Update: We move in on June 1st 2004

On February 29th 2004 my girlfriend Jo proposed to me, so I decided I better get responsible and find us a home to settle down. 

Having become disillusioned with life in the UK we had already talked about emigrating from the UK, so we decided to look at other countries where we could live and work without immigration issues, where the lifestyle was more laid back, where the weather was more pleasant, but still close enough for us to visit our friends and family in the UK, and for them to come and visit us. 

We decided that Spain met most of our requirements and went house hunting in mid March. Our first choice of house fell through when the seller pulled out, but on our second attempt we found a nice Andalusian style Farmhouse which only needs a small amount of work done to meet our needs.

The house stands on 10,000 sq metres of farmland ( 2.5 acres), a mixture of paddocks and olive orchards with horses, chickens, turkeys, geese and dogs sharing the grounds.

Currently the house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a lounge/kitchen/diner, a second kitchen, a workshop, a wine cellar and stables. We are going to convert the stables into another 2 bedrooms and add an additional bathroom and dressing-room.

The Paddocks at the back of the house are going to be converted to lawns and a basketball court. The Kennels, and fowl houses will be removed and the area paved and finished with a swimming pool.

We will keep the Olive Orchards - I love olives and cooking with olive oil.

These are a few pictures we took when we visited the house. I will add more as the project progresses. Click on the pictures to see a larger version.

We have managed to get a few pictures of the town as well. The last picture is the view from my office in the town. (Jo got tired of me working 16 hour days at home so I have taken an office to work in during the day so that I can relax at home in the siesta and evenings.)