A five foot rat? I would have screamed too!

Well, I'm from Cambs, and my only neighbour who's English is from Essex, so.....

Yeah, I didn't want to get into a "I'm from here.... I'm from there" discussion, we tried that once before on here and it failed big time.

True.



Geeze, a five foot rat? I'd have left a hole in the rear wall.

We get mostly two types of snake, greenish or one with circle patterns down the back. The latter are the most common, and that one was a good five feet when stretched out prior to releasing it thru the fence. I keep telling her they keep the rats down, but she still can't stand them.

Interestingly there are small blind legless lizards in the orchard, pink and about 6 -8 inches long. I think they are called amphispenids? Something like that. I had only ever see two before moving out, and after killing two with a rotivator, I now do that part of the garden by hand, which seems to give them enough time to get away.

Rats, snakes, lizards? No problem. The things that terrify me are much smaller, gold-brown in colour, two-inches long, with feelers another two-inches long, and move like lightning.

Cockroaches. ;-))

Quite nice and crunchy when deep fried.

Yes Bil I'm sure they are !!
But to get back to the exodus thread, it's only a very few years ago when we were told that people were leaving Britain "in droves". Whether or not the majority of them went to Spain I don't know. I suspect that they did.
There must surely be a fairly steady flow of people moving in both directions for one reason or another anyway.
But I don't get the impression that they are returning to Britain in any great numbers. The exchange rate of course puts pressure on most of us. But to sell up in Spain and go back to the UK, to all the gloom and doom that it has to offer, seems an extreme measure to me.
I think most moving back would surely have to be either very unhappy, or desperate, or (sadly) both.

Bit off topic, but we have a yearly donkey race (uphill).........

they are though

I'm told by a teacher at one of the International schools that student numbers are way down

certainly in the spanish schools families of all nationalities are packing up & leaving

and this also would be true

Ha! I suppose that if you haven't an Aintree or Ascot, this would have to do... There again I remember donkey rides on the beach at Skegness (or was it Cleethorpes?) - I don't think they do those now, but I'm not 100% certain. I'm afraid I prefer go-karting to this or pony-trekking. I don't think that makes me any more English (or Spanish) inside though.

I hate being gloomy, and I'm not, just realistic. When I walked my dog this morning, I reflected on my street. It contains 28 houses, on one side only. I've lived here for eight years and got to know all the neighbours, a normal street, full of normal people (apart from the Russian who pretends he's Finnish).

There are five 'British' houses, one of which has been sold recently, and the other three are up for sale, ours is the only one not for sale.

The one that was sold, sold for half-price to a Spanish family who snapped up the bargain. The British owners were desperate to sell, just to return home, illness may have played a part. They had been here for 25 years.

One has been abandoned by the British owners, not because of mortgage arrears, they paid cash around ten years ago, but just wanted to go home. The For Sale sign has now been taken down.

In the street behind, half the houses are for sale, mostly by British or Scandinavian families, some of whom have also abandoned their homes and returned home.

The one thing all those homes have in common is that their owners have lived in Spain for at least eight years, often much longer. And the 'Spanish' houses are still in the majority, but only just.

The biggest danger is that in looking back at the UK they fail to recognise that it has changed, (not always for the better), forget the bad that they left the UK for, and take for granted the good that they went to Spain for.

Finally, and most stupidly IMO, they then don triple strength rose tinted specs and start praising the UK to the high heavens!

My favourite comment by one idiot was "The UK has the perfect climate!"

Duuuuuhhhhh......

Funnily enough, I reckon the British climate is great. Ok, it's variable, often wet and it can be a bit gloomy mid-winter. But it rarely suffers continental cold, and I feel that the hot summer temperatures Spain endures have their downside too. Put it this way, I'd sooner be a gardener or a market stall owner in Blighty than in Spain. Yet I'm not someone who thinks the UK is better than Spain (I normally take the other side). Just that I find the moderate British climate suits me.

Well, in my garden in the UK it was always damp, slimey and my hands were always stained from the gardening. In the dry sandy soil where we are in Spain, it's far nicer. Agreed I have to water a whole lot more, but I have a far longer growing period to enjoy. In the UK before we went, every day I had to go outside and take fallen petals off the geranium leaves, because if not, they stuck to the leaves with the damp and then both petal and leaf would rot. By the time I was getting a half decent show, the damn things were going under cover for the winter where the risk that they would rot was enormous.

Moderate. I suppose that's true if by that you mean grey, damp, and tedious for most of the time. Don't we joke in the UK that we hope that the summer falls on a weekend?

In Spain we are near the sea, so the climate is far better with scant risk of snow ever being a problem, and frosts very seldom. In return for a long guaranteed summer each year, I am more than happy to put up with excessive temps for part of it.