Saying YES to the Alpujarras – and NO to Pylons…

Yesterday in the Alpujarras… it was a whirlwind of activity… gorgeous clear blue skies… and a very unexpected conversation from the other side of the world!

Some of you may not know about the situation we are facing here in the Alpujarras. It’s come to light that the Spanish electricity company REE has for years, been planning a highway of high voltage cables and pylons to go through Spain and on into France… and that means coming right through our area of the Alpujarras… with the very short version being that an 80m high pylon is proposed to be built only 250m away from our house, just at the end of our track. I’ve livestreamed about it on my personal Facebook page, and that video now has over 2.4k viewings… I’m posting about it… sharing it where I can to raise awareness and support… and it’s admittedly all been very worrying and very real…

BUT…

I’m not going to let it consume me or pull me out of the absolute magic of the moment and the fact that me and My Gorgeous Man are still living in the magical, miracle home that we manifested… and that we absolutely LOVE it here!

So yesterday morning I was pottering around online when I received a surprise call from the inspirational souls that are Glynne Rae and Nicky Hamid in New Zealand, global leaders in living through love and humanity’s conscious awakening.  They were supporting my livestream call for help… planting the seed of an idea and giving me a loving kick up the butt. They pushed me into action!

The full details on this will be shared very shortly, as it’s all come together in a wonderfully fast flow… and it involves a gathering of hearts, in person and online, to open our hearts, raise our vibration to focus on the highest outcome and the protection of this area while immersing in the powerful galactic energy of the Universe and the Star Beings that work through me. Through the power of love we will to shift the vibration of this situation and release the fear, release the low vibes and release all possibility of it ever happening… and anchor more light and love into the Alpujarras and our beautiful world through all the souls that join us.

I was initially terrified at the thought of stepping up and leading the way… but now I’m excited, inspired and all fired up!

Just as I was finishing talking to Glynne and Nicky… in stomps My Gorgeous Man from outside, trailing in the dirt and yet another basket of wood for the fire… after having picked up our ‘builder and all round miracle worker, translater, fixer, acequia manager, tree doctor friend’, Angel Aaron from the end of the track… who’d come armed with chainsaw, fuel, giant secateurs and a great big happy smile.

Yup… the boys’ reunion was well underway and the beer was chilling in the fridge. Yesterday was the day for pruning back the olive and citrus trees so that we can bring them back to health and abundant production. We have around 90 olive trees on our land and when they are back in shape, we will be able to make our own olive oil and enjoy a seasonal income from them. But after over 5 years of abandonment while this house stood empty, some of the trees had fallen into bad shape… and as much as I find pruning very difficult to witness, I knew it was needed. Angel Aaron was under strict instructions and he assured me that he would be pruning them back with love, compassion and awareness. And I trusted him.

It didn’t sound like it though once the chainsaw was up and running… reverberating around our magical dingly-dell and it rang out on what felt like every single one of my nerve endings.

I breathed my way through it for a while and then decided to leave the men to it… and headed into Lanjarón to pick up some lunch for the workers… except by the time I’d got there, I got a call asking if the hardware store was open… because the chain on the chainsaw had broken and could I come back as quick as possible so that no time was lost.

So I ran round the supermarket… unknowingly at that point, forgetting Sir Maxelot’s chicken… and raced home as much as Jimmy our Kangoo would let me… especially along the 2.5km track where second gear feels too fast and you’re being thrown around the bumps, dips, stones, holes and holding your breath going past the death drop.

After dumping the shopping, poking the fire into action again, giving Sir Maxelot yet another ‘we’re just going out for a while biscuit’.. not unpacking the shopping and boosting the fire that really didn’t want to get going… again… we all jumped back into Jimmy and headed, this time, into Órgiva, where it had been decided that the chainsaw would be more easily repaired on the spot.

Amazingly there was a very rare parking space right on the corner of the hardware Hursquvarna store, so MGM swerved across the road straight into it and stopped right in front of the great big mowers that were out on show on the road. The chainsaw was dropped off and we all dove into the bar next door and hauled our asses up onto the stools… pre-lunch beer was ordered for the boys and a coffee with an exceptionally overly sweet piece of chocolate naughtiness was ordered for this girl.

Beer, coffee, sweet and savoury... pure naughtiness...
Beer, coffee, sweet and savoury… pure naughtiness…

It was an hour of banter, laughter, camaraderie, friendship, positivity and it highlighted again, how much we love it here and how we’ve really found ‘family’. Mid coffees, I realised I’d forgotten Sir Maxelot’s chicken, so headed down to the supermarket further along the road… picked up the awfulness of a bottle of Coke for the boys and once back in the bar on my stool with the remnants of my tepid coffee being enjoyed, I realised that I’d forgotten Sir Maxelot’s chicken… again. Brain like a sieve at the moment… it’s called the menopause.

In that little time that I’d been down at the supermarket, My Gorgeous Man had been introduced to the infamous Bar Cañada’s tapas of fried potatoes covered in ‘alioli’… creamy garlic buttery sauce… with added spicy ketchup… MGM and Angel Aaron were grinning from ear to ear. It was rather delicious… and rather garlicy. I think we’ll be going back for more. Soon.

Back in the car… chainsaw fixed with new sharp chain bit and off we headed home. Only 6km along the smooth main road… marvelling at the views of Sierra Lujar… and affirming that the pylons simply won’t be coming here… we headed back along the track which for the fourth time in one morning for me, felt interminably bumpy, rocky, crazy, dear God hold onto your hat and anything you can actually hold onto, before safely making it back to our heart’s kingdom on the side of the hill.

MGM & Angel Aaron…

The boys carried on giving the trees their new energy infused haircuts… moving down onto the lower terrace where the mandarin and lemon trees are… MGM dug a channel so the water from our main acequia can reach the lower terrace… and I surprised myself at how much I liked the newly pruned looks. Angel Aaron was right… he had removed the dead branches and very young sprouts… and created super strong, clear space for the branches to stretch out and thrive. The trees actually felt relieved. Phew. And YAY!

Then all of a sudden there was a disturbing klinking clanking noise and some profound swearing. The chain had broken again. It seemed the Universe had most definitely called time on pruning.

The boys reluctantly packed up… refused my offer of homemade sandwiches and a wee refreshing can of ‘Alhambra cerveja’ on the terrace… and scooted very quickly off to their favourite haunt, Top Camping, for their favourite non veggie stew.

Returning inside, it was just me and Sir Maxelot… who was still very asleep… and the wood burning stove… which was still on a very stubborn ‘I’m not burning’ streak.

Sir Maxelot... just chillin'...
Sir Maxelot… just chillin’…

So I took advantage of the peace and quiet outside, without the chainsaw as background music… and shared another positive, upbeat livestream, rallying troops into positive high vibe presence to bring about change… no more fear around Pylons!

We can do this!

Then I picked up my laptop and started to write… and here I am still writing!

Tonight, I’m feeling so very blessed… there is positivity in the air… MGM came back and got the fire roaring (annoyingly wonderfully easily)… and we are feeling supported, held and protected by the Universe.

Everything is going to be A-OK. And so it is .

And if you’d like to lend your support and help us save our homes and this amazing area of Spain… please sign the petition to help stop the REE electricity highway coming through the Alpujarras…
CLICK HERE!

THANK YOU … and Hasta Luego 😎

Love,

PS…. We have wild spring onions!!!

Wild Spring Onions!
Wild Spring Onions!

Wild Storms, Torn Dew Claws & Empathic Overwhelm

A break in the storm clouds...

I’ve always considered myself a strong, independent woman, deeply connected to the truth of what the Divine Feminine really means in a modern world….  but here’s a personal truth bomb…. I am sooo over being on my own up here in the Spanish Alpujarra mountains.  It’s been 6 weeks since My Gorgeous Man left to go and work in Dubai on a 3-5 month contract to get us out of the financial pit we found ourselves in after the palaver of bringing water onto our magical land brought us to our knees.

And all I can say is ‘Thank God, thank the Universe, thank all things wuwu, thank all things destined, not destined fated or not’… because I am over being strong in that old masculine paradigm of strong… and I want my man back here.  And I want him back here Now.  So I don’t know why I was surprised that the Universe heard my call… and answered it.  The Universe always answers… even if we don’t realise it at the time… but the main thing is that My Gorgeous Man is coming back home. I will however, have to hold it together for another 7 days 20 hours and a few more minutes tagged onto the end for increased suspense… until he lands back into Granada next week.  His contract role has not worked out for a long list of reasons… and I for one am counting the blessings that he’ll soon be home. Big lessons learned all round.

There are times when the money just isn’t worth it.

The last few days have been tough… spent in the throws of a storm where the wind has been continually blasting the house,  leaving my normally zen nerves rattled and my nights, sleepless as I try not to imagine the windows crashing in or the car being blown off the track… while I can hear all things not nailed down, moving around outside.  It’s been nighttime rounds of keep the fire going… check Max is warm enough… and checking the pilot light on the fridge hasn’t been blown out again. And it’s amazing how the mind super exaggerates everything in the black of night.  It’s been a test of trust and of consciously bringing myself back to focusing ONLY on the good and of not allowing my mind to get the better of me during the dark nights.  The ironic thing is that we are only 2.5km away from the main road, 2.6km away from a wonderful friend and 6km away from civilisation, but I might as well have felt as if I’ve been dropped on top of the north pole.

I know I’m probably coming across as overly dramatic, but that’s how it’s felt, especially when I cracked open the door the other morning and the iron gate was pulled out of my hand and slammed against the wall… then later on I could hardly get out of the car because the wind against the door was too strong… the bench and chairs on the terrace were picked up and thrown further along, the fence poles around the terrace were blown down, the washing line was shredded, the wood pile support which was held down and in place by a huge chunk of concrete, was thrown into the porch and the roof collapsed… and the 1000L water storage cube further up the track was blown off its platform.

So for a bit of light relief, I drove into Orgiva to pay my parking ticket before it doubled in price. It wasn’t a great start when I couldn’t even see how to get in through the bank door and I was feeling a right foreigner numpty … and even more so when a local pointed through the door at the entry buzzer right next to me… I waited ages… patiently… to see the one teller on duty and practiced scenarios of Spanish silently in my head while getting my glasses and google translate at the ready… I made it to the desk and cockily thought I was rocking it until the teller handed me back the parking ticket and money then got up and went and put his jacket on and started to walk out the bank… what the heck??? … but he turned round and beckoned me to follow him to the outside cash machine… where it was bloody freezing and he basically did the whole process for me… despite me not putting enough money in and having to restart… and continually misspelling my name through the ultra sensitive touch screen… with a queue building behind me. Then hey presto …. out comes a printed receipt and job done. He even smiled as I tried to enthuse more out of my meagre ‘muchas gracias’….

Note to self… do NOT park there again!

But I do have great news! Since the plumber came and replaced our big posh pump with a smaller version, the solar power system has not tripped… so that’s a whole week of not living on the edge of power outages and black outs and trips to the outdoor solar power room with keys in hand and a prayer in my heart that the light… and internet… will actually come back on.  I mean, how many times can you reset a system before it sticks its fingers up at you?!

I cannot fully express what a relief this has been!

The other challenge that has been going on in the background, is that Sir Maxelot has damaged his dew claw.  It has been agonising to watch him wince, yelp in pain… but to not let me near it.  Luckily, his naturopathic healer is our lovely friend Birgit, who lives those 2.6km away, so she immediately came to the rescue and brought him relief through remedies.  He was doing so well and was relaxed and settled… so much so that he forgot about his damaged claw and went into manic ear scratching mode … and his screams of pain totally finished me off last night.  So, I never made it to Spanish class, which also meant that I ran out of drinking water because the mountain spring we use is on the way into Lanjarón and I’d been waiting to tick all said boxes at once.

Being an empath, I feel the emotions and physical sensations of other sentient beings… be they human or animal.  And while I have lived comfortably with this for many a year and I no longer get overwhelmed by what I feel or pick up… in that moment I was totally ripped apart emotionally and energetically by Sir Maxelot’s scream.  

His claw was now at a right angle to his leg.  I was feeling sick, dizzy, panicky and totally lost my grounding as the cannon ball of pain hit my solar plexus and stayed there.  Normally I can clear what I pick up really quickly… but because I’d lost my centre… his pain, grew and grew inside of me.

I started loading him up with rescue remedy and gave him an extra dose of the appropriate remedy and I sat with him, stroking is head, calming him down and I just had to trust that healing was still able to move through me, despite my own distressed state.    I called My Gorgeous Man for support, which turned out to be as equally distressing for him to not be at home and able to help, but selfishly, I just needed someone to hold space for me.  We talked through the temporary options of trying to cover the claw, or protect it with homemade cones, or to put of sock over his foot… but every option just made me feel more sick and could actually do more harm than good.  It was about an hour later that I left Max’s side after the relaxation and pain remedies had kicked in, and when I moved, he sat up and started to lick his claw and it started to move back into place.  It churned my stomach.. but wow… what a star.

By that point I was a wreck and I did something I very rarely do.  I asked for help.  I’ve always found it hugely difficult to ask for help but I’m working on releasing those old self sabotage patterns!! So, I posted in my Channelling Love Membership group, asking the wonderful hearts and healers there for healing for myself and Sir Maxelot… to help release his pain from me that I couldn’t shift… and to help him in any way and all ways. 

Sir Maxelot this afternoon… in the flow of recovery…
Not at my best... but sharing the reality...
Not at my best… but sharing the reality…

This is the wonderful thing about community… beautiful souls responded straight away and I felt such an energetic shift move through me that I had to go lie down.  Energy healing is real.  We are beings of energy, not just a physical body with a thinking mind. And because we are energy, we can shift, release dis-ease, old toxic emotions, residual pain, belief patterns and all the crap that actually keeps us out of alignment and generally feeling yuk.  HUGE Thank you Seanin Banrion, who is the channel for the Cosmic Sophia and who I’m running a retreat with here in the Alpujarras in March… and thank you Jenny Slater, my dear friend and animal communicator who has a strong connection with Sir Maxelot… who were the two ‘first aiders’ on the ‘scene’…. I’m deeply grateful for your help.

Max and I were in ‘bed’ by 9pm… and by the time I woke up at 1.30am he was in a very comfortable deep sleep and it looked like he had licked his claw back into place.

I decided to occupy my mind and put my midnight hours to good use and created the newsletter around this weekend’s big channelling Peace of Heart event… and did some other stuff that took me through till 4.30am… when Max surfaced and asked to go out… with a waggy tail, ears up and very much alert.  He wasn’t so impressed with the wind when I opened the door, so it was a quick pit stop and then back to bed.

In the meantime my Gorgeous Man had sent a good morning message as he headed into his contrasting reality of corporate challenges and asked for good luck wishes and high vibes to speed him on his way… and then I collapsed back into bed and finally drifted off to sleep.

What I’ve had reaffirmed again and again over the last few days… is the power and gift of friends… the power of love… the power of trust… the power of our thoughts and the experience we choose to create through them… the deep connection that runs through us all… empaths or not… we are all connected through the Universal life force and LOVE… we are all sentient… we are all healers through our love…. and if that’s sounding all a bit too fluffy and wuwu for you… just take a deep breath… because the scientific world is finally catching up with us witches.

So… I am now back in my light… anchored in grounded presence… being myself… asking for help when I need it… and accepting help when I need it… and keeping on living my spiritual non fluffy truth.  As an awakened woman, being strong doesn’t come from standing alone, fighting your way through life and pretending you’re ok… it’s through standing in your truth and owning your vulnerability, being in alignment with your Divinity, your heart and your innate mystic wu… all within the power of love and within love of your tribe.

Hasta Luego my lovely friends… 😎

Love,

PS.  Sir Maxelot has licked his claw back into place… and breathe… and monitor… and send healing…. and repeat.

PPS.   It’s now only 7 days, 18 hours and 32 minutes till My Gorgeous Man arrives home… in fact it’s even less than that because I didn’t post this blog straight away… not that I’m counting the days hours and minutes… nope, I’m not counting at all…

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Divine Signs, Tears and a Parking Ticket…

The magic of Sir Maxelot...

Recently in the Alpujarras…

And breathe.

It’s been one helluva run of a few days and once again, the Universe in collaboration with the powerful energy here in the Alpujarra mountains, has brought about a shift.

The morning glow on the mountain behind us…

From crazy, strong, scary loud winds that felt like the house was going to do a ‘Wizard of Oz’ with pots crashing down in the porch and the waterproof tarpaulin over the woodpile turning into a giant sail and then the woodpile support giving way… and the Dangerous Dog sign being pulled off the outside wall… to the bliss of sharing a Live channelled healing that was so overwhelmingly powerful that I had tears rolling down my face in joy of the Divine connection… to the magic of Sir Maxelot who is thriving and loving his life again after being on the edge of ‘shall I stay or shall I go’ for most of last year and now taking you on jogging missions waaaay further up the track than normal… to the hard graft of shifting another €20 worth of wood from wheelbarrow to car boot to down the steps into the porch and into the woodpile, no longer covered with the tarpaulin and then into the house… to the generous, kind friend who cooked a veggie hotpot and told me to come over for lunch and 2 hours passed before we knew it… to the irony of sharing a Facebook live healing and oracle card reading outside, with 2 cards flying away on the wind, that turned out to be Divine Signs and Transformation, which highlighted that being in trust and following the synchronicities and signs is how situations and your life can transform for the better… to the anxiety hit of losing a much loved, long term client… to the high of a wonderful new client appearing from nowhere…  heart opening morning walks with Sir Maxelot overlooking the reservoir… to the buzz of a great tech run through for the Peace of Heart online channelling event I’m co-hosting with world famous channels Laarkmaa… to the miracle of a white feather appearing from nowhere onto my laptop… to mastering the art of fire starting and the room being satisfyingly roasty toasty… to the low of the solar power system once again tripping, after I’d donned PJs and got into bed, and then having to grab headlamp, socks, boots, jacket and find keys to get into the outdoor solar power room… and again… lights on… lights off… hold your breath… and damn, the internet has gone down again too… to the wonderful surprise that the plumber turned up a day early and refitted the water deposit’s new smaller pump (to stop the power surges that have been tripping the solar power system)… and did all the work while I was out… left the old pump in the wood bin on our terrace… and then met him on the track and had the conversation in Spanish that I understood… and to us miraculously having crossed paths where there was space for 2 cars to juuuuuuuuust squeeze past each other, thankfully nowhere near the death drop… from the lows of bursting into tears on seeing a friend because you’ve had enough of being on your own and Sir Maxelot had caught his dew claw and it was bleeding but he wouldn’t let you near it…  gathering yourself together to go back out into the world… and then bursting into tears  10 minutes later when you see another friend for same said reasons… to the gratitude of both friends checking up on you later in the day… to the relief of release as you sit down and  do nothing but listen to some soothing mantra music out on the terrace in the afternoon sun… to the low of secretly crying your way through a yoga class, because yoga is energy healing, powerful and sacred and the full moonitis and eclipse madness was coursing through your whole being… to the secret naughty joy of finding a new delicious chocolate cake… to the shock of getting your first parking ticket in your favourite parking spot and disbelief that none of the other cars had one… to the fun of a friend coming to your home for the first time, getting completely lost and laughing as you drive up and down the same track expecting to see something different… to the fun of a new Spanish class where all levels of non Spanish are welcomed, encouraged and laughed through… especially when phones unexpectedly go off with desperate unsuccessful attempts to turn it off amidst ‘por’ and ‘para’ grammar explanations while accompanied by “Hello… hello… are you there?” from within the phone case…. you would have thought we were naughty school kids rather than the over ‘nifty at fifty’ club… to the love of the goat herd passing by with the romance of their sounding bells and waving to the friendly goat herder… to the energy cleansing and clearing of washing, cleaning and tidying the hoose… to the acceptance, that all is perfect in every given moment… and that life is for living from the heart and for embracing every single moment that it brings… for all we have is the now… and I choose my now to be lived through Love and to let go of the fear and the struggle.  We cannot fight against what is.  It’s through our surrender and releasing the illusion of control, that we innately align with the power of the Universal Flow… and magic happens.

And the magic has happened… My Gorgeous Man is coming home…💜

Hasta Luego my lovely friends… 

Love,

Peace of Heart – Sunday 3rd February 4pm – 5.30pm UK time
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When a Windy Day brings her Gifts…

Lenticular Cloud...

Today in the Alpujarras…

It is windy. Very windy. Very Very Windy. Not long after we moved in to our miracle home, we learnt that said miracle home stands in one of Mother Nature’s natural wind tunnels. I guess the fact there is a series of wind turbines further down the valley didn’t really click, until the wind got up. We did comment though that a nice breeze in the stifling summers would be lovely. But the wind is now so ‘up’ that I’m feeling like I’m sitting in the house in the film The Wizard of Oz, and wondering if me and Sir Maxelot, our beloved rescue greyhound, will be swept up and dropped somewhere further up into the Sierra Lujar.

One thing that I love though about this winter weather, is its wildness. I can’t help but love the freedom of the wind… the power of the wind and the cleansing and clearing that it brings energetically to my mind, body and soul.

Lenticular clouds
Yup… no filter and no special effects!

I’m also fascinated by the special lenticular clouds that form in this area of Spain. I had never seen clouds like them before… and my first reaction was… they look like space ships! They are smooth, oval shaped and unlike ‘normal’ clouds… they don’t move. They do however change shape and can often look as if they are tiered. Apparently it’s all to do with the wind moving over the shape of the mountains… cooling and the condensation then forming the clouds. But while they started to form this evening, and gave me a couple of spectacularly dramatic photos, the wind is now so ferocious that they have disappeared. Local knowledge also says that when lenticular clouds appear, it’ll rain in 3 days. So I’ll keep you posted on that one.

The Lenticular Mothership Cloud...
The Lenticular Mothership Cloud…

This post actually marks a new beginning for Namaste This.

A whole new chapter began just before Christmas, which ironically also marked the end of our first year here in the Alpujarras. The 23rd December 2018 was the turning point when My Gorgeous Man had to return to work in the corporate world because basically, the international move, life, buying cars, buying our off-grid home that needed water and electricity brought into the ‘one large room with a bathroom on the side on the side of a mountain’… had brought us to our financial knees. So while we had packed up our life in Edinburgh, put most of it into unsuspecting parent’s attics and followed our hearts to drive THE drive into a whole new life in Southern Spain, not really knowing how it would work out… we absolutely manifested miracles along the way, but we’ve also been surfing and facing and overcoming the challenges of ‘this’ reality.

Many of you will have read the stories, dramas, highs and lows that I’ve shared here on Namaste Thisfor the last 18 months … and from now on I’m sharing these blogs directly to Namaste This on the Steemit Platform too… and posting even more escapades on my Namaste This Blog Facebook page. So forgive me if I repeat myself, but I’m bringing everything into alignment for the real writing to begin. And that includes THE book.

This is us...
This is us…

So welcome to my new aligned beginnings. And welcome to the world of Namaste This… where following your heart is the name of the game, but keeping it real means no fluff is attached. In my line of work as an incorporating channel and healer in the world of all things spiritual… it’s a slippery tightrope to balance your way along… but luckily, I have an inappropriately dark sense of humour and super strong glue on my shoes… which is ultra important when you can’t get the fire to light… you’re missing Strictly Come Dancing… your windswept hair gets totally tangled and trapped in the low olive tree branches that your dog insists on pulling you under, your internet allowance runs out at just the perfectly wrong moment, the solar power system trips and everything goes black… and you still can’t get over how much you enjoyed wild feral pees when you lived without water for 7 weeks.

Yup… off-grid life is not for the faint hearted. It’s for bravehearts. Or city slickers with rose tinted glasses that didn’t know what they were in for. All boxes well and truly ticked… and that t-shirt is already threadbare.

Hasta Luego my lovely friends… I have homework to do tonight… my Spanish class tomorrow is apparently going to be talking about all things Feminism… so I need to get my vocabulary ready when I step up on the Divine Feminine soap box. Wish my teacher luck…

Love,

Come and find me on Steemit!
Come and find me on Steemit!

The Day we Bought our Dream Home…

The best seat in the house...

It feels like a million years ago already.  And yet it’s actually only 3 months… and bizarrely only 5 weeks since we moved in.  I wish I could say that I clearly remember that day 3 months ago, but to be honest, it’s foggy for a reason… mainly due to the intense stress and freak out moments of “Is it actually going to go through??”  Because yes… it did get that nail bitingly close.

In my ‘wuwu’ world… everything flows and eventually works out.  But wuwu wasn’t going to cut it when practically every penny we had was going to be transferred out of our account… the 2 English owners/sellers were only in Spain for a few days to complete on the sale… and one was ill, having only just made it onto the flight… and add in the many miscommunications about account numbers, names, amounts, and definitive finalities… it was no wonder we were awake most of the night before.

The night before...
The night before…

Bleary eyed and with rather tight, high pitched voices,  off we went to meet the agent at Marios in the Órgiva plaza,  right in front of the Notario’s office… for a very strong coffee at 10am… with reassurances of everything being quiet at the Notario for the final point of signatures and completion and that… ‘things’ would only take a couple of hours max.

Well, we waited half an hour… and obviously started to get the jitters.  And then the agent’s work partner turned up in the plaza… didn’t recognise us and sat down at another table.  My Gorgeous Man and I just looked at each other… not sure what we should do.  Eventually we called him over and the blank look was followed by him looking for my ‘identifying’ purple hair, which is getting less and less purple with every day that passes living up in the Spanish mountains. 

The Plaza shaded from the summer sun...
The Plaza shaded from the summer sun…

Steve our agent (of A Place in the Sun fame) turned up all smiles and tensely relaxed.  He did a good job of trying to reassure us, saying how many times he’s been through this and that there’s nothing to worry about.  He actually does a great job and goes way beyond his remit as an estate agent.  We were immediately dispatched off to the bank to draw the two cheques needed to pay for our wee hoose.  We had thought the lawyer was coming with us, but apparently not.  So armed with Google translate and everything written in very clear writing, and a stomach churning the strong Spanish coffee… we walked all of one minute to the bank just down the main street.

Cue huge sigh of relief.  Our friendly teller who’s fluent in English was on.  Thank God.  I pulled out the paper and asked for the bankers drafts to be drawn up and he just looked at our terrified faces and the sums of money (which to us were humungous but weren’t even considered a lottery win) and said  “OK… no problem” and got tapping away on this keyboard.  Authorisation was needed from the bank manager, double and triple checked and all the while our stomachs continued to churn in case we didn’t have something else that was needed… or God forbid there was a spelling mistake.  But, it was all so easy!  As he handed everything over, he wished us well and gave us a great big grin and shook our hands. 

Coming out the bank into Órgiva main street with its summer shades...
Coming out the bank into Órgiva main street with its summer shades…

I must remember that going to the bank in Órgiva is a pleasurable experience and not like in the UK where you almost feel like a criminal for wanting take money out of your own account in the first place!
We walked out of the bank tightly holding onto the cheques and took deep gulps of huge relief that the first step was successfully over with.

Back in the plaza Steve had been joined by the 2 joint sellers of the property.  Two women from the UK who had lived the dream but as age had moved on, they had decided that being back in the UK was their preferable choice.

They were actually great.  Non conformist and just as nervous as we were.  We weren’t sure if we were supposed to be friendly, formal, distant or share our inner most secrets… but there was an easiness within the shared tension at the table.   We had been told that we’d get in to see the Notario at about 11.30 and that our lawyer was going through all the documents with the Notary’s lawyer, double checking, ticking boxes and doing God Knows What.  But time passed… and time passed… and time passed.  And nothing happened.

And it was approaching lunchtime and the longer we waited, the closer we got to the Notary signing off at 2pm for siesta.  And it’s tough luck if you’re still in the queue because it’s tools down at 2pm!  So everything went from being casually ok… to “Why isn’t anything happening?”  Steve said that the office was very quiet so not to worry… and we had no choice but to believe him.

The conversation around the table was affable enough… although somehow Steve’s partner had weirdly drunk my drink (and I’d been too embarrassed to say anything) and we had learnt where Paddy the dog had been buried… and that we had rights to a room in the neighbour’s ruin… and shared rights to the natural water deposit beyond the wall… and…

  “Oh by the way… can we stay in the house till Thursday?… You’re not moving in straight away anyway are you?”  Thursday being two nights away.

Cue a silent… “What?”

“Of course you can!”

Hahahaha!

Then there was a very slow sinking realisation that they might have been serious… and… that we had said… Yes.

MGM and I looked at each other silently but couldn’t say a word while we were all still at the table waiting to be called in to the Notary.  I felt my stomach churn.

Jeez…

Then at about 1pm we got the phone call from the lawyer to leg it up to the Notary’s office!  All our stomach’s churned even more.

What we saw when we went in was a crowd of people milling around.. .and apparently it was a queue… all waiting for their turn.  It was a like generations of family reunions… and our hearts sank.

Luiz, our lawyer stayed with us for a bit… we stood at the back of the room… he said just wait for your name to be called out.. and disappeared off for phone calls and other stuff in his office downstairs.  Our hackles rose and we went into high alert mode to listen for anything recognisable as my name or the lawyers name.

And basically we stood there for over an hour.  Blood pressure rising.  Dread increasing.  Ignorance and helplessness becoming ever more magnified.

Then all of a sudden Luiz appears and asks for paper proof of the deposit being paid.

WHAT???

This wasn’t on our list of ‘must haves’.

In fact, when I had asked,  my bank had said they don’t send out proof of payments but I could go in to a branch to get one.  Well that wasn’t going to happen seeing as I was in Spain and my bank is in Scotland… so we had taken screen shots of my online statement and they had been sent to Steve.  The fact that the transactions didn’t have a recipient’s name didn’t really help.

So there was a flurry of intense panic  and dawning realisation that this was a complete F*ck Up.  Between shaky hands trying to send the email attachments of screenshots to Luiz’s office email downstairs so he could print them off as the requested proof… and a few beads of sweat began to show.  And on the other end… the ladies hadn’t brought any proof of having received their deposit funds either.

Doomed.

But the bottom line was that we needed printed proof from the bank… and we didn’t have it.  And if the Notary said that wasn’t acceptable, then the sale would be off.

It was up to Luiz to fight our corner and the case of electronic proof being enough. 

Steve trying to look relaxed...
Steve trying to look relaxed…

Our heads ran through the scenario of the sale being refused and the owners going back to the UK and all of us being back at square one again.

Luiz was away for quite a while and we had to remind ourselves to breathe.  Even Steve’s casually confident demeanour took a hit.

In the meantime, MGM and I managed to whisper about the fact that we had 2 ladies thinking that they were going to be staying in our new house for the next 2 nights.

What the F were we going to do about that?

How excruciatingly embarrassing… and actually WTF were they thinking?  Holyfrikkingdoodaas!

You wouldn’t dream of doing that back in the UK… so why did they think they could sell the house and just stay in it for another couple of nights?  We called in ‘The Steve’ and he was as baffled and shocked as we were… and I’m not proud to say that we passed the buck and asked him to tell them The No.

By now, there were two camps anyway.  Me, MGM and Steve were propping up the back wall and the two ladies had grabbed a couple of seats on the other wall as the milling crowds had begun to dissipate.  There was a most definite divide.  And the tension was building with every minute that excrutiatingly ticked by.

Luiz finally reappeared saying that the Notary had accepted the screenshots as proof!

Thank F*ck for That!

Everyone suddenly became friends again.

But there was still no end in sight for the sale.  And by this point our giant furry, pony-sized greyhound was probably beginning to cross his legs… almost 4 hours had passed since we had left the house.  MGM was all for going back to check on him but I suggested that if he wanted to keep his balls, he would stay right there with me.  Funnily enough, he didn’t leave.

The waiting...
The waiting…

Two o’clock came and went and we thought we were done for.  People appeared from back offices that we hadn’t seen go in and it was all a bit like a Dr Who time-tardis… and then nearer 2.30pm… my name was called!  We were in so much shock that we weren’t even sure that we’d heard it …and then our body leapt to attention and our hearts leapt into our mouths.

Holy shit… this is it!

We had been instructed to say nothing unless we were spoken to.  And Scott was adamant that I had to control my wild rebellious side and I was not to innately do what I wasn’t supposed to!  As if… 

So, we were all shown through to the corridor and told to wait.  Luiz was in with the Notary lawyer and we were all to then be escorted and shuffled into the Notary’s office for THE SIGNING OF THE SALE.

Dear God… I was petrified.  And our two ladies also looked petrified.  Steve was almost breathing and MGM was swallowing hard trying to look nonchalant.

And then it happened.  The door opened and we were ushered in.  I have to admit that I was expecting to see an old wizened man with white hair sitting behind a desk.  I wasn’t expecting the dishy hunk sat behind his large desk playing a game on his smartphone.

Gulp.

Focus Sally, focus.

Steve had said he would start reading out the ‘escritura’ (deeds) to us and that we basically had to say yes to identifying ourselves and confirm the other prompts.  He checked passports against the document… read it through… asked if we understood.  Luiz was our lawyer so he was our official translator… the ladies didn’t have an official translator for their side of the sale so we held our breath to see if we could all get away with that… and their appropriate yes did the trick.  Phew.

And before we knew it… I was asked for my signature. 

It’s really weird how when under pressure you forget how to write your own name.  My hand kind of froze… but the squiggle was apparently legal enough.  Both ladies signed their stressed squiggles and then the Hunk just looked at us, smiled the smile to melt a thousand hearts and put his hand out in congratulations.  We all shook hands, nervously laughed… Steve leaned over and gave me and MGM the keys… and then the Notario Hunk said something in English … and I can’t even remember what it was.

But…

WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!

IT WAS DONE!

WE’D BOUGHT OUR DREAM HOME!!

Our dream home...
Our dream home…

It seemed inappropriate to do a jig or scream or do something wild… so I railed it in and just hugged MGM and the ladies.

OMG… that dream wee house was now OURS!

Luiz said he’d be in touch with final bills and figures and God knows what… honestly… it’s a permanently changing feast… but at that moment we just didn’t care as he slipped quietly out of the room.

The awkward task that we’d delegated to Steve of telling the ladies that they couldn’t stay on in the house, then had to be broached.  He took it all in his stride and as we all walked down the stairs we could hear him talking of “insurance and legal issues” that would prevent them from being able to stay in a property that was no longer theirs.  We also overheard a snarky response about being “thrown out on their ears”… Mmmmmm.  I kept my mouth shut.  As did MGM.

As My Gorgeous Man and I desperately needed to now get back to the house and let out our 4 legged baby for his comfort breaks… it was agreed that we would drive up to our new home for 5pm to meet the ladies there and take the keys and share goodbyes.  I can’t say we were looking forward to it, in that context… but that’s the way it unfolded.

But after almost 5 hours of intense stress and begging the angels to help us complete the sale… we now had our dream home… and that seemed but a little hoop to jump through  in the bigger scheme of things.  We came up with a charm offensive and went armed with drinks and snacks to share.

The short story is, that when we arrived at our new home at 5pm, the ladies had already left.  They’d left a kind note on the door… and that was it.  We wish them well.  It was a stressful day for all of us and as much as we were over the moon to buy the hoose… it was probably difficult for them to leave behind a house that they had loved.

And so a whole new chapter began for all of us.

The keys to our forever home!

In my next instalment, I’ll be sharing the “WTF have we done” reality of having bought a property with no water, no electricity… and up a 2.5 km track, with a death drop off to the left… or right… depending on whether you are coming or going.  But a death drop none the less.

But on that day almost 3 months ago, as we shared a couple of beers on the roof and watched the sun go down… we honestly couldn’t have been happier.  Never, ever… say never.

Dreams really do come true.

Love,

 

 

 

 

Celebratory beer on the roof!
Celebratory beer on the roof!

Here’s why it’s been all go but ‘no show’…

One of our first sunsets...

You’re right…. it’s been a while since you’ve seen a new post here.  In fact, it’s been over a month since my last confession… ahem, post… but like all procrastinators, I have a good reason.  Life got super, crazy busy… and I simply ran out of steam.

But… 

Yes!!

The sale went through on the 30th July 2018 and we became the proud new owners of our wee miracle home… the full story is coming soon… I promise… because it was one helluva day!  A day to be celebrated and incomprehensible bureaucracy marvelled at.

That wee hoose!
That wee hoose!

We didn’t actually move in until the 1st of October, because there was no electricity, no water, no nothing… and we still had 2 months left on our rental.  There was a huge amount of logistics to be put in place before we finally stepped over the threshold… and it was a tough time of going back and forth, back and forth, trying to co-ordinate non-co-ordinating Spanish plans… and in the middle of all that, Sir Maxelot started to go rapidly downhill again and I was working online and had a wonderfully crazy,  busy run of bookings for healings.

What should have been an exciting time, turned into a marathon of endurance and positive attitude.  We were already exhausted by the time moving day finally came round… and we weren’t even sure if we would be able to get a poorly Sir Maxelot into the car.  That is another miracle to be shared on another day!

Once in the hoose, we literally collapsed as we hit the ground running… had a massive storm and massive flash flood in our first week… the septic tank blocked… we still have no running water… but we do now have the humungous water deposit built to store the water… when we can eventually fill it.   And I’m very relieved to say that our solar power works an absolute treat and the Chatty Cathy setting just keeps telling us what’s being done, stored, powered up, used and basically keeping us novices, right.  We did however learn that starting up a hoover trips the whole system.

We’ve been on a very steep learning curve and it feels that we’ve learnt everything the hard way.  There have been many moments where we started to wonder WTF have we done.  Quite simply, everything has continued to escalate day after day after day.  Some great stuff has happened.  And some really, not so great stuff has happened.  But this is what we signed up for when we chose to leave our conventional Scottish life behind and start afresh in Southern Spain.

But we are here…

in our forever home and it’s ours!

Because there’s so much to share, I’ve opened up a Namaste This Blog Facebook page and Namaste This Blog Instagram account.  This way there’s daily in the moment posting, updates, insights, despair and celebrations… even before all the really juicy ‘stuff’ gets officially blogged.

I’ll hope you’ll come over and join Namaste This on social media… and in the meantime…

Hasta Luego!

Love,

 

 

 

 

Me and my gorgeous boys...
Me and my gorgeous boys…

 

Come and join Namaste This Blog on Instagram!
Come and join Namaste This Blog on Instagram!

 

Join Namaste This Blog on Facebook!
Join Namaste This Blog on Facebook!   

The Aftermath of the Miracle…

Bye bye Honda and helloooo Jimmy!

The thing is… we all want the miracle… we all dream of the miracle… we long for the miracle, beg for it, ask for it, pray for it and more often than not, don’t quite believe it will ever happen.  So when it does happen… it’s a huge shock and a very welcome head f*ck.   We had committed verbally to purchasing our wee dream home and it turned out that the fun was only just about to begin.

MGM immediately accepted the offer on his flat… and the completion was scheduled for the 17th May 2018.  This meant, the Spanish purchase couldn’t move forward either because we just didn’t have the cash deposit sitting in our rather threadbare back pockets.  There was going to have to be a whole lot of trust that our sellers wouldn’t gazump us… and that MGM’s buyers would see their purchase through.  We signed an agreement to buy, but as the estate agent said, it could just be ripped up with no consequences.  Great.  Good to know…

Our Dream Home!
Our Dream Home!

Add in the ‘not a bonus’ of MGM having to return to Scotland to sign his final sale papers and a whole bigger picture began to emerge that was an organisational wet dream for My Gorgeous Man’s project management mind… and a bit of a nightmare for my ‘just go with the flow’ approach.

So here’s the very condensed version of May and June. 

SHIT!! 

Our trusty Honda estate’s MOT’s due date was rapidly approaching… and there were some worrying rattling suspension noises that we’d been successfully ignoring.  We looked into the costs and bureaucratic complexities of re-nationalising the Honda onto Spanish number plates… but jeeeeezo… it was pricey.  I mean really pricey.  More dosh than could be justified for such an old car.

So the decision was made that MGM would drive the Honda back to Bonnie Scotland, get her serviced, MOT’d and sold, while selling his flat, and unpacking, repacking and courier-ing out to Spain some of our most treasured belongings that had been secretly stashed in his mother’s attic since we left last year and really wanted to have in our new home.

Of course, MGM taking the Honda back, meant that we had to buy a Spanish car pretty damn quick… as in we had 10 days.  What we discovered was that second hand Spanish cars are HUGELY EXPENSIVE… and when you don’t have the lingo or a clue what’s actually going on… it’s a frikking nightmare. 

Cue a big heart. 
Our friendly English mechanic along the road said he would help us and come and check out anything we wanted to see… phew. 

Cue another miracle! 

My Gorgeous Man during his online car hunt saw a post in our local community Facebook page… for a 4×4 Kangoo which is the preferred vehicle for the rural roads here.  It’s a bit like a Postman Pat van and a whole world away from our old Saab convertible that we’d bought on our return to the UK from Hong Kong 3 years ago… which had been reluctantly traded in for the trusty family Honda with the massive boot to accommodate the arrival of our princely greyhound giant, Sir Maxelot. 

But, wouldn’t you believe it, it turned out the Kangoo was being sold by a Scottish woman who had followed her dream to live out here 4 years ago.  It’s a beautiful small world we live in! 

So off we went with our friendly mechanic to check it out.  Only a fifteen minute drive away, we drove up the narrow, steep track, past an abandoned red double decker bus (God knows how it got there) and into the drive of the most perfectly gorgeous hobbit house we’d ever seen.  And Mary was there to greet us.  But just as we turned round to introduce said mechanic, we saw him peeing up against one of her trees.  The silence was actually hilarious.  Not phased or put off at all, (because that’s how life rolls here in Orgiva) the inspection went ahead and then we all shook on the sale. Her rescue dogs witnessed the transaction as the deposit was handed over and the ‘deal’ was scribbled out on a scrap of paper.  And she had 10 days to find her new car before MGM took the Honda back to the UK.

Cue, crazy car purchasing paperwork!  Holy Moly.  I went to our friendly legal advice office for expats… Alpujarra Conect… and every time I went in there I thought I’d remember what they said and had understood what was needed… but obviously not.  I had to go to the town hall… get a document for ‘Empandronamiento’… get that stamped, get it copied, get copies of the Spanish version of the V5, MOT thingy… and cough up roughly £200 for the pleasure of transferring the name from our new found compatriots to mine… and get a real lawyer to do the actual paperwork in Granada for us because there was no way we were going to try that ourselves.  It had taken me 2 attempts to get the town hall right.  Google translate was no match for the blank looks at my increasingly embarrassed and panicky attempts to explain myself. I found it all a tad stressful and felt a right numpty if truth be told.

Sir Maxelot Meets Jimmy the Kangoo
Sir Maxelot meets Jimmy…

But eventually we welcomed Jimmy the Kangoo into our lives.  Yup.  Our Kangoo was a Scottish Jimmy before he even came to us… and he is a right character.  We loved him from the word go.  Noisy, rattley, a bit battered on the outside but with a strong heart , temperamental gear box and just full of character…  We had our ‘campo car’ at last and it was another step deeper into permanent life in Spain.

So the day dawned that My Gorgeous Man was to leave me, Sir Maxelot and Jimmy ensconced in our little rental in the Alpujarra mountains.  Now, I normally like my alone time and space, but on this occasion I got all weepy and girly at him leaving.  And as I waved him off down the drive, my heart was heavy.  MGM drove off with a beep of the horn and there was nothing for it but to open a bottle of cheap plonk, dive into Netflix and cuddle Sir Maxelot… as much as you can cuddle a non-demonstrative, mini sized pony. 

My Gorgeous Man had a long and lonely 3 day journey ahead of him involving a mid Spain pit stop and a run for the Bilbao ferry with a 28 hour sea ride to Portsmouth without wifi… and another 8 odd hours drive up to Edinburgh through the night.  And he would only return to us in Spain when his flat was sold and the Honda was sold.

MGM drives off...
MGM drives off…

My absent hero.

It wasn’t good timing though because a couple of days later our beloved old Sir Maxelot’s health took a dive.  So much so that I couldn’t even get him into Jimmy to take him to the healer who’d been taking care of him.  She came to us instead.  Poor Max.  The stress of living with feral cats determined to stand their ground and taunt him was taking its toll on his nervous system and general old age arthritic kronky, fragility.  And when she told me about a good vet 40 minutes away on the coast in Motril, rather than the local one in Orgiva, I knew what she was saying.  He really was on the edge.  And all his issues were exacerbated by the fact that he was pining for MGM. 

Oh those boys… interspecies adoration… what a pair.

It was not a good time.

MGM and I started sharing WhatsApps on speaker phone so Max could hear his voice… I became primary dog nurse and emotional picker-upper and just kept on praying and praying that he would stay with us until MGM could get back.  But as yet there was no fixed date for My Gorgeous Man to return.

Not a happy boy... and cuddling his sheep...
Not a happy boy… and cuddling his sheep…

So with MGM finally arriving back on Scottish home turf and feeling extremely jaded, out of sorts and with a very sore heart for his furry baby, he started getting his flat in order for the final sale, holding his patience and tongue with estate agents and lawyers who didn’t do what they said they would do and juggling, car MOT’s, services, staying with his family and sneaking up into his mother’s attic to unpack, repack those personal treasures that we’d been missing.

Scrabbling through boxes in the attic was not as easy as he thought it would be.  It’s still a sore subject… but eventually 3 new 30kg boxes were filled and waved off with the courier with the promise of them arriving with me in Spain…in 5 days.

Well, our boxes of books, my remaining crystals and MGM’s DIY tools, and our shared home delights made it to Granada in super quick time and then promptly disappeared off the radar and the face of the earth.

The UK couriers blamed Spain and Spain knew nothing and the black hole of all black holes just got deeper and deeper.

In the meantime… THE day had come and MGM signed the paperwork on the sale of his flat and he sighed a mahoosive sigh of relief as the buyers had niggled, questioned, hummed and hawed at every turn and MGM then had to survive another 5 days of agony praying that the central heating wouldn’t give up or something else wouldn’t fall apart that he’d still be liable for.  I do believe that MGM had a substantial hangover the morning after signing.   Of course, none of this ‘flat sale stress’ was helped by the couriers only being contactable through computer messages and chats without a human in sight to help us find our boxes.

Our boxes were absolutely nowhere to be found. My Gorgeous Man’s blood pressure was pretty high and even my usual “it’ll be alright” attitude, now had an underlying tension with added dollops of doubt.

Now, the Honda still had to get through its MOT but as expected, it failed.  Cue more repairs without the help of a friendly mechanic along the road and a considerable sum was added to the credit card to get our trusty estate back on its legal feet.  But we still couldn’t actually sell it, because the V5 that had been requested to change from my name into MGM’s name so that he could sell it, still hadn’t appeared.  So another few days were spent in suspended limbo waiting for that to land… and, of course, a buyer still had to be found.

C’mon Universe!  More miracles puleeeeez!!!

It had been almost 2 weeks that MGM had been away, Sir Maxelot wasn’t doing well, the V5 was still missing and I was SO over having quiet alone time in the casita while our treasured belongings were lost somewhere in the depths of Spain.

The Universe answered!  Cue miracle!

MGM’s brother’s neighbour was interested in our Honda!  Cue sale! 

WOOOOHOOOO!!! 

Now… to wait for the V5. 

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but it angelically floated down onto the doormat the very next day! And MGM promptly booked his flight home.

That day offered us 3 steps forward and a giant leap back as we heard that our 3 x 30kg boxes had allegedly been signed for, delivered and yet were still nowhere to be found.

Cue, a desperate visit to Alpujarra Conect… who very soon wished I’d never walked through their door needing a translator and phone call to be made.  MGM was sending PDFs, screenshots, photos of boxes and messages from the UK and I was standing in Spain piecing it all together for the translation to be passed on.

Their initial call to the help line, revealed that our tracking number didn’t exist and another number in an office down on the coast was offered up.  But still no answers and still no boxes.

The good news though, was that MGM was now coming home! 

Because Sir Maxelot was so weak… one of our dear friends went to Malaga to pick MGM up straight off his ‘stag party’ of a Ryanair flight as we had agreed it wouldn’t be a good idea to leave our furry baby alone for the 4 hours round trip.   And later that night,  as our hero walked in the door Sir Maxelot’s tailed wagged and his spirit’s picked up and he turned a corner. 

My boys reunited...
My boys reunited… and resting.,

That’s the healing power of love. 

And I didn’t take it personally. 

MGM is pretty special after all.

Back home, and after a marathon sleep, MGM got on the case of the lost boxes with full force.

Phone calls to automated UK systems, phone calls to offices that knew nothing… phone calls to people who knew nothing… messages through automated systems that knew nothing… supervisors dragged in that didn’t want to know anything or do anything.  Calls to Alpujarra Conect who were just as confused as we were.  Drives to Granada and the promises of boxes being in the depot.  The promises of local courier drivers saying that he’d seen them and would bring them.  The joy of a delivery saying the boxes were in town, only to be confronted with 3 boxes that looked nothing like ours and were for a German recipient.  The sheer frustration and desperation and lesson in non attachment to material possessions was un-frikking-believable

Honestly… the stress of not giving up on our lost possessions was taking it’s toll and MGM was permanently at his wits end… and yet still determined to win.

It took a total of 3 week’s to be reunited with our boxes.  And it wouldn’t have been a happy ending if My Gorgeous Hero of a Man hadn’t been so bloody stubborn and determined to track them down, pin people down and go way beyond any customer’s limits of sanity and belief, to get them back.

Dumped Boxes
Our precious boxes… dumped…

But he did.  Long story short… they were eventually dumped in the foyer of Alpujarra Conect, battered and partly open but…. they really were there.  Hardly daring to breathe, we opened them up on the lawn and the miracle was…. all contents were there and amazingly in tact.  Even my crystals had made it in one piece.

The irony of the cushion was not lost on us...
The irony of the cushion was not lost on us…

It turned out the tracking number had been changed.
Why?
We’ll never know.
And we almost didn’t care.

And in amongst all of that chaos, we paid the deposit on our dream wee home.  That in itself also proved to be challenging because IBAHN numbers kept coming back as invalid, addresses didn’t correspond, the names we were given didn’t match and it was another lesson in breathing with patience, love and trust as our pounds became euros and our dream finally became a reality.

We were emotionally wrung out…

And yet there was more.

The ever shifting conditions, inclusions, boundaries and details of the property became confusingly blurry… and we began to wonder if the actual day of the purchase would ever go ahead.

If you’ve never bought a property in Spain then you can’t begin to imagine how  bureaucratic chaos becomes the legally binding transaction for one of the most important things you’ll ever do in your life.

And that’s what I’ll share in my next instalment.  The day we purchased our wee dream home and the enormous realisation of the what it actually meant not to have any electricity or running water.

Love,

 

PS…. TOP TIP FOR CLEANSING YOUR CRYSTALS

First of all check your crystals can be put in water.  I like to sit them under the tap so it’s almost like a waterfall of water over them, cleansing and clearing away dust, and energetic residue.

Then I love to put them outside in the sun (note that not all crystals like direct sunlight!)  so they can breathe and charge up energetically.  You can also ‘moon bathe’ crystals, which is especially powerful during the phase of the full moon.

All my crystals are cleared energetically and attuned to my energy and some of them have special tasks and roles.  I’ll talk more about that another time.

In the meantime… here’s all my beloved crystals lying out on the terrace and breathing in the light,  after their traumatic adventure of being ‘lost’ somewhere in Spain!

crystals
My crystals breathing a sigh of relief out on the terrace…

 

The MIRACLE of What Happened Next…

It’s been 2 months and 29 days since my last confession… ie. blog post and I’m wondering where on earth to begin.  The stories are backing up and days have merged into months… so let’s start with the fact that we manifested THE absolute MIRACLE of ALL miracles, out of seemingly nowhere

Remember how we moved into our new dream rental home at the end of February and within 3 weeks it was sold? And we thought we were going to be homeless… and then we were thrown a life line at the last minute by the new owner, who changed her mind and rented us the little casita house afterall?  Well, it had all been such a nightmare of a wake up call,  that we were shocked into action to start looking into buying whatever we could.  Perhaps a small piece of land where we could live in a caravan until miraculous abundance would rain down from the sky and start growing on nearby trees to save us.

I believe in manifesting and the law of attraction… because it does work.  But it’s not always easy to keep your vibes high and your vision alive when you’re down in the dumps and can’t see a way out.  However, our vision board and dream hadn’t changed.  We may have felt battered and bruised but we weren’t down and out.  The dream of having an off grid home that could become a retreat centre… all, of course, with my obligatory and yearned for view of snow capped mountains, was still very much alive.

We had nothing to lose by starting to look around and see what was possible.  My Gorgeous Man’s flat was still on the market in Edinburgh and only just covering its own costs through being run as an Airbnb…. but it was still weirdly unsold and a very sore topic.  I had learnt to put on my flak jacket if the flat was to be talked about and to think very carefully before I spoke.

So we started looking.  And then tried not to get even more stressed and despondent.  Even a ruin was coming in at around 50k… add on renovation and rebuilding works and the price essentially doubled.  We realised very quickly that we couldn’t even afford a ruin.  So we started doing our homework and looked at plots of land.  And we unearthed all the ins and outs, problems and horror stories of even getting planning permission in the first place.

We felt Stumped.

Very Stumped.

CUE MIRACLE! 

The estate agent that we were working with, had turned out to be the agent we’d unwittingly already seen being interviewed on A Place in the Sun on Channel 4 in 2017.  We’d been addicted to that programme back then…  it had been our inspiration and reminder to keep our dream alive through the long, grey Scottish winters.  Randomly turning on the TV to catch that Spanish Alpujarra episode had felt like a mahoosive sign from the Universe to not give up on the dream during a really rotten and tough time.

The agent, Steve, was a real character and we instantly liked and trusted him. He’d been through his own journey of moving his life and family to Spain many years ago and he was totally ok with us saying… show us anything that’s really, really cheap.  He got it.  And he got on board.

So on the morning of Thursday 12th April 2018, with my April Channelling Love Retreat starting the very next day… Steve and his work partner Jack (remember that crazy house hunting trip last year?) took us to see a ruin and a ‘nave’ that had been on the market for a while… because they were a ruin… and a nave. 

A ‘nave’ is basically a small shed/building where farmers can keep their tools etc for when they come to work on the land.  They are not legally liveable dwellings.  But anyway, Steve and Jack were taking us to see them, because this nave was supposedly different.  It had legal paperwork. 

Whoopydidoo!

The ruin was a complete and utter no go… we were polite but we swiftly moved on to the nave. 

It was a very bumpy drive up a rough 2km track with a rather perilous and steep drop off to the left at one point… but OMG the views down over the reservoirs and my beloved Sierra Lujar were simply spectacular.   

The view down to the reservoirs and Mediterranean!
The view from the top of the track down to the reservoirs and Mediterranean!

We then had to get out and walk the remaining 10 minutes because there wasn’t legal access rights to drive along the last part of the track.  I could feel My Gorgeous Man’s hackles rise and his energy instantly upgraded into high alert mode. 

I however, was just in awe of the feel of the land.

Every corner we walked round, my heart leapt.  And we walked deeper and deeper into what felt like ‘DinglyDell’ Fairy land.  There was magic there and I felt it to the core of my being.  We walked past a huge ‘whispering’ pine tree… through the tall, overgrown waving meadow grasses and then…. there she was.  The nave that was so much more than a nave, sitting in pride of place with no real neighbours and views out towards the Lanjaron and Lecrin valley.

Our first view of the Nave!

I fell in love with her before the front door was even opened. 

Despite basically being a purpose built concrete box… she had been built with love by an English woman who had lived there for quite a few years.  It had since been empty for a number of years, and the land was now wild and abandoned.  It had 80 olive trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees, crab apple and almond trees.  The white washed building had old blue shutters, sea shells had been hand placed around the windows, some of which had funky blue and green glass panes.

And… on the other side of thick wooden front door we were amazed to find a fitted kitchen and a bathroom with full size bath!  And a massive pink chimney!  At a total of only 12m long, it was just an open living space… with no bedroom… but it had such a lovely feel to it that our initial reservations of living in such a small space were thrown to the wind.

The miracle home behind the front door!
The miracle home behind the front door!

We were told in no uncertain terms that due to the strict Spanish building laws we wouldn’t be able to extend out or up… what we saw was what we would get.  So, it came down to the question of could we basically live in the inside space of a studio flat on the side of a mountain.  Me and MGM,  with our rather large and long, rescue greyhound Sir Maxelot… all living in one room…. 24/7?

My heart was saying YES!  YES! YES!

Life in Spain is about outdoor living… we would be able to create an outdoor living and dining area… but my head was also saying… hang on a minute… what about when it’s pissing down with rain, or blowing a gale and freezing in winter… I like and need my space.  MGM’s the same.  And Sir Maxelot’s as bad as the both of us.  And there ain’t no space in there.   And how on earth can I work and share channellings without any privacy?

Well… lo and behold, down on a lower terrace, there was an abandoned caravan… which I instantly claimed as the new Channelling Love office.  Phew.  First dibs won.  MGM was just as relieved as I was… we now had a bit of ‘indoor’ breathing space.

The bliss of SPACE in the form of an abandoned caravan!
The bliss of SPACE in the form of an abandoned caravan!

 

Of course there was the slight problem that there was no electricity.

And more importantly there was…

NO WATER!

Solar power!  Yay!  Another of our dreams could become a reality.

Water…

NOT so easy. 

There were weekly acequia rights to take the water from the mountain irrigation channels… but  no water flows during the summer months… and we were coming into summer.  So there was no water.

We had always said that we would never buy anywhere that didn’t have a continual, year round water supply.  Water is way more precious than gold here.

Mmmmm….

But… oh my… we loved that land and wee hoose. 

AND we could even see the snow capped Sierra Nevada mountains to the north!

That wee hoose!
That wee hoose!

We’d also originally said we wanted to be higher up in the mountains with views looking down into the valleys… and the nave was admittedly in quite a low dip under the crest of a hill. 

Would its location affect internet access.  Without a strong signal, I can’t work.  Fullstop.  

Well… amazingly… there were 4 strong bars of 4G!  No guarantee of broadband mind you, but it was a good start.

WOOOOHOOOOO!!

That did it for me.  I’d already moved in, but MGM had his practical head on, and he was seeing the huge amount of work that had to be done to make it into a home for us.  And he was also mentally adding up the costs of installing solar power and bringing running water onto the land and into the house.

Oh dear.

Through all the scenarios running through our heads and hearts the reality was that we weren’t even in a position to buy it.  We left ‘that wee hoose’ seeing and feeling ourselves living there and absolutely loving it.  We were very brave and sensible and tried to detach our hearts from it.  After all, anyone could come along with an offer and it would be gone.  Just like that.

But… this is where the miracle really kicked in.

Driving home back down that track, Scott’s phone rang.  It was his very excited estate agent in Edinburgh.

An offer of the asking price had been put in for his flat!

WOW!!

OMG!!!

REALLY??!!

The Universe had well and truly spoken.

Scott’s flat had sold, literally within minutes of us finding our dream home!

It was a helluva great big Universal sign!   It was the miracle we’d been asking for….. holding out for… and trusting would come.

We were going to be able to buy that gorgeous wee hoose after all.

HOLYFRIKKINGDOODAHS…

What an incredible day.  It was another moment and day that our lives changed forever and showed us the miracle of not giving up.  You just never know what’s round that corner.  You just never know!

Next week, I’ll share the crazy domino effect that was pushed into action as we said yes to our dream home and the reality checks of what it all actually meant.  Hang onto your hats because this miracle was just the beginning!

Love,

 

 

 

 

PS.   In the spirit of my openness… I would like it to be officially known that while this photo depicts how I began to write this blog… and that I posted my partying intent on Facebook for a bit of bubble infused blogging with crisps and chocolate on the side… all remained completely untouched.  It was just too damn hot and water was the only possible consumable of the day 😉

Yet Another Miracle

of living the dream in 34 degrees… and loving it!

Untouched evidence of a naughty writing plan... that never came to fruition.
Untouched evidence of a naughty writing plan… that never came to fruition.

WTF Part 4 – The Move and Finale…

The kitchen terrace of our dream rental home became the holding point for our life in transition...

Monday 2nd April 2018 dawned.  Moving day.  And the soap opera began.  Unsurprisingly we hadn’t slept much so we both chugged back the Berocca and  hit the floor running.

First stop… pick up Alix from her casita next door at 9am… she was bang on time with a big old black suitcase, wheelie bag, small bag, plastic bag and handbag.  The plastic bag was for the bin… everything else was for her new life.  Her car was left parked by the casita and we were entrusted with its key…  ready to hand over  to the transporter company that would be taking it to Palma in a few days time

She walked away and didn’t even want a private moment to say goodbye to her home of the last 30 odd years.  Stoic.

We pulled out of the drive, turned right and headed into Orgiva… I think all of us with butterflies in our stomachs.  We went straight to Galindos for a strong shot of coffee and we sat down outside for her last Alpujarra breakfast of a slab of toasted baguette with pureed tomato paste… except My Gorgeous Man had forgotten his phone and today was really not the day to be without a phone… so he went home again… and was reminded yet again that we really did need petrol… the light was well and truly on but the petrol station was the other way… so he just winged it on vapour and a prayer.

Orgiva Main Street...
Orgiva Main Street…

Considering it was pretty early in the morning, Alix and I surprisingly dove deep into girl chats and once again I wished with all my heart that she wasn’t going.  MGM made it back, muttering about ‘must get petrol’ and with his phone safely in his back pocket.  Time for breakfast, round two.  We enjoyed ourselves so much that Alix had to rush back up the road and across the square to the Notary for the final sale transfer at 10.30am.  And then the waiting game began… it’s Spain you see… and nobody really knew how long the sale would actually take.  And we also became the custodians of Alix’s non essential bag.

At this point, we thought everything was going really well and would continue to go really well.  But soap operas are boring when things go too well and our life out here in the Alpujarra is anything but boring.

So here we go….

My Gorgeous Man and I were tasked with changing Alix’s internet over into our names… so after the second round of coffees, we wandered through the narrow streets to the internet office and the infamous Molly.  A wonderful colourful character, very much on the ball and… thank you God… English.  Between the banter about the fullness and wavy luscious quality of Andrew Garfield’s hair in Spiderman… we pushed through the confusion of Casita and Cortijo and why the Cortijo internet (our dream rental home) was still in our friends name who had moved out 3 weeks ago, and we’d moved in… but we were now moving into Alix’s casita next door… still needing to pay the bill for our friend… and yes, we did want an upgrade from the 10gigs a month.  I love living here… if this had happened in the UK there would have been red tape galore, call centres and ‘no can do’s ‘… but here, it was all sorted with a laugh and a smile and we took away the piece of paper that Alix needed to sign to give permission for it all to fall into place.

It was hysterical, light relief.

No news from Alix… so we decided to sit in the square and have a drink… it was practically lunchtime by then….  and we could fulfil our task of looking out for her friend who was to be entrusted with the post box key that was safely in my bag.

Time passed.  And more time passed.

The Plaza cafe... and waiting zone!
The Plaza cafe… and waiting zone!

I received a WhatsApp from our friends that used to live in the Cortijo… her and hubby were on their way into town.
“Come and join the waiting game!”  I said… and soon enough they were at our table.  It was a sunny day, but they commiserated with us about the sale and we could see they felt pretty bad that they managed to dodge the ‘homeless’ bullet.  “It’s ok… it’s life,” we said.  And it is.  The Universe moves in mysterious ways.  Very mysterious ways.

We finally see the estate agent striding out of the Notary office looking a tad tense and grim to say the least.  And then we see the new owner practically skipping out of the main doors with glee and heading straight to a table nearby where she plonked herself down next to a man we’d never seen before with 3 crazy, noisy, small dogs.  A bottle of fizz was soon delivered to their table.

Then Alix comes out… looking rather drained and in need of a drink.  We flag her down and over she comes with great big hugs for our friends and her previous tenants… then off she goes to get some photocopying done…or something like that… but…. “Alix… wait!”  “Can you sign the internet transfer permission please!”  She scrabbles around for her Spanish NIE number, squiggles her signature and we sigh with relief that something has been achieved towards our move.

But, we still don’t have a rental agreement to move that afternoon into the casita from the New Owner.

Suddenly New Owner bounces over to us all… and we introduce our friend to New Owner because Friend now has to sign the internet over to New Owner!  Molly must have had a laugh that day.  And off they go.

By now it’s very much past lunch time, but we don’t want to move because we don’t know where Alix is… and we have her bag… the postbox key to be handed over to her friend if we see her… and we don’t have a clue what’s happening.

MGM and... coffee!
MGM and… coffee!

But we eventually decided to go back to Molly with Alix’s internet transfer permission… only to find New Owner sitting at Molly’s desk trying to set up her own.  New Owner is a wonderful wild card… who’s English is actually pretty good but when you’re talking about internet, phone lines and contracts it’s not that easy and there’s not much similarity to her native language of German.

We stood and waited our turn and when New Owner turns round to see us… there’s more great big happy hugs all round.  She hugs tight.  She’d had bubbles.  And we bring up the subject of our rental agreement.

“Aaaah… yes… Paul the estate agent is going to sort it out… we need to go see him!”  But it’s now getting very close to siesta closing time.  Jeez!!

We disentangle ourselves from the hugs and head back to the square to see if Alix has surfaced!  She has!  But we have to go to the bank first so she can give us our deposit back!  So we trot back down the road and into the quiet sombreness of the bank… where I thought I heard the teller saying that she couldn’t take more cash out than the regular daily allowance.  Oooops.  Turns out it was my Spanish that was off… and we are unceremoniously handed an envelope with a wad of €100 notes and asked to sign the receipt.  Job done.  We felt rich… even though the abundance was just passing through to become another deposit.

We then crossed the road to the estate agent who’s been tasked with our rental agreement… only to find that there isn’t one.  It’s not even drawn up.  And he’s very late for a property viewing as the market has suddenly taken off…. AND we can see that the remnants of super high stress levels from the palaver at the Notary’s office over Spanish banks, transfers and systems that didn’t compute…  are just about to pop.  A call comes through saying that the viewers went ahead and didn’t like the track to the property, so the viewing is off.  Cue, sigh of relief…. but bye bye commission.  He takes our names… asks how long we want the contract for and anything else we want added in.  Contract will be ready in a couple of days.  And apparently it’s ok for us to move in that afternoon.

Being an ex-director and project manager extraordinaire… My Gorgeous Man isn’t comfortable that we don’t have the security of a rental contract.  But hey… there was nothing we could do about it.  Deep breath.  Sigh.

So we stand up, shake hands, pick up Alix’s bag that we’ve still got…  and find her outside at her friends shop, trying to convince her to come and take a couple of the feral cats she’s been feeding on the Casita terrace for the past few years.  An agreement was struck, but the reality is, the cats fought back big time and there was no keeping them in the box.  They were staying put.

We were going to have to deal with them ourselves. 

This was our biggest dread. 

Feral cats and Sir Maxelot. 

The trained racer and hunter of all things small, fast and furry. 

Sigh. 

But also… reality check… we now had a roof over our head for the next 6 months, which just a few days before, we didn’t think we would have.

We head back to the square and the same cafe that we’d based ourselves in… and order beer.  Then we see Alix’s friend and wave her over and admit that we are non the wiser as to where Alix has now gone… but here’s the postal box key… and she hands us back some cash that has been outstanding… as happens with friends who don’t expect their friend to suddenly be up and gone within 10 days!

It was all getting very surreal.  That friend leaves… and Alix turns up and orders a huge glass of wine.  She’s talking about giving us all her contacts names, numbers and secrets of everyone she can think of who might be able to find us or help us with finding a long term secure home.  We were soooo over the adventure of moving… but right to the end she was trying to help us.

In between all of this, she’s discovered that her friend’s, daughter’s ex-husband is driving to Granada at 3pm and she’s trying to call him to blag a lift so she doesn’t have to get the bus… and can just hop on her flight to her new life in Palma the next morning. She literally caught him leaving the house and we had just a few minutes to get her to Baraka where he said he’d pick her up.

Glug go the drinks and we walk back to the car, which ironically is already parked at Baraka.  Orgiva is really quite small.  MGM gallantly pulls out her big suitcase, and then all offers of help are refused as she gives us great big heartfelt hugs and turns round to battle her suitcase, wheelie and the bag that we’d been charged with, across the road.  There was a lump in my throat as she turned her back… but no sooner had she crossed the road than a black car pulled up, man jumps out, grabs her cases and puts them in the car… and off she goes.  Gone.  Goodbye Alix.

I do admire her courage and independence hugely.

MGM and I were left feeling a bit numb, exhausted and wrung out.  And… stressed.  And we still had to move out of the Cortijo that night as New Owner would be moving in the next morning.

Getting in the car we remembered to go and get petrol and it was there that I went on livestream in my Channelling Love Membership Group because I had been due to do their weekly Illumination Oracle card readings.  The slim chance that that could have happened had long since disappeared… and instead of getting supportive inspirational insights, they got a bit of an in the moment apologetic torrent.  Keeping it real.

Driving back we realised that there was still a huge amount of work. 

Like… pack… clean… move. 

MGM, my hero had commandeered the wheelbarrow from behind the Casita because weirdly… it was easier and closer to wheel our life across the garden and through the hedge rather than carry everything the length of the terrace and long front garden to the parking place to pack up the car and then drive the long way round the front… a few times… because we’d taken the storage box off the roof thinking we wouldn’t be moving again.

The wheelbarrow... MGM's choice of removal transport...
The wheelbarrow… MGM’s choice of removal transport… and the casita…

My job was to pack everything up and take it down to the kitchen… where we would then move the loads out on to the small terrace that was enclosed by the emergency baby gate we’d brought for all gaps that needed to be filled against Sir Maxelot’s lack of recall.  MGM would then… load up the wheelbarrow and trundle across the garden and through the bushes to our latest residence.  And I would then clean.  Not that there was much of a clean needed as we’d only been there 3 weeks. 

Perhaps I’ve mentioned that already.

The kitchen terrace of our dream rental home became the holding point for our life in transition...
The kitchen terrace of our dream rental home became the holding point for our life in transition…

Poor Sir Maxelot… he had been settling into his new home so well, but he now knew that shit was about to happen.  He began to get agitated and stressed and wouldn’t go to his bed where he generally sleeps most of the day… he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time and continually at the kitchen terrace doors… where he knew he could spy on the enemy cats that slipped through the hedge to taunt him from the other side of the baby gate..

We shuffled our life backwards and forwards for almost 3 hours.  Yup 3 hours.

But it was towards the end of the epic transfer  that I came downstairs from cleaning to meet a very red in the face and very sweaty MGM with a very bright eyed Sir Maxelot by his side being held by his flimsy anti-tic collar.

“Didn’t you hear me?”  MGM demands…

“Er no… what’s the matter?” I ask

“How could you not hear me… I’ve been shouting my head off for help!”
“I’m sorry… I was upstairs cleaning the bedroom… these old walls are so thick…”

Turned out the impossible had happened.  Max had spied the baby gate was open and our old, grey, lazy, beloved couch potato of a dog had suddenly and miraculously turned into Sputnik and headed literally for the hills behind us.  In the 2 years that we’ve been his human parents… he has never shown any interest in walks, exercise or let alone running… but apparently despite his kronky arthritis he was up on the second terrace before MGM had even computed that he was on the run.

The second miracle was that the “Stop my dog!” angels were on the ball and MGM somehow caught him.  He still doesn’t remember exactly how.  But he does remember the walk of shame home.  We still can’t believe that happened.  It rocked us to the core and it became very apparent that with the stress of feral cats living on his doorstep, Sir Maxelot was now going to be hugely triggered every time he went outside.

It was very sad to realise that after making such leaps and bounds into his new found calm and confidence, he was going to have to remain on the lead to even be walked around his new garden… which didn’t have a fence… it was a no brainer, especially after his Houdini escapade. And let’s face it,  it would be essential for his safety…. and also for the lives of the resident the feral cats.

Bigger Sigh.

Back on the leash and on the hunt for cats...
Back on the leash…

Finally, by early evening, our life was on the other side of the hedge and it was time to walk across with Sir Maxelot to our new beginnings.

Well, we got the welcome we didn’t want.  A parade of cats.  And Sir Maxelot went absolutely mental and it was heartbreaking and scary to see his genes and training kick in so hard.  He was prancing all over the place, pulling, barking, panting, straining, stressing and there was nothing for it but to take him straight inside and set up his bed and try and calm him down.

The frikking cat's just sitting there!!
The frikking cat’s just sitting there!!

Except he didn’t calm down.  He became more and more stressed and agitated.  Heavy breathing… panting… pacing the casita… we could see his heart pounding and the confusion in his eyes as to why this was all happening.  We knew his arthritis was flaring after his sprint and that he was in pain… but his DNA was overpowering and all he wanted was to chase those furry ferals that he could sense on the other side of the door.  When he eventually lay down, it was like he was in a trance… eyes, glazed and slightly bulging, hard panting, tongue hanging out and we felt utterly helpless.

He became so distressed that he shat in the kitchen and took a huge dive and we thought we were going to lose him.

So for the first night in our latest home, I went to bed alone and MGM slept on the sofa next to Sir Maxelot’s bed, to keep him company and to try to help him feel more secure and calm.

It was not a good first night. 

And we resolved there and then, that we absolutely HAD to find OUR home as soon as possible.

The morning after... Sir Maxelot has top priority for the sofa...
A frazzled MGM on the morning after… Sir Maxelot has top priority for the sofa…

Sir Maxelot made it through the night. 

We were frazzled, but our little family had made it and now we were hoping for a bit of clear blue water to settle in.   I had almost 2 weeks to properly recharge my batteries and get my health back on track before my next Channelling Love Retreat started. 

But our first week in the casita was hugely stressful and anything but restful.  It turned into the ‘cats and Sir Maxelot management programme.’  Not helped at all by 5 little furry f*cks… aka… small noisy dogs moving into the Cortijo with New Owner… who charged en masse towards us every time we came out of our front door.  We put up some plastic temporary fencing in an attempt to create safe space for Sir Maxelot but these little guys just went under it.  There was just no respite for any of us if we wanted to go outside… and we began to feel like prisoners in our own home.

So when I received a phone call just a few days before my retreat was about to begin, that my mother had been taken into hospital with heart irregularities, there was a tiny part of me that was secretly relieved that I would have to go home within the week… and the rest of me just felt guilty.  My mother rallied by the way… she’s a superstar.

Surely there would be a breakthrough and something ‘good’ would happen for us soon!

As it turned out… there was a glimmer on the horizon!  More of that next time

Love,

 

 

 

 

PS…
It turned out the transporter company couldn’t come down the narrow windy road to the casita to pick up Alix’s car… so we received some rather fraught messages asking us to drive her car to an abandoned garage factory area on the outskirts of Orgiva where the massive transporter would be able to pull in to pick it up.

By then it was dark, I drove our car and MGM drove her car with no paperwork, no insurance and no real idea of where we were going and just hoping that we would realise that ‘THIS’ was the spot.  We tried out a couple of spots but eventually pulled in… to what was the obvious one… Doh… and hoped to God the police didn’t come and ask why we were loitering in a English car and a Spanish one that wasn’t ours and was filled to the brim with lifelong possessions that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase.

When the transporter arrived… we almost pooped our pants.

It was Mahoosive. 

Much manouvering was done by the jolly driver and he then drove Alix’s car up onto the ramps of the totally empty double layered monster of a truck thing.

We took photos… handed over the key… took bit of paper and prayed that it would get there.  A few days later we heard from Alix that the car had arrived…  minus her laptop and folding bicycle that had been stolen from inside.  And there was nothing that anyone could prove or do about it.  Bugger.

Mahoosive and chaotic...
Mahoosive and chaotic…

WTF Just Happened – Part 3 – The Homeless Aftermath

The beauty of Orgiva and Sierra Lujar mountain.

So there I was in an overly emotional, exhausted heap, My Gorgeous Man was in Hong Kong keeping up his residency and looking for work… and from opposite sides of the world we were both hanging in the “Where the F*ck are we going to live,” limbo.

The next day, Alix our landlady, invited me over for a late lunch and a good few slugs of wine.  She gave me a bit of hope by saying that we should approach the new owner and officially ask if we could rent the casita.  So I wrote an email and she forwarded it to the estate agents to be passed on.  There was perhaps hope after all… and through her unending positivity, I found myself believing that we were saved and actually moving into her casita.  Phew.  Alix’s fabulous, unconventional, rebellious and non conformist company had really lifted my spirits.

But back in the cortijo and on my own again later that evening, I found myself crying my heart out. I rallied against the injustices.  I resisted accepting what had happened.  I allowed the full force of my totally unreasonable jealousy and resentment to surface that the new owner had come out of her divorce and bought her dream home, seemingly, ‘ just like that’… while I had lost EVERYTHING after making that horrendous but very necessary decision to Ieave my marriage, my whole life and my beloved Brazil.  My heart’s spiritual home.

I was so angry at the Universe.  I felt betrayed. 

Recreio Beach in Rio de Janeiro
Brazilian Beach LIfe in Rio de Janeiro…

MGM was back in Hong Kong having a great time catching up with friends albeit while on the look out for work opportunities… and I fell into the pit of martyrdom and self pity.

Following my frikking heart was looking anything but a dream. We were going to be homeless, we were struggling to make ends meet, I’d been feeling increasingly ill for the last couple of months and everyone in the whole wide world was having a better time than me. 

My black hole felt very black indeed.
And I couldn’t even be arsed to do the washing up.
And I love washing up.
Weird but true.
But that’s how rotten I felt.

Something had to shift… and I knew I was the one that had to help myself.  Nothing changes if you don’t change first.   

So  I reached out to a local healer who works with tissue salts…  and she booked me in for a couple of days time.  She had worked miracles with Sir Maxelot’s arthritis and I really felt she was the one that I could open up to and trust.

And as my hero of an MGM had cut his trip short to come home and help with the “Oh My God we’re going to be homeless” situation,  he was to arrive back that same morning. 

Things were looking up.  Only 2 days to wait.

That day eventually dawned.  But before I could go and see the healer… and then drive the 90 minutes down the road to pick up MGM from Malaga Airport… there was a humungous f*ck up with MGM’s staff travel ticket and it didn’t look like he would be able to get back to Spain, after all…. even though he had enjoyed a ‘freebie’ business class seat all the way from Hong Kong to Heathrow. 

The Big Bird that brought MGM home from Honkers...
The Big Bird that brought MGM home from Honkers…

At not even 6am, the furtive flurry of highly stressed messages, expletives, calls, lost patience and desperation began.  One of the ‘perks’ of having worked 23 years for an airline… is cheap flights and a bonus ‘freebie’ every year.  Except, the reality is that it’s a frikking lottery and it becomes the survival of the fittest for whoever has the highest unload priority to get that all important seat.  It wasn’t helped that morning by increasingly fed up ground staff making him feel the lowest of the low for being a staff travel passenger in the first place.  When staff travel works, it’s absolutely amazing… but when it doesn’t, it can be sheer hell. 

So out came the credit card again and I bought a whole new staff booking and the further hell began for MGM to wait till the last minute to see if there was a spare seat left after check-in closed to the public.

It’s hard to believe that I spent over 13 years using staff travel tickets to commute to my Heathrow flying base while I lived between Brazil and Scotland.  I thought nothing of it back then.  “Bit like getting on a bus,” I used to say.  But during those heady years I was generally top of the priority list… and there was an unspoken allegiance between staff to help each other.  Corporate games have changed all of that and staff moral is now in tatters.  It’s heartbreaking to witness the downward slide after having lived through the best of the ‘good ole days.’

Anyway, I couldn’t bear to tell MGM that during all the stress of ‘flights, no flights, your ticket isn’t valid from Gatwick and the flight is full anyway.’…. that Alix had phoned and dropped the bombshell that the new owner had categorically said a final “NO” to us renting the casita. 

She was so upset for us that she’d actually put the phone down on me. 

My stomach had lurched, a wave of awfulness moved through me and then I just went numb.

By 10am MGM messaged me to say that the ‘staff travel angels’ had stepped in and he had no idea how, but he was on the flight to Malaga after all.

Phew.  YES!!! 

Thank you Angels!!!  

You see… miracles do still happen!

When you shift your mindset... miracles are your new reality...
When you shift your mindset… miracles are your new reality…

At 10.30am I was sitting in front of the healer saying ‘that I’d had enough’ and was holding back the tears as I spilled the beans on all my physical, emotional and mental goings on.  She sat there nodding with a little smile on her face… while I tried to say that I think it’s adrenal fatigue because that’s what Google says and I feel sick at the thought of going on social media.  But she turned round and said

“IT’S THE MENOPAUSE.”

“You are the perfect age and those are the classic symptoms.”

“You need to change your life.”

Fuck Me.  On top of everything else… I’m now old too.

51 years old on paper… but so not ready to accept being 51.

Jeez.

She was however concerned about the state of my nervous system and gave me remedies to take there and then, ‘on the house.’  “Emergency help,” she said.  I left there with a rather large collection of remedies and supplements… everything to help alleviate the anxiety, fatigue, depression, headaches, weight gain, brain fog and all the other stuff that I hadn’t told anyone else about.

And then off I drove to Malaga… in a haze… with Google Maps leading the way. 

It was a good drive and I felt such relief in feeling the healer’s support and for receiving the help for my rather ragged state of being.  I breathed in the stunning mountain scenery, blue sky, warm sun and sheer gratitude for living in Spain….  and for just not being back in the oppressive greyness of Scotland.   

Sierra Lujar... the mountain that captured my heart in the Spanish Alpujarras.
Sierra Lujar… the mountain that captured my heart in the Spanish Alpujarras.

AND my knight in shining armour would soon be landing and waiting for me at the airport.  WOOHOOOO!

“Find the gratitude,” I kept telling myself. 

Gratitude shifts the shitty vibes!

MGM had landed safely and we agreed to meet at Starbucks… even though neither of us felt like having one.  He was exhausted and venting off about the staff travel calamity and stress… while I was holding it together wondering when I was going to tell him we definitely didn’t have a home, after telling him that we may well have a home, just the day before.

He offered to drive.  I protested, but he won.  And we drove out of the airport straight into the heavy Malaga traffic which certainly did neither of our stress levels any good.

I probably shouldn’t have told him about Alix’s phone call while we were stuck nose to tail in a traffic jam with the usual crazy Spanish drivers not using rear view mirrors and just doing whatever the hell they wanted.  But it just blurted out.  And then he got told that his Hot Hostie girlfriend was turning into a crusty old woman… so that didn’t help his mood much either.  It’s no wonder we took a wrong turn and then got caught up in even worse traffic desperately fighting our way around a mega roundabout… just to go all the way back to the last exit, to come all the way back again… and totally losing our sense of direction and simply not trusting what the Google BEEEATCH was telling us to do.

It took us a lot longer to get ‘home’ than we anticipated.  A lot longer.  And we vowed to remember that we don’t turn off at that turn off… ever, ever again.  Ever.

Once ‘home’ MGM passed out and I watched more Vera.

We resigned ourselves to extensive property searches online and set up a great big positive vision board above the fireplace with lots of pictures to reflect our dream home… with a very specific list of what we wanted right now.  And of course, the abundance to make it all happen.

Seriously amazing 'spaceship' clouds over the Cortijo...
Seriously amazing ‘spaceship’ clouds over the Cortijo…

Two days after MGM arrived home the new owner turns up to measure out the house, despite already having been given the paper plans.  I couldn’t face her… but MGM is the perfect gent and helps her out and is friendly, open and good company…. even though on the inside he’s just as devastated as me.  But maybe, just maybe making a good impression might help to change her mind about having us as tenants.  He even lent her his measuring tape, opened the unopenable door to the storage space below and laughed his way through it all… while  I just hid behind the swimming pool trees with Sir Maxelot… still rampant with jealousy and not trusting myself to meet and greet.  I’ve never been able to hide my feelings… something that my dear departed Dad always worried about.

After about half an hour, she happily skipped across the garden, slipped through the bushes and headed to Alix’s casita… where we predicted she would be ripped a new a-hole for turning up unannounced and for having accessed our ‘home’ without prior appointment.  Alix is hugely protective of privacy and not afraid to speak her mind.  We loved her for that.  So we were super surprised to hear the next day, that they had actually cracked open a bottle of wine and put the world to rights.  And our Alix, had again put forward the case for keeping us as long term tenants in the casita.

The new owner had said she would sleep on it… because she had friends and family she wanted to stay there.  She would let us know her decision the next day.

It was a very, very long 24 hours… and we desperately tried not to get our hopes up… again.

She eventually turned up later in the afternoon and after securing Sir Maxelot inside, we sat around the garden table to hear our fate.

And she offer us tenancy!

OMG! We could hardly believe our ears! 

We had a home!

It was that evening when we told Alix the good news that she let slip that the new owner had gushed over the white wine at how impressed she was with My Gorgeous Man… and that ‘He had made smoothie with her!’   Knowing that there wasn’t a nutri-bullet in sight, we came to the conclusion that it was a German saying that had got a bit mixed up in translation.  But it was My Gorgeous Man that had saved our asses and secured us a home.  He had been able to overcome his own upset and anxiety to try and make a shitty situation better.  There’s a lesson in there for all of us. 

That’s my MGM.  Damn, this man is my hero.

And we had a home again!

For the next 6 months!

And we definitely had a home if we were willing to move into the casita in 3 days time when the sale paperwork was completed. 

The Casita! Our third home in 4 months!
The Casita! Our third home in 4 months!

We were saved in one breath and pushed out of our dream home earlier than expected, in the next.

I guess it was the Universe’s version of ripping off the ‘moving house plaster’ and just making it all happen straight away.

I had to drop all my judgements and personal issues… and move into gratitude.

I hugged her tight… looked her in the eye and thanked her from the bottom of my heart.  

It was only then that I began to see our similarities… the non conformist, creative and empath… living life in the moment and just … going for it!  The Universe was up to its magical tricks again!

Love is the greatest healer of all.
Love Heals…

The next couple of days were a bit of a blur… we started tidying up and packing but with no contract or anything officially confirmed we were running on pure good faith.

It was now time to pull our energy back and emotionally leave the house… and pack up my crystals. 

Monday 2nd April dawned.  It was THE day.  The day for the sale to finalise and for Alix to leave for her new life in Palma… and for us to move into the casita.

And that’s what I’ll share in my next instalment… because we simply couldn’t have made up the hysterical dramas of our third Moving Day.

Here’s to living the dream…

Love,

 

 

 

PS.  If you come on my Channelling Love Retreat in June or my collaborative Yoga & Meditation Retreat with Anya in September 2018, then you’ll drive right past the Casita and Cortijo!  I wonder if we’ll still be living there by then!

And if your body is calling out for yoga & healing meditation in the sun… check out my new September retreat… I’m very excited indeed!  Anya is an amazing yoga teacher and we’ll be combining the physical practice of Vinyasa Flow & Yin Yoga with healing meditations to take you further into your heart and truth… as well as the delights of chilling, relaxing and enjoying the bliss of staying in a gorgeously renovated cortijo up in the mountains… and not forgetting the nutritious delicious delights from our personal in-house chef!
9th – 15th September 2018

Only 547 Euros Early Bird price till 1st June!
Click on the image for further information and booking link 🙂

Yoga & Meditation Retreat with myself and Anya.
Yoga & Meditation Retreat with myself and Anya.