Why I am going to thank my mother!

I enjoyed reading your post so much. The grass is always greener on the other side. I have often wondered why the Spanish put up with the poor services. I always thought that they were quite militant and would fight for their rights, but obviously not in this part of Spain. 90% of the time I adore living here even with the language barrier. August is so hot and noisy, and these little things that are irritating become quite infuriating! Beam me up Scotty (just for a few more weeks). 😂

Stay cool!

Having been living in London you might not have noticed such a huge difference if you had settled in Madrid or Barcelona. I'm Engish but was in the Caribbean for some years so settling in Spain was not such a huge jolt for me. In fact, I had to learn to stay in the office all day here instead of popping home on a whim if I was hungry or wanted to change clothes. 

Yes, sometimes it does seem that services are slow or dragging but depending on where you live in the UK or elsewhere it can be worse. It's hard to beat an English garden but I've adapted to the Costa Blanca and my roses and lavender here are lovely. I can see how your mother would have loved 60s London, there was nothing to beat it and once you're hooked, you're hooked. For me, nothing compares to the 60s dresses and music.

But that was then and this is now. I wouldn't swap the palm trees, sea breezes, weather and Mediterranean for anything less than something I could never afford.

But... in August I can be heard moaning and groaning about everything because it's too hot, too crowded and too noisy for me. One month is a small price to pay for the other 11.

You'll be fine, enjoy the best and forgive the rest.

I agree with Myra 2020. For a comparative value of any worth you would have to compare London to Madrid or Barcelona and costal towns with like in the UK.

All too often I made these comparison when I left SE London and arrived in Santa Pola. Any comparison would seem unfair. Try a few towns in Cornwall, Lancashire, Cumbria.  When in Cumbria, I found the differences to London by abysmal but a the comparison itself is silly.

By the way, when I was last there my close friends who lived in Greenwich had their rubbish collected every two weeks. When I lived in Elche briefly, it was collected every day.

I think when you gave been waiting  and doing without water and eletricity  for weeks the only comparison would be between surviving or not. 

You have no water nor electricity for weeks?

Hello Myra

 I agree completely with everything, I too lived in the Caribbean for a few years. I loved London in the 60's and even after I moved here I went every year for a week to indulge....until I went to Barcelona  & loved that city too, that provided me with everything   I wanted without the air fare & hassle.

 I could never have retired to a life in the UK,  a  different  kind of life too, & one   that the UK just  couldn't provide me with, so I moved here and embraced my spanish life with all it offers, good & bad!

Cheers

Elinspain

Well quite.Couldn't have said it better myself. That is exactly the attitude when choosing to come and live here.

My pleasure and thankyou for your kind words. I love Spain it is my mother country my heritage and most importantly it is where my very own mother was born. She was very brave to have left it for London with no English aged 20 working as an aupair. Funnily enough its my other half born and bred in Spain that seems far more frustrated  than I do but I know this will be our future.

Yes the water & electricity were disconnected so we had to seek a surveyor and carry out a house inspection wait for the admin. When the water was eventually connected it caused a huge explosion of water causing extensive flooding which ruined the tiling on the top floor ( the plumbers clearly hadn't tested the newly installed pipework in the bathroom...this together with the fact that Amazon refused to deliver €2000  worth if goods ( now sorted as we went to Pascual y Marti recommended by the forum thanks (((()))). However the ruined floor tiling had to be replaced we did the minimum as its August  this caused some noise our neighbour started to bang on our walls as we carried out emergency repairs we explained this was an emergency as we had just moved in but our neighbour reported us to the la conserge. We received a very unpleasant email. We re_explained the situation we even cried we showed them the videos of what happened. They apologised to us were lovely and helped out.So you can understand our frustration. Even now after 4 weeks the electricity company provided us with such low potential ( we asked  for 5.7 but they made a mistake gave us 3.2)we had to reapply to increase it after paying for another inspection. Iberdrola staff gave us the wrong email they then gave us the right email to send the report but then said they lost the form.We resent it ...only yesterday they told us we need to re apply all over again because the imagine of the buletin is unclear..( it was crystal clear). There are 5 of us so we are struggling but yes we have a roof water and enough electricity for the fridge. Still frustrating.  Yes we will get there eventually we love Spain and know these are hiccups we are Spanish ourselves we get it but we don't always like it. We do however love this forum