Choices

With the last day of February dawning it occurred to me that I hadn’t written a blog for the entire month and an update is long overdue. This time it’s not so much that nothing has been happening but a combination of circumstances. I ended the last blog with the death of our old workhorse of a car and the need to find a replacement asap. For us it was impractical to do this in Spain and a trip back to the UK proved to be the best option.

Now there’s something I haven’t mentioned on here despite its significance to British nationals and those of us who call ourselves citizens of Europe. Yes, you’ve guessed it, Brexit. Don’t worry I’m not going to pontificate on here despite my opinion of the utter madness of the whole debacle (sorry, couldn’t resist getting that in) but it has made us rethink our personal plans. We’ve long been pondering the idea of getting ourselves somewhere to call home. We had thought this would be in Spain but the uncertainty and more specifically the dreadful exchange rate following the referendum made us have a rethink.

To cut a long story short, we acquired a small townhouse in the Midlands that had seen better days and arranged to get the builders in over the winter, all managed remotely, while we kept our distance in Spain. A bit stressful at times, this approach still proved to be infinitely preferable to living in the rubble as the work went on around us. It did mean something of a gamble and a lot of trust in the various contractors – our trip back this month would be the first time we’d seen the refurb with our own eyes.

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We weren’t disappointed. OK, we had tried to make it simple by keeping all choices as neutral as possible with the idea of adding more personal touches as we go along. With the bare bones now in place, the visit this month was the perfect opportunity to start getting basic furniture and soft furnishings.

A clean slate to build your dream home on presents so much choice that the desire to get everything exactly right is overwhelming. The limited time available to us to get curtains, bed and bedding, seating, table etc in place proved to be its own challenge. It really focuses minds when you walk into a shop (or go online) and ask what they can deliver in the next few days. It also limits choice and has the effect of forcing an ‘it will do’ attitude to proceedings. So, perhaps, we made choices we wouldn’t have made if we’d allowed a gradual, more organic development to take place but it is what it is.

And, yes, we did get a car. That was the easy bit.