Well, after a few days of not knowing what was happening, on Friday 28th October we finally moved into our new house. But what a week it was!
On Thursday 20th Ian drove to Burela to sign contract and make bank transfer for the full amount to the 4 vendors, only to find out they wouldn’t take a bank transfer and it had to be a bankers draft cheque. So that was a very long journey, hotel stay etc needlessly.
On the Friday we heard that one of the vendors was ill and had been taken into hospital, so even if they had accepted the bank transfer the contract couldn’t be signed.
On the Monday we heard that sadly that person had died, so it was good that we hadn’t made the bank transfer as it would have been frozen until their estate was sorted.
Then we didn’t hear anything so we managed to find an AirBnB which would take us and all our animals – so we decided to book and pay for a month in advance.
On Wednesday the estate agent got in touch to say the deceased vendor’s children were being very cooperative and if we could bring banker’s drafts on the Friday, we could sign a private contract and then sign the deeds later.
On Thursday we went to the bank and got the bankers draft (with one very nasty moment after the lady doing the cheques paused for an unnecessarily long time after ‘that will take 10…’ with both Ian and I fearing she was going to say ‘days’ instead of ‘minutes’) and Friday we left!
What a week!!
We left about 6.30 on Friday morning, packed up the van and left the front door of the house open for the removal men to come about 8. We headed to the very north of Spain making occasional stops to check on the animals and to get something to eat – and here’s an interesting thing – even now it was impossible to find vegetarian food in the service stations. The nearest I got was a sandwhich which was half potato tortilla and half ham, so Ian took one side and I took the other.
The drive was fine, I think the pressure of still not quite believing that it was all going to go smoothly put a bit of a dampener on the trip. Given what had gone wrong so far, another vendor falling ill or one of them deciding they only wanted payment in pesetas or some other such unforseen problem was always at the back of my mind.
What was interesting was the scenery not really changing until we got to the very north of Spain. While there were hills and mountains in the background, the brown scenery and fields of olive trees stayed pretty much with us. I thought we’d see changes in landscape much earlier. It wasn’t until we got to the very far north that I suddenly realized we started to see dicidous trees changing colour in autumn, something we realized we hadn’t seen for years!
The weather was basically kind to us until we got to the mountains in the north. I guess this would be quite dramatic scenery in other times, but I must admit to not really enjoying this part. The whole journey through the mountains was either through tunnels or over viaducts, and it was very high up. There were snow poles along most of the journey through the mountains and frequent emergency stopping areas for when there’s heavy snow. I’m not sure when that would start, but I definitely don’t think I’d like the trip then.
But eventually we came back down again and that’s when everything changed. The landscape changed and became green, houses changed to having slate roofs rather than tiles, and the archetecture became very different. And then suddently we arrived at the very north of Spain and the atlantic was ahead of us!
We had a bit of time to spare before Ian had to go to the agent’s office, so we sat and watched some surfers on one of the beaches in Burela. I then waited in the van while Ian got the keys.
When we arrived at the house we didn’t really know what to expect as we knew it had been empty for a while, but it felt dry and no smell of damp or mustiness. There was electricity and no water – plenty of lights, but only three sockets! That’s really not unusual though, as years ago, people cooked with wood or gas and electricity was only used for light – so much so that the word for electricity is ‘luz’ which is light.
It’s a very strange quirky house, lots of rooms and different levels (which was actually just what we wanted) – it’s quite difficult to work out what is what – in fact Ian found a room we didn’t know about because it is quite difficult to understand the layout. We think that the original living space was the barns, in fact, there s a larrier in the barn, which is an ancient oven where people would sit (the bench is still there) in front of the fire, with a bread oven at the back. The upstairs would be where they slept.
We think the house was built on later, either in whole or bit by bit, so there’s an entrance to one of the rooms which is only through the barn, which is why we didn’t know it was there (it was only when we were looking at windows that there appeared to be too many windows for the rooms we knew we had).
We were given the inheritence document about the house and it was first documented in 1911 in the name of the family who we bought from, and I imagine that was because it was when property records started, so I think we are probably only the second family to live in the house.
Some of the barns are full of ‘stuff’ and goodness knows what we will find, but I did see a wooden clog and some old fishing nets, so I think it will be interesting to look through. While I guess we’d prefer not to clear out decades worth of stuff – it will certainly be intriguing.
One of the very strange things about the house is I don’t think it’s been permenently lived in for years. There’s a prestine 1970s bathroom, which I think must have been installed before the last permenent resident left.
There are some old school books in the kitchen where a child had written the date of 1974.
There are signs that people have stayed here since then, so I wonder if that’s family popping in.
So…. we had no water until Saturday and a neighbour showed us how to turn the well water on. We then cancelled the AirB&B as we decided we wouldn’t use it – a tad annoying as we’d paid for a month in advance, but we decided that if we think of it as being insurance should anything have gone wrong, then it was well worth the investment.
….and on Monday the water ran out!!! Not sure what happened, but we noticed the water pressure getting less and less until it stopped. However, Ian filled a few water bottles with sea water to flush the WC – which is a benefit of living next to the sea we hadn’t anticipated! Of course, we have now cancelled the airbnb so can’t nip there for a shower 🙂
The removal company was great and as far as we can see I don’t think there’s been any breakages. I think they were a bit of a give away as to where we had moved from!
We’ve met a few neighbours who seem very nice, there are a lot of holiday homes around, so I think permenent residents are in the minority.
All the animals have settled in well, although the stairs have proved a challenge to some of them, but hopefully they’ll get used to them. And we’ve made a nice play area out the front, admittedly, the table we’ve used to block the play area gives a bit of a Steptoe feel – but it’s only short term!
There are a few very nicely renovated houses near by and I hope people aren’t going to expect us to do similar. Our intention is certainly not to rennovate the house but to only do what needs doing when it needs doing and just let things evolve. There are so many quirky things that we really need to live with them for a while to see what’s what.
Weather-wise, it’s much the same as Villagarcia but a bit warmer in the night – which is what we expected – milder winters and less hot summers. The temperature has been around 21/23 and 16 at night. It’s more cloudy though, and changes from sun to cloud very quickly.
Today Ian has gone to Burela to pick up the car (which he left when he came up the first time as the windscreen wiper wasn’t working) – and hopefully to get the water sorted ASAP. He got the train – as we found out the train station is about 800ms away – and the journey takes 6 minutes! So one thing we will definately do is see where we can go on the train for days out.
Next it’s a case of unpacking boxes and deciding how to make use of the space. When we started packing I was really disciplined and was sat there thinking things like ‘socks, hmmm, perhaps I’ll pack summer socks here and winter socks here, oh and I’ll separate out long from short….’ however, as time went on and we got closer to moving, it was more like ‘right, bedding, pooper scooper, flour – all in that box….’ so it’s a bit of an adventure sorting our own stuff out – before we start on the barns!!!