Retiring types? Not us!

Our Spanish friend likes to use the phrase "more or less"  (sometimes "mas or menos") and in July 2008 I had some good news, more or less.  This made a pleasant change from receiving bad news about our property at Santa Ana del Monte and our chances (almost nil!) of getting our money back.  I had entered a writing contest run by NativeSpain website, and they were offering me a publishing contract.   No need to tell you that I was very excited!

Well as I said it wasn't entirely good news: I had written my book with separate chapters covering different topics, such as viewing trips, contractual issues (especially bank guarantees!), food and drink, fiestas etc.  My editor Debs wanted the book written in chronological order, telling my personal story of retiring to Spain with John, so almost a total rewrite was required and we were expecting our first visitors to arrive in a week's time.  We also had to find a new home before our rental contract ran out at the end of the year and one thing we had already learnt since moving to Spain was that everything takes time - usually twice as long as you would expect it to take.  Luckily I am a dab hand at using "cut and paste", and there were lots of anecdotes in my original book that could be incorporated into the new one, but it was still a daunting task.  I thanked my lucky stars though for the flexibility nowadays when using a PC rather than an old-fashioned typewriter.

I didn't have much time to worry about my book, as John's daughter Sarah arrived with her husbnd Jerry and their four sons Simon, Joshua, Adam and Elliott.  We took advantage of their stay by visiting Murcia, Alicante, Cieza and Calasparra with them.  It would have been rude to have stayed at home writing, wouldn't it?  I would have plenty of time after they returned to the UK.

Before they left, we asked the boys what they thought of Spain.  Simon announced that he liked everything, apart from the strawberry jam.  Hey, Simon, who chose the strawberry jam?  Josh summed it up for the rest of them: "Spain is wicked!".

Now I had time to continue the rewrite: if Debs is reading this, I immediately got down to work! (I won't mention that August had arrived and we had lots of fiestas in town).  Of course I can put it down to the need to research the next book.....