41. Electical stuff.

It seems that we have always had problems with the electric supply here in our house in Spain since the day we arrived in December, at first it was getting the supply switched on in the first place, then we found a few issues with some for the sockets and connections and even after we had that sorted out the main trip would keeps witching off if we had too much going on at the some time,. We found out that we only had a 3.2 KW supply to t he house so we upgraded and yesterday they switched us over to 5.9 KW so now we can have the washing machine and the kettle on at the same time..phew!!! The local builder who we contacted to get some work done who promised to get back to us with a quote in a couple of weeks...two months ago has failed to do so,we have sent him messages which we know he has read but he hasn't answered us so it looks like we will be looking for a new builder in the next couple of weeks.

We have had some stunning days in the last week or so and it did get very warm last Sunday over 30 degrees if this is an indication of what the rest of the year will be like then wow I can't wait. We said goodbye to our faithful Citroen last week it was rather emotional actually as that car was really the last bit of England that we had, and on top of that we have now made an appointment to change our driving licences over to Spanish one, something we have to do if we want to continue to drive in Spain post Brexit. We are still waiting to find out about our 7 year temporary residency cards as Spain is waiting for Brexit to get sorted first, this may take forever!!!.

Willow is starting to settle down a bit she is getting into a routine and now knows what time she is supposed to gout for a walk by waiting by the door, in the mornings she waits to be let out, harry still has his moments with her regarding personal space LOL but she is learning. Her new harness arrived yesterday and she loves it thank god as it gives up more control over her.

I have been trying very hard to get to grips with the language here and I now have a vocabulary of around 100 words, still not enough though oh well best get on with the decorating then.

40. Time to say good bye ...!!

Yesterday was a sad day for us we have had no choice but to get rid of my old faithful Citroen Berlingo, This car has done me proud over the years and I don't care what people say about Citroen's I would have another in a heartbeat.However the European insurance cover runs out at the end of the Month and the Tax and MOT are due first week in April and seeing that I am not driving her all the way back to the UK then we have no choice but to let her go.

What you can't see of course is the damage on the other side where I hit the barriers in the middle of the road on the way down to Spain, she was due to be collected Tuesday but that was also the day I was due to have another tooth removed and because of the problems that I had been having I was prescribed Valium so Lorni had to drive me to and from the dentists so we re-arranged the car pick up for Wednesday and the car is now gone,,sob sob. and so is another tooth sob sob. 

A couple of days back we noticed that the hot water had disappeared and we had a leak coming form the tank, We got hold of the service company who came out the next day they found the element had been overheating for two reasons it was completely calcified and for some reason the timer had been set by the previous owner to run constantly 24/7 even though it is only a top up heater for the solar panel but once the service and repairs had been done they engineers had found the solar panel pump had never been connected ..hmmmm 

So after 4 hours of work the guys have now got everything working as it should, this should bring the electricity bill down a bit as well I hope. At this moment n time the house is upside down as we now have Alan the electrician in making our house a little safer with two new trip panels in and some wiring replaced and light fittings sorted out, we are still waiting to hear form the local builder about our ceiling and floors...well it is Spain...!! One thing we can not get here in Spain is a paste table believe it or not so we have had to order one and as soon as that arrives I will start on re-decorating our bedroom and the guest bedroom.

As far as our new family member is concerned..well Willow is getting better and better as a family pet but! we are still having problems with other dogs she seems very aggressive towards most of them so I now use a muzzle on her when other dogs come into view I am hoping this will eventually calm her down.

Harry now ignores her unless he wants to play as well but he does tell her off from time to time when she crosses the line like above, as Willow has no idea about personal space LOL She is work in progress but is is going in the right direction for now at least,

39. Car wash phones and dogs...!

If I ever hear the word Brexit again I swear I will it someone or something. If I use facebook all I see is crap about we should leave or we should stay and tons of bullshit supporting both, Brexit has turned the UK into he biggest laughing stock in the world. most of the stuff appearing in social media is fake news and most have no idea what they are talking about, let me simplify it for you if we remain we have to put being told what to do by un-elected bureaucrats mainly German if we come out of Europe we are doing what the Germans want us to do,,,,see no winners and by the way the British public have changed their mind two thirds now want to stay so less of this "It will kick off" stuff Brits couldn't kick off if their lives depended on it...oh they do!!! End of rant.

Our latest edition to the family Willow is doing well, well for a puppy that is she has nearly got all her teeth through now so a lot of the biting should stop soon, We are having less and less accidents in the house but I wish she would ask to go out and not just wait till I take her for a walk.

We had a big scare with Harry last week he had a seizure in front of me scared the hell out of me and Harry but after we stopped him shaking we went to the vets and she give Harry an extremely thorough check up including scans and blond tests everything came back OK thank god. Then on top of that we had the "car wash" incident this where Lorni drove the car into the car wash as the car wash was working instead of parking the car at the stop and getting out before starting the machine, the result. a new screen for the car and repairs to the car wash.

This was a few days ago now and he car wash is still not fixed..ooops!!! also it is time to say goodbye to my old faithful. My Citroen Berlingo I love this car Lorni always hated it but the insurance, MOT and Tax are all due next month and we can't get that done here in Spain and I'm damned if I'm driving all the way back tot he UK just for that so we have sold her to a breakers yard they are coming to picker her up Tuesday, going to be a sad day for me I do get attached to my vehicles.

The weather today was absolutely stunning so went for a ride to a castle the temp hit 27 degrees phew!! I got back mid afternoon just in time for our brilliant neighbour Juans birthday and boy do they know how to celebrate a birthday over her, had a great time drunk too much ate too much LOL..must have been a really good time then!

This week I hope we can get the hot water sorted and we have an electrician coming round to sort out a few little problems that we have with the wiring in the house, nothing serious but I like to feel safe at night so fuse panels being upgraded and some light fittings changed. My phone has a Tesco contract but after 90 days abroad I will start to get charged premium rates for calls and texts so time for a new phone and a Spanish contract, after a lot of persuading Lorni got me to agree to a new iPhone, now then everyone that knows me understands that I hate Apple and everything they stand for but my grandkids have them and then there is Face-time ,,,so my phone turned up first problem after switching it on...it's all in Spanish of course...so switch the language to English and even the region but...the apps are still from the Spanish app store soooo language is still a problem, it took bloody hours if not days to sort it out I have now got a phone that I can understand...hooray!