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Oops it’s been a little while hasn’t it.. 6 months actually if anyones counting…In hindsight I wonder if I should have prefaced my blogging career with the tiny disclaimer that I do in fact have adhd, not a surprise to many and not something that I hide very well to those that know me, but something that sometimes means I get a tiny bit ahead of myself with hundreds of exciting ideas like blog posts, design ideas, business plans…whilst simultaneously executing 1 or maybe 2 of them. Sort of like that time Brett and I decided to move to a new country build a house and learn a new language, anyway... So! let’s try to roundup the last 6 months, what have we been up to? Sitting down to write now I actually can’t remember, but luckily that’s what the hundreds of photos i take are for, small reminders on how we’ve spent our time, ok let’s start with Agosto.. August - honestly not a whole lot got done on the house, we took it fairly easy. Brett had got himself a job working as a maintenance man for a rental business in Gijón (our closest city, 25 minute drive from us) and we were getting used to our new normal. Whereas previously we had everyday available for working on the property, we were now having to set a different timetable and routine. At this point I was still waiting for my Irish passport so unfortunately still under the umbrella of my non lucrative visa, (work is very much prohibido with this visa) and honestly it was a challenge to re-adjust. Brett was busy finding his feet within his new job and I was honestly pretty bored and fairly lonely at home! I will put my tiny violin away though as the month wasn’t all bad, we managed to spend sunny days at the beach and discover even more incredible walks with señor goose, we also finished up on all the little jobs we needed to finish before the plasterers were due in September, and not forgetting this was the month I truly honed in on my brick laying skills, feeling as though I may have finally found my calling in life… dreams quickly dashed when I also realised it meant carrying buckets of cement up to the third floor…guess I’ll keep searching for that calling… In September we had two weddings, la Vuelta and plastering! Similarly to the outside we decided to get the professionals in to plaster the place, it was something we’d considered doing ourselves for a short period of time, but knowing that they could come in while we were away and get the entire place done in the same amount of days it would have taken us to plaster one ceiling was enough for us to hand over the reigns. By the time we’d returned from our second trip, the house was done! The plastered walls have absolutely elevated it from a building site to the start of being a home and has reminded us of the end result we’re aiming for. All of a sudden it didn’t feel like we were a million miles away, exciting and terrifying all at the same time - essentially our mantra for this project all along. We also managed to go and watch la vuelta for the second year running. This time we headed up into the hills,we watched as they flew past us at ridiculous speed. It ends up being over within a couple of minutes but is a good day out nonetheless , we even got ourselves on tv! (thanks dad for spotting us, no autographs please xoxox) This leads us into October - the month of the patio! A project I will save for the next post as it was a big one so stay tuned and check out the videos on instagram! Finally we find ourselves at the last months of the year, it was at this point that we started to find ourselves a little bit burnt out, I think we were trying to do it all and it all started to catch up with us. Living on a shoestring budget, continuously learning new skills whilst attempting to also lead a new normal life and no heating started to take its toll, and after a 2 hour walk around the supermarket where we could not make a single decision on what to eat that week, we decided it could be wise to take our foot off the gas for a minute. We halted work on the casa, took the pressure off our shoulders, spent some time with family and enjoyed our first Xmas in Spain just the three of us (myself,Brett and Goose of course). Although it can be hard to take a break when you feel deadlines looming, sometimes it’s really important to, you cannot pour from an empty cup my friends, cheesy but oh so true… We took our break and are now heading into 2024 with not only my new Irish passport, new jobs and Spanish lessons underway, but also a refreshed state of mind! We’re full steam ahead into getting the first stage of this project finished, and with the majority of the supplies ordered and ready to be fitted, we are more optimistic than ever before on a year full of progress… I won’t promise a weekly blog, (trying to learn from my mistakes) but will try to keep our socials up to date and check in every now and then with the latest news. I love reading them back and reminding ourselves on how far we’ve come so hopefully they bring a little bit of joy to y’all also! And with that, I consider the catch up caught up. Best wishes and the kindest regards, Ellie xx *took me three attempts on the bus to figure out how to get it to stop…it’s not like a bus in the uk, it’s a big coach and there aren’t bus stops in the country side. Turns out it ended up being a red stop button on the ceiling of the coach and you can press it literally exactly where you want to get off! Who would’ve guessed it…not me, I had to wait for someone else to get off before me to figure it out…never mind we always get there in the end..!

Birthday, plumbing and life lessons. About this time last year we decided it would be lovely to get the family out for my 30th - mum and dad had already booked in for 2 weeks at the same place they stayed last year - which only sleeps 2 but has a beautiful pool for us all to enjoy, and have my grandma, brother and sister in law come to stay at the Casa for a long weekend. We booked flights and ferries and left the accommodation up in the air with a very optimistic idea that the place would be guest ready for their arrival… in our defence, when making this plan we had assumed we’d be back in Spain by March at the latest and hadn’t factored in the delay of the visa retrieval. So after arriving in May and having a look at the work that needed doing, it’s safe to say we were relieved that we’d provisionally booked rooms in the hotel in the neighbouring village.. After a weekend of jam packed activities, fun and non stop eating we waved goodbye to G-ma, James & Vicky, with the idea that we would spend the next week half working on the build and half enjoying the pool at mum and dads villa. This plan changed rapidly as we got a call from the plaster man (official title) saying he would be ready to start by the end of the week noting if we weren’t ready by then, he’d have to delay til early September as they take a three week break in August*… Cue us freaking out - we still had the majority of the plumbing to do - which was dependant on our bathroom delivery arriving on time, 3 brick walls to build and a whole building site to organise. No surprise that our initial thought was to say “Not a problem!” with the idea of having to wait til September seeming like the end of the world. Luckily for everyone involved we have been doing some growing up and we have learnt through plenty of trial and error that our initial reaction is not always the correct one, letting things simmer before making our final call. After weighing up the pros and cons of waiting or rushing through, we realised that there was no way we would get everything done in time and definitely not to the standard it would need to be… as in functional… eventually making the call to pencil the plaster in for the first week of September instead. It was one of those decisions that feels impossible whilst trying to make, but as soon as you commit to it you can feel the relief wash over you. With the pressure off of our shoulders, we decided to take the next week and a half as a holiday. Spent a bit of time poolside, exploring our local gems and enjoying some stress free family time, something you don’t realise you’ve been missing until you let yourself enjoy it! *Taking weeks off work in August is a very common theme in Spain, they are all about the work/life balance, so if you’re attempting to get through to someone…don’t try in August.. The start of the month was so lovely that it only seemed fair that the plumbing would come around and smack us in the face, mum and dad set off back home on the 12th and by the 14th we were ready to pack it all in and follow them back to the UK - I write all of this to maintain the reality of this experience, it truly is the wildest rollercoaster and I think sometimes it can seem to be all fun and games, yet in reality we are testing ourselves to the limit tirelessly. Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t a pity party by any means, just a reminder - mainly to ourselves - that the reason it sometimes feels impossible is because it can be really hard! However by writing it down and looking back at what we overcome shows us, and hopefully you, that it is all possible - time is gonna pass anyway, everyday is progress even if it feels like failure so the secret is to just keep on keeping on! That message is most definitely for us to read at our next moment of despair..probably tiling?… Right, back to the plumbing, I think the reason it challenged us so much is that this is the part of the project that when we bought the house was sort of half done with no instructions left on how to finish it. Therefore we had to make things work in ways that didn’t make a whole lot of sense with the design we’re going for. Days turned into weeks of trial and error, ensuring there was enough, but not too much of a fall on the pipes, sort of like marble run but with the stakes of getting it wrong a tiny bit more serious/gross. We did manage to keep going, through multiple meltdowns and eventually, with some guidance from a plumber friend, we completed the plumbing for the whole house… ignoring for now, that next year we’ll be doing it all over again in our own place… yay! Essentially July was Birthday and plumbing, a month of highs and lows but with plenty of progress made. Brett ended the month gaining a part-time job, we harvested a whole larder full of veg from our garden, saw live music in Gijon with friends, went slightly delirious *see videos below* and I turned 30! All in all I’d say it was a good month and one to remember. Catch ya next time! Ellie xx

As I’ve been a little bit slack with my posts I’ve figured the best way to get up to speed is with a few monthly round ups... Here goes nothin! OK, so let's start with May…. This month went by so fast! The first couple of weeks back we were fully immersed in trying to move inside (see previous post). We were then off to Francia for a wedding of one of my oldest friends. It was so lovely being able to drive over the border so easily, we packed the car up, popped the dog in the back and headed straight to Biarritz. The journey took us around 4 hours in the end and was another reminder to one of the many perks of being situated along one of our favourite coastlines, we do however need to brush up on our French as ours is how you say? Petit basic... After an incredible weekend of partying and catching up with old friends, we spent a couple more days exploring Mimizan with a stop off in St Jean de luz on our way home before heading back to the build. Once home we jumped straight into brick laying. Although most of the walls were complete when we purchased the house there were a couple up in the loft that needed finishing, along with a gap on the ground floor that had been left for access between the two properties and for a down pipe to be fitted. We decided to start with the ground floor, assuming this would be a quick job (ha!) quickly realising, once again, assumptions are for fools and no surprise it, of course, was not a straight forward job, with a random part needing to be ordered that took two weeks to arrive, we moved our attention up into the loft… Working in the dark ain't so smart... This takes us into June, the loft job was a very good example of how to make life harder for yourself than it needs to be… It started off pretty strong, some good music on and a good positive attitude from the both of us, after watching a couple of YouTube videos we were all set to get the job done! Very fortunately for us all these walls had already been started so keeping them straight wasn’t too tricky, our first job was a pretty straightforward task of completing the last third of a well-built wall up to the ceiling and we managed fairly well, granted we maybe dropped a tad more cement on the floor than we would have liked but it was still a success in our eyes... not to mention the fallen cement could all be swept up anyway, so no-one really needed to know. We then moved on to the next two walls, these are in the back side of the loft - ie the ones without much sunlight... it was also hot, like really really hot. Put a couple of people up in a hot dark loft trying to learn new skills and turns out it can be quite explosive…who knew?! After one too many blow ups at each other we eventually took a breather, realised we didn’t have to struggle through in the dark and on day three bought a light upstairs with us, surprisingly once we could actually see what we were doing the majority of the rage cleared, after a week from hell we finished the final wall and took ourselves on a nice trip to the bathroom store to cheer us up! Oh my god, how terrible are bathroom stores?! There’s no prices on anything, you’re trying to differentiate between three identical toilets and supposed to have an opinion on which you prefer, whilst also being blinded by the brightest lights known to man. This was not as fun as I had imagined it would be, turns out picking a bathroom is nothing like liking a load of pictures on instagram of bathroom inspo. Our first visit was pretty much a total disaster, I thought I knew what I wanted but actually did not have single clue, Brett was trying his very best to translate what “vibe” I was going for but I think it all got lost in translation and we ended up leaving pretty overwhelmed and with a couple of brochures of things we couldn’t afford. Second trip we went with a much more specific goal in mind and by the third maybe fourth trip we finally made our minds up and ordered the lot! So these tasks, along with plumbing in the down-pipe and bricking up the access between the two properties were the main house bits we got finished in June - they ended up taking us nearly the whole month and after one particularly stressful morning of work we decided to pack up our things early and head down to the beach with Goose to blow off some steam…On our drive home we spotted a farmer walking in the middle of the road on a blind corner, we thought this was odd so pulled over and asked if he was ok, although he smiled and said he was absolutely fine, we quickly realised he had a huge gash on the side of his head and stunk of diesel…turns out his tractor had overturned and he had somehow cut his head. Immediately we got him into the car and asked him where he lived, he mentioned a village that Brett knew from some of our bike rides and we drove him home. This was one of those surreal moments where you don’t quite realise what’s happening until the moments passed. We drove for about 20 minutes up a steep hill to get him back, bearing in mind he was initially planning to walk this distance… a pretty terrifying thought… once reaching his house we had let ourselves get caught up in his laid back attitude and after he assured us he was fine and he’d have someone to help him out, he waved us goodbye gifting us with a handful of his homegrown produce that he wouldn’t let us leave without taking. On our way back we spotted a lady in the closest village and asked her if she knew of the gentleman and wether she’d mind popping in to make sure he was ok, she said she knew who we were talking about and would head over right away. Only once we got home and decompressed did we start to realise that we were crazy, in what world do you pick someone up with a clear head injury and just drop them off at home and take their cauliflower?! We had been so convinced by his lack of urgency and probably were a little delusional ourselves from a hard weeks work that it took us a second to find our common sense, just as I was about to suggest to Brett to drive back, he already had the car keys in his hand. As Brett arrived the lady we had spoken to earlier was just leaving, apparently she had battled with him to get him to the local a&e where he had 7 stitches put in his head! Albert (the man himself) was so grateful to Brett and couldn’t believe we had stopped for him - convinced others would have driven on - he had no memory of the actual accident but had full recollection of our car journey and conversation, arriving at our doorstep a week later with some more fresh veg for us (the tastiest onions we’ve ever had) and a whole lot of gratitude. In a funnier turn of events, whilst catching up outside - two of our neighbours come out to find out how their buddy Albert knows the two newbie English couple! They had known him since childhood and had both heard of the incident but had no idea we’d been the ones to pick him up from the side of the road. News travels fast in Asturias! So that was June… I didn’t realise I had so much to say so I think I’ll save the July and garden update for next week’s post, spoiler alert but Brett’s got a part time job now, so I’m going to try to be more consistent with the website, even if it’s just me reading them back, I know I’ll appreciate them one day to remember what we got up too! Catch ya next time, Ellie x

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

I don’t think I will ever take the absolute privilege of having your own toilet for granted ever again... it was one of those things that we sort of brushed over when talking about the project, with Brett assuring me 'we will have the loo set up in month one" and "not to worry"... Four and a half months later and we’re finally there, showering and toileting in our very own home. No, we don’t have windows or a door yet…but that’s what sheets are for! To be fair, it was our first priority immediately after signing on the dotted line, just one that took a whole lot longer than either of us expected (noticing a theme here?). Our first thought was self installation, trying to keep the budget down we planned on buying a tank, digging a very big hole and going from there… a lot of people disagreed with this idea (apparently it can get messy if you get it wrong…who knew?!) and we ended up compromising by sourcing professionals to install the tank, but insisting we would take care of the rest - the measurements, digging the hole, pipework through the house etc. We thought this would be simple enough to do, however the challenge came when trying to find a company that would allow us half of the responsibility. Many insisted on all or nothing, with the average quote coming in at around 12,000 euros, we were starting to feel a little defeated. Our luck changed mid July though, as we contacted a local company based in Gijon who fully got on board with our vision and how we aimed to get the job done. By the end of July we had paid our deposit, the plans were drawn up, digger booked and the install was scheduled for early September. With everything arranged, we got on with channeling the walls for electrics and put the tank to the back of our minds. A week later, Brett was talking through plans with his dad - Paul, who suggested it may be a good idea to check on the pipework before they arrive, just to ensure everything was as straightforward as we were assuming. (Rule number one.. you never assume!) Shockingly, no it wasn’t. The pipes did all join together but had been redirected to the side of the house out into the street, Yay! Channelling put on hold, we got to work with redirecting the pipes out towards the front of the house, across the street and eventually into our tank. I don’t mean to be dramatic but I honestly think if Brett had to spend a minute longer on this task, we may be sat back in the UK laughing about that time we bought a house in Spain. The gruelling task of making the tunnel through the front of the house took 4 full days alone. Never mind the pipe work and the digging of the hole, but 2 weeks post the phone call from Paul and we had it ready….2 days before the digger man arrived and 3 days before the main install, who doesn’t enjoy a last minute deadline every now and then. Finally the week arrived and first thing Monday morning our digger man drove up to our tiny village, watching him move tonnes of soil in less than an hour hurt a little when we thought back to how long it had taken the two of us to dig our little hole out the front of the house, but we didn’t like to dwell on it… we started the day in deep fog, followed by a downpour of rain and finished off with glorious sunshine - classic Asturias. By the end of the day we had a big ole’ hole to fill, and pure nerves about wether our measurements were correct… we didn’t have long to wait though as the tank arrived next morning. Watching it suspended on a crane and dropped into the ground became a village event, and all the neighbours came out to watch the grand spectacle. These neighbours are some of the kindest most genuine people we have ever met, never mind the fact that they bring their fresh homegrown vegetables to our door daily, or invite us into their homes for family barbecues, they also never wait to be asked for help. The minute the tank was in the ground we had all the guys gather around and help us load the sand in, directing each other on where it needed to go even helping us source the water from the local well. It was just incredible, a kindness that you never forget. With the tank in the ground we popped a bottle of bubbly and raised a toast, we were one step closer. I haven’t mentioned yet that coincidentally my parents had booked a two week holiday to come out and see us earlier in the year, and very luckily for us it just so happened to tie in with all this work! Their two weeks relaxing by the pool idea took a slight detour as both mum and dad got stuck in helping us with everything, myself and Belinda got cracking with the heavy lifting - rearranging the stones into a wall around the edge of the land, filling in the hole with a couple of bags of pebbles/sand - you know just general hard labour - we don’t need no man…! The men got started with cutting out part of the road, digging, mixing cement in a cement mixer that came with the house and absolutely did not work anymore, and getting the pipe work across the road, it was all systems go, and by the end of the week we had it completed. With the tank in the ground fitted and connected to our pipework the only job left was to install our temporary bathroom, it just so happened that I was scheduled to be back in the UK for the next two weeks, so this was a solo Brett job, and one he took in his stride. Within one week he had fitted a shower - using the shower tray we found in the reclamation yard all those weeks ago, assembled a sink with handmade drawers and, last but definitely not least sorted out our very own toilet! We can now wave goodbye to the campsite toilets for good and although we are a long way off being finished, having this chapter ticked off has made us feel like champions,I can also tell you right now that I will never ever for as long as I live, take for granted the simple pleasure of having your own loo! Of course the hugest of thank yous to everyone who’s supporting us on this voyage! Paul for your never ending patience with us on the end of the phone, mum and dad who have enabled us to live this dream from day one and our incredible neighbours, we can’t wait to repay you all one day - free holidays for life! If any others reading this want the same deal, pop your gloves on and come and give us a hand, there’s still a whole lot more to do….. Ellie x

This Sunday marks 2 months of living in Spain! Not to be cliche but it does simultaneously feel like the longest yet shortest 8 weeks we’ve ever had. Sometimes it can feel like we’re getting nowhere, we look over the road from the caravan and see a massive project looming over us. But as I reflect on what we’ve achieved over the past couple of months I can recognise that we might just be doing alright! Taking it back to our first project - Gooses siesta deck. Shortly after arriving - mid heatwave, we realised we were definitely in need of a decking/patio area outside of the caravan, somewhere cool for goose to snooze whilst we were building and somewhere to set up a table and chairs for ourselves. Having plonked ourselves in the middle of a field that hadn’t been taken care of for 16 years, we needed a little extra outdoor space that wasn’t quite so at one with nature.. also If I got stung by one more nettle getting into the caravan.. I was calling the whole thing off! Brett quickly got to drawing up the plans and noting the measurements and we headed out to Gijon to source some wood, our first stop was a big wood yard, where we sadly realised the rumours were true, wood was really expensive… €675 was our first quote, which just so happened to be about €600 out of our budget. The next stop was a reclamation yard in what might have been the hottest place on earth, the car was reading a steady 46 degrees…ouch. But the gruelling heat was worth it, as Brett sourced not only all the wood we needed, but also a shower basin and a couple of tools for just €75, think we can call that a result. We got to work immediately, I took on the role of prepping each plank of wood - de nailing (the official term) sanding, priming and listening to lots of podcasts, whilst Brett got to work setting out the frame… 2 days of prepping done and we started to assemble. Wow did we underestimate the length of time this was going to take us! A good lesson for two people blessed with chronic impatience. We started at about 10 o clock in the morning and finished at around 10.30 pm… with no power we were doing it like they did in the good ole days, using a hand saw to cut down each piece to size, I think we caused so much stress to our neighbours with how long we were taking, that they couldn’t bear to see us take any longer and very kindly offered us use of their power, (side note - we have the best neighbours in the world - more on that later!) !!12 hours!! later and we had ourselves a pretty smart deck, we ran to the showers before the campsite closed at 11pm and treated ourselves to takeaway pizzas from Villaviciosa, feeling super content with what we had achieved. The next day we set up our table and chairs and plopped gooses bed in the corner, ready for him to settle and snooze, to which he decided - “nah I think I’m gunna sleep under the caravan instead, thanks anyway…” Theres just no pleasing some people....

Rewind back to January, after our first week of settling in we contacted estate agents and got started with our house search. Our initial plan was to look for a small property with big land, hoping to set up an eco lodge/campsite type of situation. As we started our search, we quickly realised that in order to get the type of land we were looking for within our budget, we would have to go quite deep into the mountains, where it was absolutely gorgeous but fairly isolated. We both agreed that whilst the plan looked amazing on paper, the reality of trying to start a new life, getting integrated into the community, and plonking ourselves on top of a hill an hour from civilisation wasn’t going to work, so…we changed the plan. After narrowing down the location of our search, the properties started to change…We saw our fair share of ruins - turning up to properties that looked nothing like the photos we had been shown, as we found out they were actually taken 10 years ago, you know when the house still had a roof, and the tree growing through the middle hadn’t moved in yet… We were starting to *mildly panic that our dream was going to stay a dream and we didn’t have the budget to make it work, when our estate agent took us to Martas. I’ll preface this segment with a little bit of background on how house hunting has gone for us in the past.. We see a house, we decide this is the best house ever, we ignore anything that could possibly be wrong with it, and we put an offer in! I suppose luckily for us each time some sort of interruption has broken our impulse and we haven’t gone through with the purchases, but it’s pretty much the same story with this place. The property was massive, with a small garden to the front, and a parcel of land sold with it just to the right across a lane. Immediately we had transformed it in our heads into 3 luxury rental apartments for hiking/biking tours and a separate living space for us downstairs. It was a beautiful building and one that we spent over a month putting in the research to try to make work, we were sold that this was going to be our future home! Our first battle was finding out if we could make it into apartments, there are different departments that you have to get permission from in order to turn a property into “apartamentos rurales” - (rural holiday apartments). After getting the nod from who we needed nods from, we turned our attention to how we could divide the house into the four apartments, we spoke with a couple of architects who both told us “its a big place”.. we took this as a compliment and carried along on our way… At the same time we had been talking with Clare - the amazing woman we had been renting our cottage from, she had nothing but time for us and our never ending questions, and one bit of advice she would keep telling us was to “keep looking” even when you think you’ve found it… keep looking. This wasn’t really like us, as mentioned before, when we’re in, we’re all in! But being real grown ups we did decide to take her advice, and happily accepted a lift out to a property that she had seen online. (spoiler- this ended up being our house!) The very next day quotes started to come in for Martas’ house…. They weren’t small numbers… The biggest expense was the roof, the whole thing needed replacing.. not good news as it would eat up essentially our entire budget. We took a couple of days to let everything sink in, and together acknowledged it was a case of amazing potential but not the one for us just yet. Who knows… Maybe in 5/10 years we’ll be in the position to make it work, but for now we are very grateful we accepted the lift from Clare that day, took her advice and ended up with the right property for us… you know one with a brand new roof….

Trying to sum up over a years worth of events was proving difficult and becoming a bit too long and uninteresting so instead I've decided to do a timeline, catching you up with the journey so far, without further ado here is a quick(ish) timeline: March 2021 - Decide we are going to move to Asturias, northern Spain at the beginning of 2022. Ignoring the fact neither of us had ever been to the area before. Hand in our notice at work for the end of the year. November 2021 - Visit Asturias for the first ever time on a 4 day trip, luckily for us we're big fans and it lived up to our expectations! December 2021 - Get married! After 10 years together and a 4 year engagement we manage to plan our wedding in 3 weeks... a very tiny ceremony with family and a gorgeous pub lunch later and we are officially mr & mrs! January 2022 - Macron bans UK travel through France, putting a stop to our scheduled ski trip/honeymoon and throwing our plans of leaving up in the air. We manage to get the green light to leave on the 16th and start our long and emotional drive at 4 am with a full van and very sleepy dog. I found January hard, I had a big dip with my mental health when we first arrived,I think it was the first time it had really sunk in what we were doing and what we had left behind, but over the course of the next couple of months I realised what I was made of! We climbed a mountain that month - physically and mentally and coming out of it, I’ve never felt stronger. February - April 2022 - We start the house hunt and almost immediately fall in love with one…(not like us to make an impulse decision) it’s a huge property with the potential to turn into 3 apartments, we put in the hours trying to see how we can make it work - it doesn’t, but that’s a story for another post… Spend all our spare time exploring & getting lost, falling in love with Asturias. Start April with an accepted offer on our house depending on building license and the news that my residency application had been rejected....! Started our trip back to the UK to work again and wait out my 90 days until im allowed back in again! April 2022 - Brett flies back to Spain and signs on the dotted line - we are now homeowners, and on our 10 year anniversary, would you believe it! Back to living with mum and dad - sorry guys, you’ll miss me when I’m gone I’m sure!! Spent the next couple of months working and starting on my visa paperwork. July 2022 - Finally I’m allowed back in, so on the 8th we pack up all of our stuff, including a kitchen that had been gifted to us by a family friend (amazing!) Load It into a van, praying its not over the 1000kg limit - it is, but again that’s for another post…and start our journey back over to our new home! August 2022 - Takes us to the present, we have our caravan set up, I’m practicing my Spanish, helped along by weekly bbqs at the neighbours… and we are all the way stuck in! Brett did say we would have power when we got back, we still don’t. He also said we’d have a toilet…we still don’t. We cycle to the campsite down the road for these luxuries, or sometimes spoil ourselves with an evening swim followed by cold showers at the beach. Our project at the moment is channeling the walls, we still don’t have power so although we have the power tools to help this along were stuck with a good ole’ hammer and chisel for now . So far it’s been a pretty wild ride, but one we’re both so glad to be on! Bring on the adventures and life lessons, im ready for em! *Just as I was publishing this post, Bretts informed me the downstairs pipes are all leading to the wrong place, so im off to don my dungarees and get digging holes! The fun seriously never stops. Ellie x