Last but not least. Were in and loving it.

Written Saturday 14-7-2007 published 25-7-2007, sorry, been off line again.
We’ve done it at last. Carlos came up on Thursday and finished nearly all of his work so that we were happy to declare that, subject to a hold back of €1000 for smallish jobs outstanding, we were happy to pay over the final payment in exchange for the key and to finally move into our lovely new home. Bella Solana (the house name) means ‘beautiful place in the sun‘. It is a good name for a beautiful house that we are very proud of having created.
So Friday the 13th (despite protestations from Elayne) and one year, less one week, since we came to Spain, we have paid for and moved into our new home. It was a token ’sleep in’ really because we have oodles of stuff in the caravan (as you can imagine after ten months of camping out) and the porta cabin, that we have to move up to the house.
This is therefore my very last blog. Congratulation to anyone, besides us, who has had the tenacity to stick with the blog for all 311 editions and entries, you deserve a medal or ticket to the nearest asylum.
We want as many of our friends and family to come to see us and Bella Solana as and when time, and conditions, permit, we are still only a phone call away.
On the blog we have tried to show all angles of this adventure, the frustrations, the joys, the fears, even the tears, and the delights. We hope that it has given a small flavour of what anyone can do if they are prepared to just say one, two, three ‘jump‘ and take a leap of faith.
Elayne and I thank all of our family and many friends, both in Spain and the rest of the world for their encouragement and support.
If you also have an idea to do a blog, do it and let us know so that we can share your story. It is not something that I thought that we would be able to do, until we started to do it and we found that we actually could. Not a bad bit of philosophy of life to finish on.
Please keep in touch, everyone, we are not deserting you, we are just not doing the blog anymore.
Lots of love from us both.
Elayne and Paul Fellowes.

Last evening Carlos arrived on site and finished the central heating electrics so that the plumber could finish and test that the C/H system is fully working. This morning, whilst we were out, Oscar the plumber arrived, got a front door key from Dario in Albox, and proceeded to test out the central heating system. After we came back he showed me that there was not enough water pressure to make it all work. The system, in the casita/boiler room is all electronically controlled and we will be able to use a radio controlled zapper from the house to switch the system on and off. Anyway the electronics, when switched on, have detected low water pressure and therefore will not activate the whole system. We are getting a larger water pump from Fran Marie (builders merchants) maybe tomorrow. Oscar said that he will then come and set it all up on Saturday if we have the pump. Carlos said that he will return tomorrow, Jueves, Thursday, to do a few final little bits. Job finished.
Funny that when Oscar had finished work today he asked me what he should do with the front door key that Dario took off site a while back. Dario, quite unnecessarily, had refused to let us have the key back until the final payment was made. I shrugged my shoulders at Oscar in a typical Spanish unhelpful manner and so he tried to ring Dario for guidance. He couldn’t get through to Dario so he shrugged his shoulders, anxious to be off to his next job, and left the key with us to look after.
We are rocking in the Taberno roads outside Lentisco’s tonight. Note, when any of our gang have folks over to stay (it’s the ‘in season’ just now) they all come up to the Wednesday evening dance at Lentisco‘s. It’s really good for us to meet family and friends and it makes a change for the hosts to have an evening out. At the last count and from what we gather, we will be a party of fifteen at our tables tonight. Total pandemonium but that’s the fun of it all. We usually put some money, probably €10, in a kitty for the drinks and we always end up with a surplus to carry over until the next meeting.
I intend to finish writing this blog when we move into Bella Solana as we will be too busy sorting the house and garden out for the next two or three years. I will write the final blog in a few days time but I will not remove the whole thing from the internet unless a publisher wishes to pay us loads of money to make it into a book or Sunday newspaper serial.
P.S Dario returned this evening to take possession of the key again. Hey Ho.

We have just had a nice email from our friends Neil and Gina Watson. N&G lived in Garforth near Leeds (Neil worked with me at Whiteley for lots of years and before that at the famous John Waddington‘s of Leeds, makers of Monopoly and Totopoly) and moved out to France for some of the ‘good life’ about twelve months ago. They have a lovely country house in St. Etienne du Bois in western France. Welcome to the blog Neil & Gina, that’s if you have found us yet.
Activity here on site at last today. Dario and the young lad Paco have spent time up here on site today. They seem to have been concentrating on the shutters (that weren’t shutting) and repairing the ruined marble thresholds, together with a few other bits and pieces. We will go up and have a look when they go home to see if it is all to our liking. If we can get then Carlos and the plumber up here, perhaps tomorrow, to finish their bits and pieces off, we could be ‘home and dry’ to quote a well known phrase or saying by the end of the week. Our thanks to Gill for her assistance.
It rained last night and this morning. The temperature dropped down to eighteen and I had to wear my long trousers and socks to go to Albox this morning. However the sun is back out now and it’s back to a more normal twenty six degrees with clear blue skies. It made a nice little cool interlude for us and gave us all a good nights sleep. The cats also seemed to appreciate the cool caravan this morning, although they popped out as usual as soon as we opened the door on our return.