And we're back!

6 months later…it’s been a long, slightly tedious tale of essentially waiting around for paperwork, but a tale that now has a happy ending as we’re back in Asturias for good! It’s funny looking back, as we were so sure leaving in January 22 that it was goodbye - endless tears and big emotions…Only to be returning to the UK after 3 months. July then rolled around and we all did another big send off, hugs tears the works…To find out residency was rejected and I’d have to leave again in another 90 days. I suppose the good news is I’m definitely getting better at the goodbyes, *generally by the time we’re arriving in France the tears have stopped and the excitement starts to build…

*dependant on sleep, food and hormones of course.

Speaking of journeys, we managed a pretty smooth one over, having blasted down the last couple of times, we decided to allow ourselves 3 days for this trip, spending our first night in Tours - beautiful city, full of energy - we stopped for dinner at a gorgeous pizzeria (safest option for veggies that don’t speak French…) and took a nice stroll down the river the following morning with a reluctant Goose. Next stop was Bayonne - a city just above Biarritz, luckily for us a lot of people speak Spanish here so we really felt able to immerse ourselves into the city… from there only a 4 hour drive home. Would highly recommend this route for anyone driving over to us from the UK, a nice little holiday before the holiday!

Arriving back felt surreal, something we had been so looking forward to, but also were approaching with a sense of anticipation - had the caravan withstood the winter? Was the garden insanely overgrown? Had the house been occupied by a family of rodents who would refuse to return us ownership and now we would have to live in the caravan forever…?! Luckily for us there were no disasters to arrive back to, only a slightly (very) overgrown garden..Something we were expecting knowing how well everything grows in Asturias, but we maybe underestimated how quickly it all grows..

Within an hour we were being embraced and welcomed back by all the neighbours, Brett had casually mentioned the strimmer was broken but that we’d get it fixed and sort the garden out in the week… 20 minutes later and Jesus was up with his mower. By the end of day one being home, we had a tidied up garden, a bed made in the caravan and a fridge full of food. We were home, and it absoloutely felt like it.

The first week back was full on, we had already decided the plan would be to move inside once the windows were fitted, waving goodbye to the caravan. So on day 2 of being back we started work on transforming our future kitchen/living room into a studio apartment…think cool New York loft vibes - just slightly less edgy and a lot more dust. First on the agenda was sorting out our furniture that we had piled into the house 9 months ago, not giving much thought to the future us that would have to sort it all out! This was a painful and boring job, but one we managed without an argument, something we’re both pretty proud of. Next up, endless sweeping and hoovering of dust, at times I felt like that video of the person sweeping the sea at the beach as I’m 100% sure the hoover was creating more dust than it was absorbing, but we cracked on and bit by bit it started to look kinda sorta like an apartment. Still on a tight budget we made curtain rails out of mop handles and made a sink unit using a 20 euro sink we found at the salvage yard, an off cut of furniture from Ikea and scrap wood we had lying around. We moved up our sofa, TV, bed, dining room table and parts of the kitchen. Took ourselves on a very grown up day out purchasing my first very own washing machine, a gas oven and a plant, by Saturday evening we spent our first night in our house!

We’ve been settled in for nearly a week now and it feels amazing to have the extra space, a full sized fridge with a real table to sit and eat our meals at, only having to nip downstairs to use our bathroom - its all made such a difference already, incredible the things we take for granted. Not to mention how much happier señor Goose is now he has a full sized sofa to siesta the afternoons away on…

We’re off to France this weekend for a very exciting wedding, but once back we’re full steam ahead back into the build - project Casa del Ganso coming your way including some exciting work in the garden,until then…… Hasta Luegoooo!

Ellie xx