We had such a nice day....

Today we went to Mundomar park. It was lovely. We got to see a dolphin show, sea lion show, and a parrot show, all of which the children loved. It was a lovely day. We wondered around for the whole afternoon and then returned for a swim in the pool at the camp site. I will add the photos tomorrow as I am struggling with the wifi here. So here are some of the kids playing in a park we found in Benidorm yesterday. We met a lovely lady who chatted to me. She lives here. Anyway, trying to use the internet to make plans for coming weeks and where to head to next. I think we will take a trip down to Granada in a week or two to have a look around. It's been really hot the last few days and even I got in the pool today, which means it must be roasting!We are off to practice my Spanish in the local park. Yes there actually are Spanish people In Benidorm. You just have to seek them out. The park near where we are staying is the local social hub, and a non English zone it would seem. We have been heading there of an evening so the kids can run about and cool down. That's where I met the lady yesterday.

Things Spain has done for us so far.....

1. Given us sun tans (so to speak) 

2. Taught Amy how to say an array of Spanish words that she happily says when approached by a Spanish person. (Non Elderly)

3. Given Amy a phobia of elderly Spanish people who persist in coming up to her in the street and pinching her cheek and saying "Muy Guapo" (My Beautiful) or picking her up and shaking her in a playful style, of which she does not find the least bit funny. They love children here loads! Maybe more then the children love them just Amy!

4. Made me realise that there are places where everyone says hello and is friendly. Southampton is not one of them. 

5. Allowed us to see that there is a slower and more gentle way of life where the moto is "tranquilla" Which everyone says all the time. "chill out or don't worry"

I'm sure there is more, but my internet time is up as the kids are now running riot. Some things never change!  

Thank god that is al over...

I don't even know how to begin this post as so much as happened since I last wrote. Being stuck on the Mariola isn't  helpful in keeping in contact with anyone, so sorry!  Having to go down to the town and write in a cafe while the kids run around means that not a lot gets written often. I will try and fill in the gaps from over the last week or so, but it may not be in chronological order. Firstly sorry to anyone who has emailed me. My lack of internet access means that my restricted time on it has to be prioritised to the blog and internet banking. That's my lot. I took the car to the garage last Monday to be fixed (take two). They lent me a Spanish car to drive, which believe me was probably my greatest challenge yet. No I was not only driving on the other side of the road, but on the other side of the car with everything the other way around. Boy did this throw me and to top it off the first journey was straight back up the Mariola road. Now the Mariola road is like one of those roads that you see on the worlds most dangerous roads programmes. You know the ones where you can see over the edge of the cliff the whole way up, winding and turning up the mountain. I would add a photo here if I could, but this would mean stopping on the road and certain death. Most of the road is only wide enough for one car and some of the bends involve prayer and a large intake of breath. Anyway, I made it mostly with my eyes shut. We spent Tuesday at the rock pools again. It was so hot and it is so amazing there. Truly beautiful. I got a call Wednesday morning to say the car was ready and off we went to collect it. True to their word they had fixed it. I have found the mechanics here to be amazing and really nice people too. Like I have said everyone here is so kind and friendly. I am still amazed at how forgiving they are about my Spanish and so encouraging. We were on the Mariola the other day and two old lady's came wandering through the land. They were on a walk with their dog and just came over to the house and started chatting. It didn't occur to them that I wouldn't speak Spanish. I chatted back as best as I could in my broken up Spanish. The whole time they were not bothered by this at all and at one point one of them commented on how surprised she was that I could speak so much Spanish. (this was her being very kind) I had a lovely chat with them and for the first time felt I had chatted in Spanish and got away with it. They have a great saying here that they all say about learning Spanish...poco a poco. Little by little. They really are sweet. They invited us up to their house so that the children could see their chickens. So I think we will go up next week and say hi. I'm sure they will spoil the kids and be really kind. I can practice my Spanish too.  Well after getting the car we spent some time on the Mariola and after a while not having water gets really hard work. It is stunning, but really hard work. My gas ran out on Wednesday so for the last few days we have been doing everything by fire too. This means heating up all the water and for cooking everything. I decided that a shower and a few days of running water were needed so...and get ready for this.....we are in Benidorm. Yes I know, I feel the same, but as the resort that is only an hour away from where we are we could get a cheap chalet and not have to go far to hit the beach. We are in a little chalet with two bedrooms and most importantly, running water and a shower! I will post lots of pics tomorrow and some more info. We are going to go to the water park here and the zoo. There is a theme park here close by and loads of stuff to do with the kids. We re booked it till Tuesday and have wifi here so I can update this  bit more before we head back to the mariola again. It is hot here now and over the last few days the temp has risen a good few degrees. Not going to head into the main part of town, but going to head to the bits we can do as a full day out. Mundomar animal park tomorrow I think? we will decide in the morning. Photos and more bits to come tomorrow as need to get the kids in bed. It is to hot the even think of sleeping until ten, half past and they have got in the habit of staying up late too. We were at the park at half eight this evening as it had only just cooled down for them to play ad run around. Sending a hug to all, Speak tomorrow.

Below are some pictures of the finished compost loo! Merlin worked really hard on it and build the children a little chair to sit on for it. His steps are great too. Also one of Bocairent. As you can see it is build up the side of a mountain and the picture here doesn't even show the most hilly bit. I can't show you that with out stopping on the road again and causing instant death via a Spanish driver up my bum. (which they always are) The mountain that you can see in the second one is the Mariola we are staying on. we are at the top of that!

We have had yet more trouble the last few days. We spent the weekend having a lovely time on the Mariola. I then decided that we would venture off into the nearest city to explore on Monday. Alcoy is the biggest place we have hit so far. We drove into the city and parked in a marked bay. We went to a park and then realised that I was to far out of the center of town to walk to anything so went back to move the car only to be greeted with the fact that the car had gone! Yep major disaster number three, (we may have had more then this, but for my sanity I am calling number three) Oh yes the car had been towed away. I phoned the police to be told that I had to get to the local police station. Now this meant walking with Matt and Amy in tow a rather long way in the heat of the day. Several police stations later we got to the right one to be told that the road I had parked on was a bus lane. Now I parked in a marked bay, on a road with numerous marked bays just the right size for cars. This through me. I explained this only to be told over and over, nope a bus lane. After a very long time with many police men discussing this and what seemed to be arguing, (in Valencian Spanish that I couldn't understand) It turns out that I had parked in a bay that had been marked newly on the road for a fiesta two weeks ago and had not been rubbed off. Cars were allowed to park here only for that weekend and other then this it was a bus lane. Basically yet again bad luck. I had managed to park in a space only meant for one weekend of the year that hadn't yet been rubbed off! Ok, so after being given a lift in a police car through Alcoy, and a £180 euro fine that could not be waved as the computer said no, we arrived at the compound where the car was. No on arrival there were another five police men who along with the two who had given us the lift followed me out to the car. This is odd I thought? I have a police force in tow now? I was then informed on getting to the car that.....and get this, the person who had parked the car in the compound had not put the hand brake on and the car had rolled down the hill, hitting another car in the compound! Yet again there is a dent in the back of our car.....I had to laugh. I had at points today already wanted to get a plane home and cried in front of many police officers. Now I just laughed. What did I expect. Of course. We were then told that the police would now pay for the repair work and that we were to follow them to the garage to organise the work. We left the compound with full police escort and many apologetic policemen in a car in front and behind us. All feeling sorry for us not only for the parking error and forced fine, but now the dent in our car. We were led through Alcoy to a garage which of course was shut as it was Siesta time. All the police men were now even more apologetic. I got given a mobile number of one of them and his badge number and told to come back this morning.

We arrived at the garage at 11 this morning and called the police officer who came within ten minutes to the garage. I have to go back next Monday for the work to be done and they will lend us a car for the two days while the work is done. We then spent 20 minutes chatting with various police officers and were then lead by personal police escort to a car park where we would not get towed to explore Alcoy. I now feel like we have a rather close relationship with the police here and have probably spoken to most of them at some point over the last two days. we then actually went on the have a really nice day with lunch out and a wonder of a few good parks. We then went on to a major commercial park where we brought a toy each for the children and are now sat in a cafe writing this and drinking juice. We are off to have a tin bath in the sun on the Mariola. It's strange, but today I'm so glad I went back and did it again and had a lovely day. It wrote off yesterday and it's been really nice. I could have given up yesterday and gone home, but that would have meant ending on a very low, and that I would have missed out on the highs to come. Today has been a really nice day with the kids and we have had great fun exploring the shops and parks. So back to Alcoy next Monday to get the car fixed.....am I repeating myself? Until then a few days to rest and then maybe the coast I think. I can feel a theme park coming on before it gets to hot, or a water park maybe? Will keep you up dated.

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.