Since our last posting in November we have got our residencias, applied for Spanish driving licences and re-registered our car in Spain. We've also registered on the padron and at the local health centre as, due to my job which makes me a Spanish tax payer, I'm entitled to the Spanish equivalent of the NHS and was able to also register Ian as my dependant. So we're pretty much 'converted' to Spain whichever way you look at it. Technically you can live here for 6 months before you should apply for residencia if you intend to spend more than half the year in Spain but we felt we'd get this out the way, particularly in view of Brexit. All these issues involved, in true Spanish style, a very great deal of paperwork and the need to speak Spanish so we paid for help for it all which was worth every single penny....sorry I mean cent!
Our first ITV - MOT in UK - was quite an experience. If you are unaware, in Spain you turn up at a particular time at the test centre and drive your car through the test procedure unlike in the UK. Any car from another country registering in Spain has to get it's first ITV beforehand to ensure it complies with requirements. So at the allotted time we turned up to a huge queue of cars - we were at the Palma test centre as this is where the person organising it all for us is based but in future we will attend in Inca. They moved things along quite rapidly into four smaller queues and then the process started. This is all very well if you understand the Spanish instructions but we managed and in fact it was fascinating and made us wonder why the UK doesn't organise things in the same way. It's very thorough and our old Honda passed easily thanks to Ian's careful prep of it (he's a trained car mechanic and was in the business for years) so we now proudly sport a Spanish number plate.
In line with this we've submitted our UK driving licences for conversion to Spanish ones. The rules are that you can drive on a UK licence here for two years, thereafter you must apply for a Spanish licence. If you forget and the police stop you, the fine is considerable albeit they'd have to prove how long you'd been living in Spain. We didn't want to risk a hefty fine and are here to stay so just cracked on with getting everything done. As our UK licences had plenty of years left to run on them we didn't have to undergo the simple medical that is a requirement of renewal here so it really has been pretty simple.
Other than this life has progressed well, my job is great and we've settled into Port life very happily. As I type we have our Christmas tree all lit up, wreath on the door, cards up but the advantage of the sun shining outside. We spent Christmas Day with friends where we had a classic Christmas dinner. The weather has been lovely and this picture was taken on Christmas Day.
We recently had three days of truly appalling weather though with a never-ending storm - high winds, heavy rain - when Mallorca does bad weather it really does it properly! The weather in the UK was better than here other than temperature so hey ho. But today we're back to gorgeous sun and blue skies with many days ahead forecast like this so we're back to where we like it. Thankfully we had this lovely weather when Ian's son and his wife were out a couple of weeks ago. It was glorious weather and we ate some wonderful food at Brisa Marina just before it closed and also at El Moli in Pollensa. We can highly recommend both. El Moli is open year round (Sundays and festival days in winter), with a classic Mallorcan menu del dia for 16€ pp.
We had a trip into Palma to see the Christmas lights and to the Christmas markets there; if you're in Mallorca at this time of year it's well worth an evening out although we felt quite the country bumpkins going to see the 'bright lights, big city'.
One lovely thing is that in the last few weeks we have met a number of people who we hadn't previously met but are friends on Facebook. It has been lovely to put real faces to names and hopefully we will meet more in due course. A lot of people have recognised us due to our two dogs so we're being upstaged by two Lhasa Apsos!
Anyway, both of us (not to mention the dogs) would like to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and a wonderful and healthy 2017.
