Spain
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November 5 doesn’t mean much to most people around the world. Here, in our home in Spain, it’s just another workday.
However, in the UK it is one of the major events of the calendar – Guy Fawkes Night (also called Bonfire Night).
It commemorates the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, when a group of leading Catholics planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to assassinate King James I and replace him with a Catholic monarch. Guy Fawkes was supposed to execute the plot, but was discovered in a cellar underneath Parliament along with the gunpowder.
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Tags: Children, family, fiesta, home, living abroad, Spain, tradition, UK
Mid October and it was already down to -2 degrees centigrade this morning. Daytime highs at the moment are struggling to reach 5C.
Not in my balmy corner of Spain, I hasten to add. In Norway.
I was conducting a phone interview with a banking executive in Oslo this morning, and this is the weather report she gave me.
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Tags: country, development, environment, income, Norway, quality life, sea, Spain, sunshine, weather, work
Many years ago I read Peter Mayle’s classic A Year in Provence.
At the time I remember thinking ‘Blimey, that’s the life.’ Writing a few hours a day and then trailing around the French countryside the rest of the time.
Hardly a deep, or unique reaction I know. Everyone thought the same, which was why the book went on to sell so many copies and turned Peter Mayle into a rich and famous man.
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Tags: Abroad, author, book, business, celebrity, coaching, fiction, France, French, journey, life, literary, live abroad, living, Mayle, millionaire, money, moving, novelist, Provence, publish, reading, rich, Rowling, Spain, States, writer
A special treat today – I’m joined by fellow expat author Mike Harling, whose wonderfully-funny Postcards From Across the Pond is a must-read for anyone dreaming of a life abroad, wherever you are and wherever you may be going. Mike is finishing up his virtual tour promoting the book, so without further ado I’ll hand over. Mike …
Mike Harling - author of Postcards From Across the Pond
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Tags: Abroad, adventure, Australia, author, book, Britain, Canada, England, expat, Foreign, globe, life, location, Paul, Pond, publisher, Spain, Tenerife, tour, world
It’s Mardi Gras next Tuesday, and around the world people are gearing up for Carnival.
Being from England this is a somewhat alien and exotic event, conjuring up Rio, New Orleans and Venice, with their colourful processions, music, dancing, and reputation for louche behaviour.
But living in Spain I’m now getting to experience Carnival first hand. And while it has elements of all of the above – an event that has an anything-goes licence – it is more than that too.
There is certainly a lot of drunkenness that goes with the parades and the parties – and no doubt a lot more besides …
But it’s a festival for kids too. They dress up in costumes, make masks, sing and dance and throw confetti, and generally have a blast.
My bemused daughter has been caught up in Carnival activities at school all week long – wearing one of my ties to school one day, an apron the next, having her face painted the day after. And while she (and we) may not yet understand the local significance of it all, she and her schoolmates are clearly delighted by it all.
I’m discovering that Carnival, at heart, is pure celebration of life itself. And I’m sure we could all use a bit more of that.
Tags: Carnival, England, festival, Mardi Gras, School, Spain
For many people Spain epitomizes the moving abroad dream: a country that offers the prospect of year-round sunshine, lower living costs and a more relaxed pace of life.
Not surprising then that year after year Spain has proven to be one of the most popular destinations for expatriates from around the world, with 10% of its 45 million population now made up of foreign nationals.
Yet the beneath the alluring sheen of the Mediterranean sun all is not well.
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Tags: costs, country, culture, currency, economy, euro, expatriates, Food, Foreign, lifestyle, living, location, Mediterranean, move, Moving Abroad, prices, property, recession, Spain, sunshine, unemployment, wine
We went shopping in the local mall over the weekend, trying to sort some final presents before Christmas creeps up on us. The decorations have been up everywhere for a good month already in our corner of Spain, the trees decorated, baubles glinting in the fairy lights, tinsel sparkling, Santa Claus figures dangling from the ceilings. It’s almost like being in the States, or back in the UK.
Yet Catalunya has its idiosyncratic traditions too. One – less common in Barcelona but found across the rest of the region, especially in rural areas – is tió de Nadal (the Christmas log).
They can be bought in various sizes, but essentially it is a hollow tree log, commonly raised on one end by short stick legs, and with a painted face and stuck-on nose on the front (I know, but bear with me on this). The tió is ‘fed’ every night in the run up to Christmas, and then on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on your preference, it is beaten with a stick to a special accompanying song and ordered to poo out its treats of sweets or nuts and the like.
It may sound somewhat bizarre, but is – or so I am told by the teachers at my daughter’s school – magical for the children.
Meanwhile, across Spain the big present-giving celebration is not December 25 as in North America and some other parts of Europe, but Epiphany (January 6). For this is the day when the Three Kings (los Reyes) came to see Jesus in the stable, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Nevertheless, Santa Claus and Christmas Day gifts are slowly encroaching into the Spanish calendar – the power, I guess, of Disney and Coca Cola!
Tags: Barcelona, Catalunya, Christmas, decorations, Epiphany, Jesus, king, Santa, Spain, States, tio, tree, UK
I received an email last week from a guy called David Jennings, a financial services expert who offers the benefits of his years of experience to expatriates in Spain. Given the benefits that sound financial management can bring to your expat experience (especially given the current squeeze!) I thought I’d pass on his details, in the hope it may be of use to some of you …
Financial Pages in Spain – David Jennings http://financialpagesinspain.blogspot.com/
I was involved in UK financial services for over 30 years, with experience in banking, insurance and pension planning. When I first bought a property in Spain 10 years ago I was astonished at the sheer bureaucracy of home ownership here. I am resourceful and I use Google extensively, but yet again I found frustration as I researched all things Spanish. Everything I ‘Googled’ was effectively an advertisement.
Ten years later, more grey hairs and full of personal experience, it’s my time to fight back.
My blog contains financial information, but does not give personal financial advice and does NOT include a single financial services advertisement. I guarantee that I will never advertise those financial institutions who wrap up information in biased adverts. Please check me out. Just like Paul Allen, if you bring forward a subject I can post, I will make my blog available to you. I am also pleased to answer your questions. Happy blogging.
Biography
I am David Jennings and generally known as DJ. I have been battling with Spanish bureaucracy for 10 years. Fortunately, I have over 30 years experience of banking, insurance and pensions in the UK and was not going to let them stand in my way. I still hear ‘urban myths’ from British people in Spain. So I want to bring together, without advertising, my experiences that I can pass to others. I am 59 years old and my financial services experiences are available to you all.
Tags: banking, expatriates, financial services, information, insurance, pension, property, Spain, Spanish, UK
It’s a fiesta today here in Spain, the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Día de la Inmaculada Concepción). It’s a Roman Catholic holy day, which marks the conception of the Virgin Mary, a point from which she started and remained throughout her life free of the Original Sin that stains the rest of us. Or so the Catholic doctrine says.
Having been brought up in England in a Protestant household – albeit with a Roman Catholic father (although that is another topic in itself) – it’s not a holiday I was familiar with until moving to Spain. But then so much of Roman Catholic theology and practice remains something of a mystery to me, despite it’s communality with the UK’s ‘national’ religion. Which I suppose is what makes living in Spain – or for that matter any other country – so interesting.
And I have to say, I quite like the idea of squeezing another public holiday in before Christmas too …
Tags: Catholic, Christmas, Conception, country, England, fiesta, holiday, living, Mary, Protestant, religion, Sin, Spain
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