Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

Savvy_Sue

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Oh! Forgot to say, when re-tuning our satellite, we also got all the BBC Radio channels. Oh the bliss of Radio 4!

I know, it's another of those things that I really really miss when I'm away! :rotfl: Although this time I did work out how to listen via RealPlayer, and kept up with The Archers.

gallygirl wrote: »

I'm em probably a bit younger than many on here (age still starts with a 4) (just ).

I'm old enough for this board, but I have no right to be in this thread. Nobody minds (do they?) We never have asked for birth certificates, or passports, which even some of the well travelled are prone to losing! :rotfl:

Anyway, I suspect my aversion to the idea of living abroad is probably linked to my vow to the estate agent 10 years ago that whatever we bought I would be leaving in a box, so how well it would hold its value was of absolutely NO interest to me. :rotfl: And I've seen a few people do it in a way which just hasn't felt right for me - no thought of integration, for example, which isn't the sense I pick up from any of you lovely lot.

gallygirl wrote: »

Need to get back into board games in prep of retiring - I'm just looking forward to doing lots of jigsaw puzzles

I'll join DS in the avoidance of jigsaw puzzles. Years ago, a friend sent us one for Christmas, thinking that it might help DH and I to spend time doing something together. That jigsaw brought us closer to divorce than anything until that point. (The next low point was when we actually moved, but that's another story, involving using the last of the packing tape AND NOT TELLING ME! It's a good job he was 100 miles away when I found out, or it would have been death not divorce which separated us! :rotfl:)

Anyway, SDW, interesting what you said about the lack of notices for exhibitions etc - we've noticed that in the Canaries! We have been trying to visit the Canarian Art Gallery for the last 3 visits, but never found it open. We've been back on different days (the 'official' museums are closed on Sundays and Mondays) and at different times (some open mornings and close mid-afternoon, others are afternoons and early evenings). And there are NO signs!

Eventually we asked in the Tourism office - which also doesn't display its opening times, which are naturally more limited over Easter, but not as they would be in the UK! - and were told that it's privately owned and yes, it has been closed for a couple of years because of illness in the owner's family, there are people who would like to take it over and re-open but the owner isn't willing. It's so tantalising, because you can glimpse a few of the sculptures over the wall, but no idea of what's inside!

Oh, and DS, by the sound of it, you would enjoy a week (at least) on Lanzarote. (I can't speak for Tenerife, although we may well visit at some point.) The 'attractions' developed by Manrique are just so fabulous, even down to the individuality of the toilet facilities.

If we could move the apartment complex we visit on Fuerteventura to L, I'm not sure I'd go anywhere else, ever again. But only on holiday.

WaxiesDargle

donny-gal wrote: »

No problems most of the gang here know anyway, we are just south of Torrevieja on the Orihuela Costa.

I have opened this album for a few days if you want to see.
http://s168.photobucket.com/albums/u196/donny_gal/House%20in%20Spain/
DG

nice house donny-gal

de1amo

We only opened our school last autumn but so far so good--we have 140 students which surpasses the break even point -we are still growing and it looks like our summer holidays will be interupted by commutes back to the city.-its a 70km trip and takes an hour in the law less traffic!-the city is by the sea but swelters in the summer sun so a lot of people have second homes in the windier resorts along the coast.
i come from bournemouth originally and it there is always plenty to do in the winter when the crowds have left--the uni students move into the town and the place is never quiet plus the locals of which there are many surface!--i still have a home there and my kin, so i call it home!

Bruja_2

Good morning all. Off topic to recent posts, but, since I made my first post on this thread yesterday singing the praises of Tenerife weather, it hasn't stopped raining and is blowing a gale. Oh well, that's life. :embarasse

Savvy_Sue

Bruja wrote: »

Good morning all. Off topic to recent posts, but, since I made my first post on this thread yesterday singing the praises of Tenerife weather, it hasn't stopped raining and is blowing a gale. Oh well, that's life. :embarasse

Yeah, but I bet it's warmer than it is here! :rotfl: I'm still wearing sandals since I got back from my holiday, only my feet are FREEZING! I just don't want to put my shoes back on, it feels like a step backwards to winter.

seven-day-weekend

It has just stopped raining here.

droopsnout

I am permitting myself a quiet, if very selfish, gloat, then. :cool: In the sun it is a very pleasant 28 degrees here.

Commiserations to those suffering. It'll soon be warm and sunny again!

Merrywidow

:cool: Never could stand your gloating DS - go dig your veggie patch!!:mad:

Actually is been a lovely week here in the Wells. Today is really lovely and I have been sitting in my garden watching my new gardener do all the hard work. Nice man in his 60's, fresh back from 40 years in Spain as a painter, but nobody is buying at the moment. He is lodging with a friend till he finds a house and some wheels. He is an authority on all things hippy and was explaining the pros and cons of whacky backy - passes the time!! He would get on well with our Australian friend!!

Spent most of yesterday pm in the A&E department with my mother and her suspected broken hip - false alarm but Oh how I shudder every time I walk into A&E - I know it will take hours!

So fellow posters - keep your rain and cold, its just fine her at last!! :j

droopsnout

Merrywidow wrote: »

:cool: Never could stand your gloating DS - go dig your veggie patch!!:mad:

Tomorrow, OK?

Merrywidow wrote: »

Actually is been a lovely week here in the Wells. Today is really lovely

I think you have a great micro-climate there!

Merrywidow wrote: »

I have been sitting in my garden watching my new gardener do all the hard work. Nice man in his 60's

Ah. Slave labour. Well, when he's had enough, I know a nice man in his 50s who does a bit of gardening ... Well, he'll be in his 60s soon, but he still knows what his dibber is for!

Merrywidow wrote: »

He is an authority on all things hippy and was explaining the pros and cons of whacky backy - passes the time!! He would get on well with our Australian friend!!

Never even seen the stuff, believe it or not. But there's a first time for everything, and time isn't on my side ...

Merrywidow wrote: »

Spent most of yesterday pm in the A&E department with my mother and her suspected broken hip - false alarm but Oh how I shudder every time I walk into A&E - I know it will take hours!

Hope she is OK. Yes ... A&E departments. I used to work in one, you know. But that was in the late 60s and early 70s. Last time I was in one in the UK, a few years ago, they didn't seem to have advanced particularly, from the patient's point of view. Not really sure about them over here.

Forecast for tomorrow and the weekend here is great. So long as we don't have the sun obscured by volcanic ash.

Savvy_Sue

droopsnout wrote: »

I am permitting myself a quiet, if very selfish, gloat, then. :cool: In the sun it is a very pleasant 28 degrees here.

Commiserations to those suffering. It'll soon be warm and sunny again!

It had better be, because we're all stuck wherever we are, aren't we? :rotfl:

droopsnout wrote: »

Never even seen the stuff, believe it or not. But there's a first time for everything, and time isn't on my side ...

I've had the occasional sniff, there's a lot of it on the streets around where I work.

Oh, and I used to have spider plants and the like on the windowsill at work, YEARS ago, and one day one of my colleagues also had a plant on her desk.

Me: "What's that then?"
Them: "It's a pot plant."
Me: "Yes, I can see it's a pot plant. What sort of pot plant?"
Them: "Pot. P O T. You know, you roll it and smoke it. Fred gave it to me."
I backed off. The boss wandered over.
Boss: "You'd better not keep that here for long. Savvy_Sue may never have seen a pot plant before, but I bet the welfare officer has and she's due over tomorrow." :rotfl:

droopsnout wrote: »

A&E departments. I used to work in one, you know. But that was in the late 60s and early 70s. Last time I was in one in the UK, a few years ago, they didn't seem to have advanced particularly, from the patient's point of view. Not really sure about them over here.

Actually my last few visits really haven't been so bad. Have asked for an estimate of how long we'll have to wait and it's been pretty accurate and not too long. I'm just avoiding hospitals in general, my dad was in for 6 weeks before he died and that was enough to last me a VERY long time!

A friend's experience of French A&E is that it is generally EXCELLENT, if you can find it. :rotfl:

droopsnout wrote: »

Forecast for tomorrow and the weekend here is great. So long as we don't have the sun obscured by volcanic ash.

Well, over here we've been told the ash is so high that it's not affecting the sunshine, certainly today was lovely. They said on the radio this morning that it was slightly surreal at the airports 'oop north', because unlike when they're closed by snow and fog, there's nothing to see!