Sunday 15/04/12 two weeks in and time to take stock!

Cabrera Mountains, the view from our apartment balcony.

It is so easy when you are wrapped up in all of this to forget what we have managed to achieve in so short a time here in Spain. We did a lot of preparation in advance of our arrival but all the internet research and planning can go wrong sometimes when you actually try and put it all into practice when you arrive in a foreign country.


The fact that we arrived and 5 days later the country shut down for the Easter holidays made it all the more imperative we got to where we need to be in as short a time as possible! The fact that I had left the UK with a severe stomach bug and was severely hobbled feeling so ill when I arrived but I refused to allow it to derail our already well laid plans. it was imperative we got our NIE numbers (needed for EVERYTHING important in Spain!) applied for as we were already butting up upon Easter and we had no idea how long that would put back our applications.


Following the Easter weekend we had scheduled house viewings for most of the week leading up to getting our NIE's on the Friday and then the last day of viewings on the Saturday. We had put in weeks of preparation in advance, going through hundreds of homes online on multiple websites applying our viewing criteria to them to whittle them down to a manageable list of approx 25 homes we wanted to view. As it was one or two were double listed with more than one agent and a couple had been sold or had offers on them so we ended up with a core listing of about 21 to see with multiple Estate Agents.


On the very first day we had a front runner in El Pinar De Bedar, a house with amazing views and facilities but with compromises on size and pool area. Day two threw up another surprising front runner with a house in Los Gallardos that lacked immediate kerb appeal (like El Pinar too!) but a huge -  in comparison - floor area with it's ace, a massive outside pool area with an extra bedroom and bathroom! It isn't as jaw dropping in the view stakes but offers a lot more overall. Then we hit the buffers and struck out for the next two viewing days with disappointing properties that couldn't come near those two houses. Could anything else hope to topple the front runners?


Saturday gave us a house that had everything that El Pinar gave us and more! This was a surprising turn up for the books! Views all round, a bigger house, better overall, but with a VERY windy drive to get to it! Stuart doesn't take to extreme curves well so that and the master bedroom size could make it a problem!