It’s 2 weeks today since we took over the shop – OMG. And we’ve only been in Spain 3.5 weeks – WOW. Can’t believe what we’ve achieved in that time, or how much there still is to do.
It’s been a massive learning curve dealing with Spanish suppliers – but have managed to order plenty of wine, bread and sweeties in Spanish so that’s a start! Yesterday I also had a long conversation in Spanish about a freezer and it’s broken seal – unusual vocab but luckily said freezer was there to demonstrate and the guy will call me when he’s got a quote for fixing it.
The girls have settled in great – they have made several new friends already. We have found some dance lessons for both of them and Saturday Stage School as well (in English) which they seem to really enjoy. Their Spanish teacher comes every day next week for an hour – they are learning very fast and have put Spanish post-its on everything in the house!
Despite being slightly daunted by the whole Spanish school induction process we have been to the Town Hall to register that we live in the area, and also to the Casa de la Cultura to hand in the piece of paper so the girls can be given a place at our nearest school. Having done that we then went to the school and handed in copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, identity numbers, passports, inside leg measurements….you name it. We now only need medical certs and a Certificado de Distancia from the local police so they can get the free bus. Pretty impressed by our luck with officialdom hey? Well it helps that we take cute blue-eyed blond Sadie everywhere with us – she works her magic on them just like she did in Asia! That said, as we attempt to do all of this in Spanish most people are very willing to help us find the right words and seem to shuffle the papers a bit quicker.
Oh and had our first proper Spanish power cut today – half the town blacked-out for about 30 mins for no particular reason. So that was another challenge; finding the button on the bottom of the till so you can open it manually! I was kept entertained til the electric came back on by a helpful couple who were hanging around unable to go home as they have electric gates that are too high to climb over.
Anyway I’m sure there is other more important business or Spanish (or Spanish business) related stuff I should be doing. So that’s it for now, more when we have time. Thanks so much for all your love and support via email, Skype and Facebook etc – all helping us feel ‘normal’ as we cope with the abnormal.
Take Care
All love CRFS xxxx
