Christmas was approaching and still no tender from the town hall. The good thing was we were getting to grips with bar Spanish, however it was not going to be anywhere good enough !
The girls were getting excited, we decorated the flat and even the girls rooms it looked like Santas grotto !
My Dad was coming over and I had decided to cook a traditional English Christmas dinner, an interesting decision as we had no oven, but then I never go for the easy option !
I borrowed a slow cooker and was shown how to use it, I had my vegetable steamer, so although we wouldn't be having roast potatoes, we would have the rest.
What I hadn't taken into account was the electrics in the flat, they would blow if I had anything on with the tumble dryer (we had to buy one, because the flat was so cold nothing was drying !). They blow if we had a electric heater on for too long, in fact they were not up to the job, but we were used to it, electrics blow turn everything off, flick the switch in the hall and don't plug everything back in !!
Christmas Eve and I placed the Chicken (my family aren't keen on Turkey and I don't eat meat !) in the slow cooker and surprise, surprise the electrics blow. I went through the same routine and but the switch in the hall, just keep going down. What do I do now ? I knew the town hall was open, so I popped up and they kindly called an electrician for me, I could make myself understood face to face with research from a dictionary, but over the phone had no hope. Our hero arrived about 10 minutes later, showed me that basically I had melted the whole fuse, it was a real mess, oops ! He changed the whole thing with a stronger fuse so we wouldn't have the same problem again ! When I asked how much we owed him, he wasn't really interested, said another day, but I insisted and he when oh, 20€ !
Living in Spain may have its challenges but where in the UK would you get that sort of service any day of the week, let alone Christmas Eve and for that price !
We had a lovely Christmas, with Dad and the girls. Father Christmas came, the girls were a bit worried he wouldn't find them ! They had a mountain of presents and also we had brought my old Sindy Dolls house from England, so they had that as a special present. We had a lovely quiet day and the dinner turned out great and no more electrical problems! Friends popped in for drinks in the evening which was lovely.
Our first New Year's Eve in Spain, wasn't how I had imagined it, this was our fault for going down the expat line ! We had been invited to (we will call them) Mr and Mrs W's with most of the expat community of Serón, although it was very pleasant, the kids were bored and to be fair I was too ! The Curry was good though ! Just after midnight I called my best friend as we had for a few years spent New Year together and I really missed her, we always have a laugh and she has twins the same age as Loreena so the girls are never bored!
I was really starting to fit in with the Spanish community even though I still couldn't speak a reasonable level of Spanish and the more time I spent with the Expats the more determined I became to fit in with the Spanish community. At this point I hadn't meet any expats that if we where in England I would want to spend time with. Barry's old friends Tim and Debbie where ok, but they were not my friends and there was something underlying that I couldn't put my finger on. Also the fact Tim had offered Barry work and it hadn't materialised, now in fact, the subject was changed if the Mill came up. Or maybe it was as simple as they just didn't like me ! I did not trust them now, perhaps they picked up on that ! Not that I worry about being popular, I am what I am and am well past the point where I care about what others say or think about me ! I always try to think the best of people, until they prove me wrong and if I can help someone I will, however I don't suffer fools. I was finding the gossiping and back biting hard to take.
A New year and what a year it turned out to be !