I’m out of the habit of keeping my blog up to date but will see if I can’t get back into it – anyway we’re now in the UK, having arrived in July 10th.

It’s been much much easier to settle in than we ever expected, partly due to good fortune/good planning on Jo’s behalf, having moved into a superb location. Despite being in a street which is out of the catchment area of the kids’ school Gabe has got 2-3 kids in his class as neighbours (all of whom are really nice) and there are siblings to keep Olivia happy as well. Essentially it’s a constant street party for the kids, we never see them unless they (and all their mates) deign to pay us a visit.

Esmé equally is happy to have all the kids around and the attention she receives, and we’ve got a nice garden where she’s got a slide and a trampoline to keep her amused.

It’s all very ‘English’, with a pub (and beer garden) at the end of the road, we do walks, are planning on harvesting the blackberries soon for a crumble, and get together with the neighbours for a BBQ or a day out. I’m enjoying the beer, a good pint of bitter at last!

Work-wise there have been big changes at Selfcateringhols (watch this space) which should be good. I’ve got work lined up with Globe2 that will keep me busy and pay the bills in the short term so that’s all good.

I’ll be moving my blog to a new server soon, so I’ll update it and I guess may have to choose a different theme from the ‘counting my lucky stars in Vilanova i la Geltru’.

Funny that when there’s most happening that I’d like to record I don’t have time to keep up my blog.

The BIG changes in our lives since updating my blog:

1. we’re leaving Spain and moving to the UK, probably by July

2. At the start of this year, with Selfcateringhols struggling in the economic crisis I started a new business (Globe2) installing voip telephones into businesses. That’s gone well with several call centres under my belt and contracts for more already agreed. By July I hope to be handling 80-100,000 calls a month.

We should be signing this week on the house after which we can really start to organise the logistics, as it stands we’re already living amongst boxes.

Will try and update again sometime soon!

Jo put the heating on for the first time this year last night – it was cold outside but I haven’t really been feeling it. Today the kids were sent out wrapped up but it’s got really warm in the sun so I’ve got the windows and doors open.

We’ve sold our car

Fab timing as I really thought we were going to be stuck with it after the summer. It went much smoother than expected as well – when buying our other car it involved multiple trips to Barcelona (the seller paid someone to do the donkey work thankfully), and several days of driving the car without the correct papers. We’d envisaged having to spend 2-300 euros just to sell it but it turns out that it cost us nothing!

We hadn’t realised, but one of the reasons it cost the seller of our new car so much to sell was because he hadn’t paid his road tax, which he had to pay in one go in order to sell it. As we’d been paying by direct debit it was all done, all I had to do was find the bit of paper proving it was paid up, hop on my bike and whiz down to the office. All done and dusted within a couple of hours. Result.

I guess I’ll be on my bike more often again now, not something that I’m unhappy about….

It’s the fiesta season, first the Fiesta Major de Vilanova and after that the fiesta specifically for the Geltru (the old town).

Last night there was a CorreFoc which translates to a ‘fire run’, which is a pretty apt description. It involved various groups, accompanied by their own band of drummers, dressed as devils and carrying large amounts of fireworks and sometimes the odd dragon also laden down with fireworks. These are set off throughout the town, amongst the onlookers. Those who want to get close to the action wear long sleeves, trousers, shoes, hats and masks. Get in their way at your peril if you’re in sandals, shorts and t-shirts!

Mum and Ray are here and they really enjoyed it, which was good. The nice thing about the fiestas is that it is not a tourist thing, it’s enjoyed by the locals, for the locals, so you feel quite a part of it as opposed to watching some show put on for your benefit.

There are giants at some point and there’s music and other things going on, I forget exactly when. Monday there are the Castellers which are human towers – they will climb on top of each others shoulders to make a tower 3 or 4 storeys high, which is quite a spectacle, followed by fireworks on the beach at 11pm.

I had thought maybe that after 8 years in Spain that I’d got accustomed to the heat of the summer as it’s felt pleasant to date. This was made more pronounced after a week in Mallorca with a large chunk of the UK resident Andrews clan who asked on more than one occasion how we coped with ‘this heat’ when we thought it was actually quite fresh.

Anyway – myth dispelled as the summer has arrived in force. The last few days have been so hot that all you want to do during the day is sleep. Three or four o’clock in the afternoon is the real killer time when – despite having too much work to cope with and plenty of enthusiasm to tackle it – the heat just evaporates any energy you might have remaining.

ha, I took the mickey out of James yesterday for saying the same thing. It’s the mid-afternoon that is the killer, you just feel soooo lethargic (yes, more than usual!) and can’t find enthusiasm for doing anything, especially work.

Jo went up to the pool with the kids and a load of friends and I had hoped to join them later on, but the timing didn’t work out so I’m sitting here at my desk with a sweat on

I might see if I can go for a run later on this evening..

the cat’s lying on my arms again as I type. She’s not been doing it so much of late as she’s been snoozing in the entrance – which doesn’t get the sun and is the coolest part of the house. Today’s overcast though so she’s back on my arms and sticking her legs into my stomach, not the easiest working position!

I’ve had my head down working these last few weeks and all non-essential (and some not-quite-non-essential) luxuries such as blogging have been put to one side. I had hoped that today would be the culmination of the project and I could get my life back in order but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, at least not yet.

Other than that, things are going well: Esmé is in a great routine which has meant far less disruption to my daily routine than expected. If anything she sleeps so well that I’m not stopping to work as expected, so the allotted time when I try and keep on top of the household chores has got shorter and shorter.

The kids are well, we saw their teachers yesterday and had very positive meetings.

The weather has started to turn a lot warmer now, the trees have got leaves on and we’re definitely heading into summer. I started wearing shorts at the weekend and although I haven’t been in them every day since it’s getting that way. I’m getting more Spanish in my ways now as well – a few years ago I would have been in shorts weeks ago but I suppose once you get used to the fact that you’re going to have a long hot summer there’s less of a rush to get into the swing of things.

Last weekend we saw the beach chiringuito (beach bar) set up for the first time this year which is another signal that summer is coming

it started off so well, I woke feeling rested (not often I can say that) and Esmé slept in till 8am (bar a 6:30 am snack) so she also woke very happy.

It quickly went downhill: Gabe left his homework folder here, which in itself shouldn’t be a big issue but they have a mad system here whereby if you don’t bring your homework folder into school then you can’t then take homework home that night. Sounds like an excellent reason to forget your folder if you ask me. That wouldn’t be good anyway, but today is Gabe’s one-on-one Catalan lesson after school and we’ve specifically asked the teacher for his reading book and any additional work he needs to go over. Without the folder I doubt we’ll get anything. Of course Jo being super good and super organised has left the folder on the breakfast table, so no excuses there…

The real problem though was that I’d arranged for a technician to come and look at our washing machine – he was due to come this morning, which in Spanish time means between 9-2. Now I generally get back from dropping Esmé off by about 9:05, but then have to go and pick her up at about 12:50. Normally we’d then potter around a little doing odd jobs, as everything shuts after 2 so if there’s anything to be done then that’s the time to do it. Anyway by 12:45 the washing machine man hadn’t come so I stuck up a note and said ‘back at 1′. I picked up E, ran home without doing any jobs and found my note added to: ‘came at 12:50. arrange for another appointment’. Aggghhh. Bloody typical. The guarantee runs out next weekend so I can’t afford for a re-run of today.