they don't do it like this in England" or "if you did that in England you'd be in trouble" etc, why can't they understand that Spain is not England ?

Re: Clumsy in the hot seat.

I so agree with your last line!

I go to Mallorca (or sometimes Andalucia) every year at least once, mainly inland to enjoy the atmosphere and walking. One of the things that I love is that my diet there is full of tasty fresh fruit and vegetables, always so much better tasting than at home. Apart from the climate, what are the things that you value most about where you live?

(Then I'll shut up for a while!)