coletteandmike

Hi
we are thinking of moving to the jumilla/yelca of spain and we were wondering if anyone is living in this area and can give us any advice.
what are the schools like?
do you have any snow in winter?
is there any work?
whats all this about two new golf resorts being built?
do you have much wildlife?
just a few questions going threw my mind, we are coing out on the 12th May to view the area but would love to hear from anyone before then
thanks for taking the time to read this colette

coletteandmike

thought i might of had a reply by now. is there no one living in these areas? is there somewhere eles i can try

paintermujer

Not sure where Jumilla or Yelca are but we moved from Plymouth the end of last August.

The best of luck.

Where are these places?

stephendutchman

wine country..keep meaning to visit .tour of the vineyards etc.would imagine you need to speak ,a good level of spanish .to get by..

cricketman

Wine country, in Murcia?

Well, they make wine just about all over Spain, but Murcia is not one of the famous regions

coletteandmike

hi everyone
thanks for your response.
not sure how to answer you all separatley so its joint
also looking at alicante area
are you missing plymouth?which area did you come from? where in spain are you?

agoreira

Jumilla is a well known wine growing area, (at least amongst those that know a little about Spanish wine) with at least 5 of it's wines appearing in the top 100 wines of Spain, beating many from the likes of Rioja etc.

paintermujer

We lived in the Hartley area of Plymouth.

No, we dont miss Plymouth one bit.

We initially moved to the Alicante area but only stuck it there for three months before moving to Valencia.

I think it depends on the sort of life you are looking for.Where we lived before was far too sleepy for us and not the life we were looking for.

Some areas are lovely for a holiday but to live there all the time is completely different.

Make sure you bear this in mind when making a decision cos it could ruin it for you.

Some things are just not available in smaller areas like taxis etc and it makes a big difference when you have been used to them.

We came to Spain for a fun packed life and now we have everything we could possibly need right here.

You need to consider your income also and what youre going to do to earn it.

coletteandmike

not sure if im doing this right trying to reply to your mail
thanks for advice. we are looking for something sleepy thats why ive been looking at mountains but the main concern is income the further you go from humanity the less chance of getting a job and from what ive been reading work is pretty hard to find out there.
dont mean to be nosey but have you retired? it seems that most ex pats who have stuck it out in spain have been retired.

paintermujer

Were not retired and have come with the youngest daughter who is 9.Older daughter is still in Plymouth studying.

Our income comes via the internet so we are lucky but getting to that situation didnt come easy.

I think because we came from a city we are more attracted to city life and things going on.

Income is the main problem for most when it comes to survival so you need to think hard what you can do here.

painterhombre

hi. You're from plymouth yeah? Well the wife told me about this thread so i thought i would say hi and give you a bit of advice, to be taken tongue in cheek, but its based on experience, our experience, of moving from Plymouth to Spain........

We lived in a very nice house in a very nice part of the city and didnt need or want for much, apart from being bored with uk

. (Anyway, this would be a long story so i will summarise (!) and say we wanted out of Plymouth RIGHT OUT, WE HAD HAD ENOUGH and wanted a new life in Spain,, again, for many reasons), and we dont regret a minute of it, its been a fantastic (but very expensive) adventure, and we've only just begun our new life here!

Talk about living by the seat of your pants..............

The wife was saying a very wise thing though, that you need to move to somewhere that is a but similar in some ways. The area you are looking at, well, to say it is remote would be an understatement. And remote in the UK is very different from remote in Spain. Looking at the area you are choosing, I would STRONGLY, suggest you move nearer to a city, maybe Murcia, or Elche or somewhere, even up the coats towards Benidorm, which is great fun for many.

Really really research where you are going to live and ask yourself WHY you want to live there. What attracts you to the place and are you being realistic.

The wife and I prob got carried away with blind optimism and a dream way of life in the country near to Aspe, alicante but when we got there it was VERY different from what we thought, ad more importantly, what we had been promised . So we ended up moving to the suburbs of valencia city and this place ROCKS! We could never be bored here either.

. There will be absolutely NO work for either of you if you move to where you wish to move, unless you have a cracking business idea that the (skint and jobless) locals would snap yer hands off to give you money (and starting a business here and moving at the same time is not worth it unless you are VERY well funded .

My business for example is quite easy to run as i have been doing it for so many years, but even changing from self employed in the Uk to self employed in spain is an absolute utter nightmare in itself. The only work where you are thinking of moving to would be very low paid farm work, like fruit picking, and most of the locals take those jobs anyway as the unemployment in spain is very very bad as you probably know..

Dont get me wrong, the area your thinking of is beautfiul, but being on holiday in spain is very different than living here full time, and i really honestly dont think you would like it, or survive.

Remember also spain has winters, bloody cold ones, and yes the area you are looking at, in fact anywhere that is a mountain range (sierra) can have very severe winters and be cut off for long periods. As an expat here you also dont have the close knit family the Spaniards do and when you need help, and you may do, there will probably be nowhere there that could or would help you, (unless you are paying them and they are english), you are ON YER OWN in a strange country, with different laws, taxes, attitudes etc, language, and if you get in trouble for whatever reason, you would eb stuffed basically.

If you lived in a more British area, around elche, crevillente, santa pola etc, there would be more chance of work, although still slim, and the wages are lower here too, and also more Brits live around there to help you, and you will need some form of help at some point no matter how resourceful you are, , albiet prob the normal english expat type of people who "offer help" of just want to take your money from you rather than actually help you. (which again is another thread and i think i need to start writing that book i promised everyone i would do!!!!),

sorry, anyway, to summarise (my essay, sorry!) would be

1.) Dont move to an isolated rural area. You will NOT find work, you can be cut off by the weather, and you will find things you take for granted every day in the UK to be available in spain, like fresh tap water, reliable electric, choice in shops, an internet line, being able to speak to people, getting anything fixed, to be VERY different here, but not so if you are nearer other brits (near can still mean an hour and half drive by the way).
2. If you move from a city like plymouth with shops, theatres, cinema, clubs, Tv signal, roads (!), electricity (!), clocks (), buses, taxis etc, and you move to an isolated spanish village, you would be more isolated from life than anywhere you could ever imagine. It isnt like Dartmoor of course! Sometimes a huge change of life can put you under so much pressure you wonder the hell you moved there in the 1st place. A gradual change is better than one big life change. Imaging moving from central plymouth to a desert island. Youd like it for a couple of weeks, and then.................

3. But good luck, and go for it, and if you need any advice, we are both happy to help a janner (!) out any day! But pls, think carefully about where you are going to move to. Dont shut yourself away in a village unless you are planning to retire as soon as you come here, with plenty of money, contacts, language and resources. LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN OF THE LANGUAGE, INCLUDING SLANG TERMS AND SWEAR WORDS. The "learn spanish" method in the UK is very much "the kings spanish", and people on the street dont talk like they do ion the books!!!!!!!

Living here full time can be a struggle, as can paying the bills every month as everything is so expensive here. But life is FUN here, albeit rather austere in these times. Every day, we learn something new, see something completely weird (oh the stories i could write about THAT), people smile here, people are friendly, people are warm, and the streets are safe.

and the weathers nicer too!

good luck.

Relampago

Jumilla and Yecla, two towns in northern Murcia province. Jumilla (25.348 people) has an important wine industry and Yecla (35.025 people) has the furniture industry

I wonder, why Jumilla or Yecla? You have information about the place? You have job security? You are fluent in spanish?

coletteandmike

thanks very much for all your info.it was a lot to take in lol
we did tour Spain for 3 months in our motorhome last year(spent the other 3 in Morocco) to get an idea of the areas. Yelca has around 60 english living there which is very close to Jumilla and it is only 50 mins to alicante airport(so they say)
you have got me pretty worried about work and a income so will be looking into that. i almost thought it was my father in law talking with me whilst reading your mail. he says not to even try it. the thing is since we got back last Sept i have thought of nothing but going back. our lives here are just meaningless everyday trivial!!!!!!!
we are flying into alicante on 12th May for 8 days and will be looking around these areas in more detail. i think the cave house i wanted to rent in JUmilla has gone so i will be open to all areas and i know it would be nice to have some english near by but isnt the point of moving to spain to change your lifestyle to become a little Spanish?
it is Plymouth and its shops and big brother lifestyle that we want to move away from. think the good life and you will be thiking on our level. a few chickens a veg plot. ideally my dream job opening some boarding kennels/cattery but after looking into this it is only really the english in spain that would want this. My husband is a welder fabricator mainly on boats but also cars so i know the wise move would be near a harbour but i really dont want to be in tourist areas.
it sounds like you were chasing the same dream as me when you went to spain but you have compromised and its still better than good old england!!
will keep you updated thanks

Culebronchris

We have a house in Pinoso which is about 30kms from both Jumilla and Yecla and we live in Cartagena which is also in Murcia.

To be honest both towns are pretty tedious. They're OK, nothing wrong with them but nothing much of note. No noteworthy buildings to speak of - there are a couple but they are lost amidst the streets of concrete boxes. The fiestas are pretty good and Jumilla has quite a busy artistic life one way and another including a pretty good flamenco competition (Murcia has a strong flamenco tradition.) To be honest it's the same answer as it would be for what's Brighouse or Cramlington or Borstal like - the places are what you make of them and both Yecla and Jumilla are perfectly nice. Inland Murcia by the way has a big Ecuadorian population and Jumilla benefits from a couple of bars that serve Ecuadorian food and beer to give you a break from the traditional inland fare of rice with rabbit and snails or gazpacho (rabbit and "pastry" rather than liquidised soup)

The Murciano accent is a bit of a joke all over Spain but at least they only speak Castellano which is an improvement over the Valenciano spoken in Alicante next door which sometimes make information even less available than usual (cultural programmes etc only presented in Valenciano which rather excludes we immigrants.)

The next couple of paragraphs are a bit contentious. Just a view. You will get others.

Don't know much about the schools not having children but there are often debates on the expat forums about schools with views ranging from rubbish to excellent. My wife works in a state school and she has worked in others. As a composite view I would say that Spanish education is quite old fashioned with a lot of emphasis on learning facts rather than understanding principles. Unlike in the UK where the curriculum is wide ranging and the discipline quite hard here the discipline is quite lax but the curriculum is strict. There are lots of stories of older Brit youngsters "retiring" from school because they don't understand enough of what's going on to stay interested.

Young children pick up Spanish easily but older children struggle nearly as much as their parents. My Spanish is rubbish but it's an awful lot better than most 30/40/50 year old Brits I know. I find it very isolating when trying to participate in community meetings etc. and speaking Castillian Spanish or rather my lack of it is probably my only real concern about living in Spain. I try to read the newspapers, watch the telly and keep up with the place I live. It's hard work and most Brits don't bother so they know more about what's happening in the UK than they do about here which, again, is quite isolating. Think of those Pakistani or Vietnamese or Polish areas of the town near you in the UK with their own shops and services and you have the life of most expats here.

Winters aren't exactly cold but they are extremely unpleasant because carpetless, curtainless, non insulated, marble floored, tiled walled houses are built to keep cool not to keep warm. On a typical winters day expect it to be pleasant out, wearing a jacket, but numbingly cold in the house. It does snow from time to time but we are not talking Burgos or Galicia type weather. Snow in the streets always makes for photos in the local papers.

Airport wise it's OK, I'd be amazed if you can make Alicante in 50 minutes but both Alicante and San Javier, Murcia are within striking distance. There has been talk for years of building a new airport near Murcia. Murcia, by the way, is a reasonably interesting city, now the 7th largest in Spain apparently and it's easy to get to from both Jumilla and Yecla.

Wildlife is odd. Spaniards go out and shoot things all the time and there are often little pieces in the local newspapers about a wild pig being involved in a car accident but I saw more rabbits on one roundabout in Huntingdon at dusk than I've seen in five years here. Even in Salamanca, where I lived for a while, where the air is full of falcons and buzzards I never saw a fox or a rabbit or an owl except as roadkill.

No idea about golf courses. There's a forum called spainserve.com that's based in Yecla so why not ask there, you may also get better information about schools.

Unemployment in Spain now stands at 20%. Finding work is hard. If you aren't a fluent Spanish speaker then the chances are pretty low that you'll find anything. Even if you do have Spanish lots of jobs need a specific qualification that you won't have. Setting up a business is the way most Brits go round here (obviously people have jobs too but in a sort of generalised answering a post sort of way the self employed bit is true) but that too is quite difficult because there is a minimum social security payment of around 260€ per month whether you earn anything from your business or not. If you were to go to an area where there are far fewer Brits - almost anywhere except Alicante, Murcia, Malaga and the Islands - the fact that you speak English can make you saleable as an English teacher for private classes if for nothing else. Over in Salamanca my wife and I were the only Brits in the town of Ciudad Rodrigo and the local language school were keen to employ me whereas here in Cartagena there are lots of better qualified native speakers than me so I can't find anything.

Just on house hunting. The Spanish property market is plagued by fraudsters. Other people will disagree but I would tend to trust the Estate Agents who have an API sign outside their business premises. It's a sort of professional organisation that "suggests" a level of professionalism.

I can't be bothered to read back over the essay above so please forgive the typos.

Relampago

It is the first I've heard that Murcia accent is a joke in Spain, simply because if we should do a lot of jokes in many other accents that are not de Murcia, and also because the accent Murcia accent is not the same nor in northern Murcia nor the rest of the province. Anyway, I would not surprise me, because I don't know what strange mania there is in this country to Murcia

I did military service in Andalucia, I have friends of all areas of Spain, but mainly Andalusian. Have you ever heard someone from Jaen? From Almeria? From Sevilla? From Huelva? All are Andalusian provinces, but the accent is different. For example, in Huelva...Have you heard somebody form southern Huelva and somebody form northern Huelva? You'd be surprised to see the different accents they have: the southern accent Huelva is a closed, closed andalussian, but the northern accent Huelva appears to Extremadura, much more castilianized

Something similar happens with Murcia. The accent of the north of Murcia (eg, Cieza) has absolutely nothing to do with the typical accent of Murcia, as it is a much more castilianized than the Murcia typical accent

As for the fauna, before there were many rabbits, there is now less. As for eagles, hawks, etc, they prefer high mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Espuña central or northern mountains of Murcia. In your area you will see few birds of this caliber

By the way, to what cold winters you mean? It will be few cold the winter of coast of Cartagena, I think, that has nothing to do with winter of Yecla or Caravaca, where it snows every year