Best county in England

The very next beach along, Playa Los Locos, doesn't get quite as busy with Spanish people and there's usually a bit of room for expats to stretch out on the sand. Expats who can't speak Spanish.

They could always segregate the beaches like the Islamists want to do in Egypt. Thinking about it could be a great idea in Spain. Our lovely peaceful uncrowded beach was a nightmare at weekends when the spanish came down. Bleeding tents, screaming kids, rubbish all over the place

Ref provenance of household contents. I too am impressed that anyone can know the source of all contents. Am impressed that they by and large, or almost entirely, not be out of China. Am amazed that no mention has been given of the potential COST of this knowledge. Somewhat greater than the average purse would bear, I suspect. Even when customers express a preference for buying British-Spanish-not Chinese, the choice usually doesn't exist without considerable use of shoeleather or the words tailor made and custom built. (nb J2's saucepan experience is a good illustration)

As to self-sufficiency, and so on, I would venture the following: some friends live as sustainable a lifestyle as I've ever seen. House bought with parents, big enough to support two families. Solar power. Grey water recycling. Carpool car for a while then no car -choice of house influenced by proximity of railway station/bike distance. Entire vegetable-fruit consumption (organic, obviously!) of family produced on their 2 or so acres. Occasional hens, occasional eggs, occasional chicken meat. HOWEVER taxes and council bills, electricity and gas, etc., must be paid in todayÅ› world and they both work part or fulltime depending on availability of said work, so there's no way to completely avoid the treadmill, however hard you might try. Spain or anywhere else would be no different.

Unfortunately Spanish, British or tailor made does not guarantee the components were not made, woven or whatever in another country.

It is perfectly possible to ensure that they are manufactured in the UK which is exactly what I and thousands of others do.

I know exactly where all the timber for all my custom made cabinets grew. I know exactly where the leather for my hand made shoes and handbags originates. I know exactly where the material used in soft furnishings in my homes was woven.

As for the only thing I have had made in Spain its worth remembering that Valencia is very protective of its furniture manufacturers, even the springs in my mattress were made in a factory in Torrent.

Step away from the Argos catalogue, open your mind and accept that it is possible to know more about what you can buy than you do now.

Pretty much every electrical item in your home will be made in China these days, they make some great stuff...its not all tat.

I think that they are not only protective of their furniture manufacturers but all things that are made in Valencia. Carrefour, Eroski etc really seem to push locally made stuff by putting signs everywhere.

When we ordered a large dresser to be made for our dining room they were not happy to have to tell me that it was to be made in Murcia because they would rather it was made in Valencia. Six months later we could have bought one in our own town if only we had known that a few local men who were good furniture makers were opening a unit in our poligon.

Rosemary

The trouble is there is so much badge engineering on electrical products these days that the brand is no guarantee of country of manufacture and then as posted earlier the components could be sourced from anywhere. My laptop was assembled in China but not all the components would have been manufactured there.
Not electrical but HP sauce is produced in Holland. Perhaps they should be made to take the Houses of Parliament of the label.

If you only buy things made in the UK then you must live in the dark ages

Where was your Wi-Fi router made? Your mobile phone? Your air con unit? Your TV etc etc. Not the UK thats for sure

If one looks back over previous posts one can see some interesting facts

Samsung dual sim mobile

Sky box, which I assume is connected to a TV.

Etc. etc.

This thread is proving more interesting to me than I could ever have imagined.

I have a Nokia mobile phone which according to the site I just found .....know where your mobile phone was made .....checks out as being made in Finland.

Unfortunately there is no wifi on the urb where I live so just dial up, phone is a very old Dutch one I had re wired. The sky box is old but does not receive signal despite having large dish aligned so now just have Spanish TV via an aerial.

Incredibly there is a sticker on the back of the TV which states Made In Canada. Air con has Siemans logo so am guessing Germany.

Still cannot think of anything else made in China in my homes.

I often ask questions on behalf of friends/acquaintances.

Next.......

In my little office, I can see Acer, HP and Epson. If I stretch my neck there's Canon and an unpronounceable name. I know there's Bosch elsewhere and the car in the driveway was Made in Germany.

I didn't plan any of those purchases, I merely bought what was available and considered good value.

I'm not being unpatriotic to the country I live in, but I had a Seat once and it was absolute crap. My drains are Spanish too and I'm sorry to say, they're crap too.

German good, Seat crap ?

Are you sure your German car was made in Germany ?

Many "German cars" have been coming off the same production lines as Seat in Spain and Portugal for quite a long time using mainly common parts.

More recently some "German cars", not only VW, have been designed and developed in Spain as well as being manufactured there.

one of the Ferrari's had door handles made by Skoda in middle Europe somewhere (Poland?)