The last few days have been very strange. The garage have been amazing here and the guys are so friendly in a very honest and kind way. They said that I could drop the car off to them on Tuesday this week. I dropped the car off and they gave us a lift all the way back up the mariola to drop us off, They then said it would be ready today. My experience so far here lead me to stock up on large amounts of food to see us through the week as I really wasn't sure how long we would be stuck up there with out a car. No water, No people within a two hour walk, and now no car! They were great though and at 12pm today they arrived in convoy up the mariola to drop the car off to me and drive back down in their van. They had got al the work done, cleaned it and it looked amazing!  Amy gave them our thank you card that she had written in Spanish and they were so nice! In fact everyone here is lovely. I haven't met anyone not lovely, and everyone says hello and stops to talk to the children. (Much to Amy's upset) They get accosted everywhere we go by old people wanting to say hi and poke them. They really do love children here. Anyway, Here some pics from the last few days and while being stuck up there we decided to start a compost loo. We all chipped in and even the children got stuck in. Myself and Merlin came up with the design and we have yet to see if it will work...Who knows, fun building it though in the sun.

So now we have a fixed car we are planning a camping trip to the beach next week.  I need to hunt down a tent so that we can go and camp out at the beach. This could be a challenge as Spanish towns don't seem to have a town centre as such and everything is just dotted around where ever. They don't always even say on the outside what they sell or that they are even a shop! Finding a tent shop will take some doing. Anyway off to spend the weekend with the girls on the Mariola as Tony and Sharon are up for the weekend., and then we will go off to explore some of the larger towns and cities around here next week maybe. Glad to have the car back and feel like we are no back on track. I must admit I am realiy enjoying the weather and the people being so nice. Each day I meet someone lovely. I heard today that there is a cafe in the town that does English?Spanish conversational chatting on a Thursday. I might try and drop in if I can ever find it. My Spanish is still really bad and talking in joined up two year old Spanish is motivating me to try and learn a bit faster. More intercambios I think. (These are where two people chat for two hours, one in Spanish and one in English) I met someone and did this last week. It was great apart from my lack of being able to fill an entire hour with Spanish! Lots of people here are willing to do this and best of all no one pays anything! Speak soon, x

The last few days have been about actually getting into the swing of living here. Life is hard on the Mariola. There is no water where we are staying and every few days we fill up a load of water containers and head off to the well down the road. It really does remind you how precious this resource is that we take for granted so much. I have been on a flushing toilet for three weeks now and feel like it will feel really weird when we do come across one. We got taken to "the rock pools" on Saturday and to my astonishment they were the most amazing place I have seen in some time. A place that is so beautiful that it takes your breath away. The children played on the rock and swam all afternoon. It was stunning.

We have been exploring Bocairent too. The children are starting to get used to the fact that the town is built up the side of a mountain and when I say the streets are steep, I really mean it! 

The rest of the time is taken up with bike riding practice and digging a swimming pool! (the children have decided on this and started digging a large hole in the middle of the field!) I have realised that starting up a educational project needs to happen either in a really open community or on the edge of a city. The towns here can be very conservative, Bocarient being one of them. There would be a strong chance of upsetting someone I think. So I am going to explore Valencia and Granada as possibilities? With regard to costs of being here. The rent is much, much cheaper. The food can vary massively. Local stalls and small independent people tend to be cheaper then the big shops for fruit and veg. On the whole you can live here much more cheaply though. I haven't been any where for clothes yet. Will let you know when I do. Random pics below of what we have been up too. The car is supposedly going into the garage tomorrow! We will see. If so we will be stuck up on the Mariola for the next few days until it is fixed. I will report back later in the week as to if we are still driving around with no boot window. Its a definite possibility. dealing with insurance companies in England is a pain. Here...Well, four weeks and counting! 

This is Merlin. He is staying up on the field camping in the woods. He comes down and speeds time with the children. He's really sweet and a gentle soul, who is good to have around. Above is George the rescue kitten. He is tiny and Amy has taken to carrying him around as one of the only things she feels like she can look after. 

This morning is about waiting for the second assessor to come. We dropped the car off at the garage at 8:30 am, and are now waiting in town for them to have come so that we can collect the car. I must admit finding the garage again this morning proved a challenge and included some rather cool reversing down a very step street in the village. I didn't hit anything and managed to do it if maybe annoying the odd local. Directions were sort and we got there in the end. Won't forget the route now! Spanish town work on a grid system where all the roads are either one way or no entry. This would be fine if the villages were flat and in a square, but up the side of a mountain on a angle this can get very confusing! The streets are very thin with only enough room for one car and if someone come out of their front door the chance of you taking them out with your wing mirror is really high. Slowly does it here. I have put some more pics of the place we are staying below and a really nice one of Amy in the tin bath last night sat in a total of about an inch of water. Water is in really short supply so no baths or showers here. Small bowl and some soap only. She had great fun though. I got an email from my insurance company today though saying that the other company have accepted liability for the damage and they are closing the case, which is great. It may take another year to get it fixed, but at least I'm not paying for it. we need to say hi to Chloe and Lisa who I know are reading this intently. Sending big hugs to you and see you real soon! To everyone else hi too and hope you are having some nice weather there too. You know it is warm here when I change down to a summer duvet. Never would I sleep without the duck down in England. By the end of the summer I my even be using just a sheet, who knows...hahahaha. Found the local supermarket yesterday and some wheat free biscuits...yay! Haven't had wheat free bread in a while and eating a lot of rice cakes. Pasta and other bits around though to having a good meal a day with snacky bits. We have had 362 people look at the blog, I don't know who? I don't think I know that many people? Maybe the adventures of a mum on her own in Spain are providing comedy value to someone out there. I would recommend it to anyone.  Nothing lie getting out of your comfort zone and doing something different. Life is far to short to be dreaming and not actually living it. Ignore your head, it tends to talk rubbish 90% of the time anyway. So here are the pics and I will update when we get news of the car and in a few days when we have been off to the rock pools to swim and have more pics. More comedy to come I'm sure!

Hello! Ok, so Spain (or rather the people in it) are continuing to be a pain. We stayed in El perello for a total of five days before things got to the point that we could no longer remain there. The people that we stayed with got more and more difficult demanding that the children make no noise, stay still and do not touch any thing on the property. I spent two days desperately trying to stay out for the whole day so as not to make any noise or disrupt them. On meeting them in England they assured me that they are used to children, but this was not the case at all. The visit ended with a conversation where they politely suggested that I beat the children in order to keep them in line or they would turn out "evil". Tim flew home last Thursday evening believing us settled and ok for the next six weeks. This was not the case. We awoke on Sunday morning to find they had decided that I needed to punish the children for "touching their things, and making the dogs bark". (who bark at any movement at all, even in the caravan!) I replied that I was not going to hit my children and maybe we would look at moving on to somewhere where we could be a bit more relaxed. The reply came "well, as soon as possible please!" So that was that. I, (on my own!) packed up the caravan, hitched it up and set off the the next family who I knew had young children and would welcome us, or at least I hoped. We set the sat nav and prayed it would take us to the right place and off we went. We drove the four hours, stopping for lunch down to Bociarent, near Valencia. Up mountains and down mountains we went. And yes I did it...I towed the caravan on my own down some tracks that I never thought I could get it down. And here we are on the mariola! We were greeted by a young family with their children running around and playing, how refreshing! Ok, hint to anyone planning to stay with people abroad. Make sure they have children! But hey, I did it and without any glitches!

Amy was on the horse within a couple of hours and friend were made with the girls. So the situation is that Tony and Sharon (who are the couple who let us stay) now live in the village in a flat. They were out here living in a yurt, but as you can imagine, trying to get the girls to school and keep them clean is hard out here. So they moved down there to be closer to the school. We are up on the side of the mountain that over looks the village. I will post some more pics in the next few days. It's a ten min drive down into the village. It is a very beautiful place here and in the middle of nowhere. we are in the middle of the national park and the children can run and play where ever. Sharon has a horse and she can ride for a couple of hours in any direction and it not matter. They come up with their three girls to see to the horse and spend time pretty much every day. It really is lovely. There is a small house on the land and the empty yurt that they used to live in. There is a really nice guy called merlin who is currently staying there to. He is pitched up on the hill and is very quite and gentle. It's nice to have someone else around in the background. There is only one glitch (and there always is here) There is no water. The well ran dry a few weeks ago and so we have to go to a font 5 mins down the road and collect water. It's free, so we will just have to get more organised! So here we are, Place three in the space of two weeks and hopefully where we can stay now until the end of July. Sharon and Tony seem lovely and the girls are great too. Let see what life brings! As regard the car it would seem that the assessor that was sent out on Friday to look at the car, assessed the wrong car?? I know, I have no ideas! They are now going to send out another assessor tomorrow here in the village to look at MY car. So yet again the Spanish translate website Spanishdict has saved the day in allowing me to tell the local garage that an insurance assessor will be arriving on them tomorrow. This means driving into the village early and leaving the car there. Then finding something to do with the children until the assessor has been. Oh well, all an adventure. The weather is amazing and some how makes everything not matter so much, which is good. Other wise I think it would matter a lot! The kids are having a ball and decided they want to bath in the tin bath outside the caravan later. We are off to the shop now to get supplies and then spend the afternoon relaxing, before we start again early again tomorrow.

Hello, Long time no hear...
We are here! We actually made it to the first place a few days ago. We got the car going and although still with no back window and the dent it works. We got to our first place and had a most warm welcome. We are in a little village called El Perello. It is very small and every one knows everyone. The people we are staying with are in their 80s and need a bit of help around the house. I have been helping weed the garden and will do some painting in exchange for the caravan being here. we don't have water of electric, but the solar panels we brought for the caravan seem to be doing the job and giving us enough for lights and to  charge my phone up. You will have to excuse the rushed blog with lots of typos as we no longer have any internet and I have to go don to the village and use the wifi in a cafe. this means that I have the time it takes for the children to drink a lemonade to get everything done. I have pics on my phone, but again it will take a bit of getting used to and organising to get it all in one place to get them on here. No more modern technology.  So we have explored the area a bit and are slowly getting used to the heat. Which is every day here. It's so nice in the evening. We are off to find a camp site that has a laundry and a pool this afternoon so we can ash and get washing done too. The people we are staying with have no mains power and only run a genie for two hours a day at 7am to charge their batteries. That obviously doesn't cover us being able to do washing or anything. So we are off in search of facilities. The insurance company sent out an assessor for the car yesterday, but being Spain are now shut until Monday. So I will phone them then and find out what happens next. who knows... Until then we swim and get into the routine of staying out of the sun in the afternoon and taking it a bit easier. I will update again as soon as I can, but everything has become much more difficult here. The gluten free foods are a fare distance away now along with everything else. We defiantly wouldn't settle here. We need to be on the out skirts of somewhere bigger then here for the things we need as a young family. Speak soon.

Ok, So today I thought I would tell you a bit about what it is like here in terms of differences. I am very pleased to say that it would seem that in all the large supermarkets there is a great selection of gluten free stuff. I managed to get goats milk, and an array of stuff when we went into town the other day. So they are up on that stuff. They serve tea with warm milk already in the cup, which takes a bit of getting used to, but as for that there really isn't anything I'm missing yet. The people here are very friendly and Matt has now become the boy to hang out with, even for all the boys too. I think this is due to him taking a large air bed into the pool and Tim being a shark for their game. This has made him very popular and everywhere we go on site you can hear children shout "Mathoow". It's very sweet. It is really hot here today and the first day we have stayed in side for a couple of hours midday. It is so nice! Tim is talking about moving here already. This is completely lead by the fact that the wine is only 80p per glass, and really good apparently. (I'm not tempting any migraines, as touch wood haven't had one here yet!)I think the cheap wine, sun, and fresh baked bread delivered has sold him already. He's easily pleased. The wine is cheaper here and most other things to, but not by loads. I have been told that this changes as we head south and it gets cheaper still. We will see. No one gets up before 11am here and then they just go straight into lunch, which is actually dinner. They then all sit around together until the evening drinking and chatting and the children play. They stay up very late and the chidren are still running around playing at 10pm or 11pm easy. I feel asleep last night at midnight with them still playing in the park. Hence we have started sleeping in late too. This is a holiday camp and so they make the most of the evening warmth to play and chat. They eat at very different times here. They eat a big dinner all together at around 2 or 3, then just a lunch at around 9pm. Lots of tapas at this time. We are getting used to moving our eating times to be a bit more social, or we are the only ones ever in the restaurant. Tim and the kids are back in the pool at the moment. Lots of time in there the last few days. Will update you when we know what the deal in with the car tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Day...I have lost the plot and can't remember. Friday.

Today I tried to contact the insurance company of the guy who very slowly reversed into our car. On call one I was told that I needed to phone back this afternoon as they had not yet received the email from my insurance company that they had requested. I know this was sent and not returns as unsent so this is rubbish. Call two I was told that they shut at 3pm today and still had not got it and to call back on Monday. Call three, I was told that they did now have the email, but it was with management, call back. Call four, the lady who I had already talked to twice was getting bored now and went off to talk to someone and returned saying that they would have a assessor out on Monday. Monday at 9am we will start again...

Other then that, we went into town today which involves a  10 minute car lift into the local small village and then a half hour bus ride into the town. Nothing is easy here. We missed the bus back leading to all sorts of new Spanish having to be used to get a bus into another village as that was the last bus home. Matt ha made friends though and is currently playing hide and seek in the park. We have found that the slightly older girls have enough English to get buy with him and communicate. Anyone younger doesn't know enough English and the older boys aren't interested. It works though.

 I will post a picture of the amazing couple who have helped us out no end soon. We seem to have got a reputation around the camp now. Everyone says hola, and I assume knows us as the poor English who have had terrible bad luck. Habe (our angle guardian from reception) told us today while giving us a lift that someone on the camp had offered any hep that we may need and if we needed a lift or anything they would be glad to help. It isn't really a tourist site as opposed to a site where people own the statics so come here most weekends and al know each other well. We are using the time to try and teach the children to ride thier bikes. Matt had it for a moment.....

I need to pause for a moment and say Tim wants a big up for staying on and being supportive at this time of......erm, stress I suppose. So I will. I know that the car, bus, long walk back to the garage on Monday would be really hard without him. I wasn't intending on covering long distances on foot with the children without a car. I put it out there into the world, that I thank him from the bottom of my heart! Everything has been difficult so far. I hope that (and know really) that with the return of the car comes a return to a less difficult life. Travel with children was never going to be easy, but this is a bit of a joke. The weekend brings the close of the insurance company, so we wait until Monday. By which time the parts should be in and the car getting fixed and an assessor on his way out....well that's what we think anyway. Here's a picture of the site we are on...