Update on house move and more

So we are in the new apartment now and all is going well.

The place is lovely. It's bigger, more spacious. It has a big patio window/door opening out on to the terrace so we get much more light in the apartment then the last place did.

What tea time will look like.

One slight downside is the kitchen and living room are together

We wanna be together

This kind of combination is bad when you are either cooking(smell, noise) or using washing machine (noise). I'm sure I'll adjust.

And here is the new office.

I get a decent window view now

Some other good points are I've exchanged this carpack view...



For this beach/town/moutain view...



But now we can see much more of the outside, which having been "locked" up in an apartment with a tiny window and no balcony is fantastic.


The Moon and Venus


Sunrise over the beach


Fishermen packing up after a nights work


A bird taking a rest

All taken from the comfort of the balcony




In other news

We've had some strange weather the last few days.
A day or two after moving in we had a sea mist that covered the town for most of the afternoon, lasting a few hours.



It was very strange as the neighbours mentioned how they had just got back from Malaga and the sea mist was only over Nerja and no where else.

We've also been battered by storms the last few days. Non-stop rain. A few times being woken up by thunder. Once slightly after the alarm goes off so that was a strange snooze alarm.

There are also some new additions to the house.

There is a new toilet. Well a new flush system on the toilet. Rather the the old fashioned "pull up" flush handle, we now have a current fashion push button. The 'fontanero' did demonstrate for us how to "push to flush" button. Just incase we hadn't seen a push flush before. Although it's very nice of him to go that one step beyond.

The other newer edition to the house is a brand spanking new 32 inch flat screen TV.


Very pleased with the birthday present


Its very fancy and has lots of hightech stuff on it

I'll be able to play Mario Kart wide screen now and also being a modern flat screen I can connect the laptop, which means we can watch all our DVDs and stream films and American TV right on to the big screen. No more watching The Office US on a small laptop hooked up to ipod speakers for us!


Watching Seinfeld big screen style/You can compare the previous laptop screen that we used to use too.

And finally some GREAT news. I read this article in the local magazine.



It appears that one of the supermarket/deli places down on the beach front will now be having a "london style" deli counter for sandwiches. This is possibly the best news I've heard in a long time and especially looking forward to being able to pop out on dinner hour to get a proper sandwich. Rather then just using the same 5 ingredients I have been using for sandwiches for the last 11 months.

After a morning of packing

After a morning of packing, this is what we have.

Things packed


Various bags


DVDs and a tent


Clothes and WiiFit

We have accumulated many more things then when we originally arrived. Although I think perhaps about 25%~33% of the clothes in these bags are clothes that we haven't worn in a while/since we arrived.

But there are a few things that we haven't packed, mainly Red

Red out catching a few droplets

So after spending most of the morning packing we now have very little to do during the week........except move.

Oh and all this without a cup of tea. :(

New Home

Mainly for those that have not kept up with my updates on twitter and facebook.

Yesterday me and the missus put down a deposit on our new apartment. It's a wonderful little apartment.

Our list of things that the apartment MUST have where

1. Not to be on The Big Hill; our current apartment is situated half way on a hill notorious for being a struggle to get up
   
2. To have a terrace; or a balcony, not sure the difference
   
3. Somewhere quieter; I've complained a few times about the noise level when people leave/enter the building and pass by our window.
   
4. Having some privacy; related to terrace above. At the moment we have no where to sit when it's hot. The last few week have had some lovely sunbathing days here and we have no where to sit on such occasion. Also when it is hot and we have all the doors and windows open everyone who needs to enter the building will walk past our open front door. It's a little annoying.

We did have a pool for the last year. Only it was open for just a few months over summer. And during that time we didn't use it that much. We decided we would rather give up a pool for a terrace and some privacy.

So the missus spotted this particular apartment on a our current letting agents website and we arranged to see it. It was over our budget but, possibly thanks to economy and low sterling, the owner accepted €450 without hesitation.

We had our appointment on Wednesday to view some properties. After seeing two (thumbs down) the agent realised she left the keys to the property we wanted to see in the office.
Rather the re-arranging, the missus, surprisingly but not forward, told the agent that she had to see this last one today.

After picking up the keys and setting foot in the apartment we both fell in love with it straight away.
It's a cute, one bedroom, spacious apartment. It's at the very end of a dead end road, which is gated off, so no worries about vehicle noise. It's semi-detached along with a handful of other similar apartments and the front door is away from the main path, so no worries about pedestrian noise. It's very well lit due to full window door along on side.
But then comes the best bit. The doors open up on to a small private terrace. The terrace has some patio furniture, table and four chairs, a sun lounger and still some extra space.
The view is fantastic. A panorama is needed really. It has one view that stretches from the sea and beach, across the roof tops of town and right across to the mountains. (You may of seen how pretty the mountains already look in some of my other panoramas)
Plus it faces west so basically we get sun on us from before mid-day right through to sunset.
Basically the terrace alone would be worth the asking €500.
It doesn't have a pool but the steps lead down to almost on top of the beach.

The annoying thing is it's still on The Big Hill.

Well 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

But enough of the romance and back to the drama.

Straight after walking out we told the agent we wanted this one. She let us know that she had a couple viewing it the following day, lucky the missus put her foot down earlier on when the keys had been left in the office.
We told them that we definitely wanted this one right away, the agent half said that if that's the case then she could not show the other couple the apartment the following day.
She did say that if we could pay a months deposit then we could guarantee it.

Unfortunately, as most will know, the first week in January isn't very good on the wallet.
After a trip to England, which made us skint anyway, Christmas presents, Christmas and New Years drinks, paying current house rent and bills we didn't have an awful lot.
In fact we had about €500 to our name until pay day.
Also that €500 was had just been transferred from our UK account to the Spanish account so in fact was no where right now and available funds to us was £100 still in UK account and the money in out pockets.

When we check online the money wasn't in our account and so begun our night of worrying. We knew if anyone else set foot inside there then it would be taken straight away.
I had one last check online to see if the money had gone in. I don't know why I checked as it was only a few hours after I last checked. But to my surprise the money had gone in.

So the next day we made a dash across town, stopping by the cash machine, which involved yet ANOTHER drama as we could only take out €300 at a time. We ended up having to use three different cards to different accounts to scrape the money together.
Then we dashed off to the agents to pay off the deposit and hold the apartment.

All went well and we explained the reason for being early and wanted to hold the apartment and the agent told us that the person showing us around was currently showing around the second couple and she was supposed to be heading to that apartment.

So it was very close indeed.

We move in at the beginning of February and I can't wait to get in there. The space, privacy, terrace and view is too much excitement for me and I don't know if I have the patience to sit around here.