jeez jacky, how do u do it, on PDT we were told you had never travelled !!

must agree, medical is part of the whole thingy, after all, except for you , as we get older we need more and more attention - it reminds me of a car, once you start having MOT's they always find something that needs tweaking.

so many people come to Spain (but also other countries) with rose tinted glasses, its the night life, the food, the drink, lets buy a bar and live the life.
then they find they are working all day and night on the bar to just stand still, get no free time, no socialising except with the drunks who stagger in.

no thought about medical, social services, pension etc etc. Just seem to think it will all come to them as it did in the UK
except the UK is quite exceptional in the predominately free social, welfare and medical help it provides, letalone other benefits.

Even long term expats go home due to bereavement in Spain or at home, rather than stay here to the end. It isnt home

I know of a couple of expat families who just couldnt hack it out here, it caused rifts in what were probably stable relationships, the kids couldnt settle, the Spanish wouldnt give them the work so they had to rely on expats who were watching every penny

not an easy life, so enjoy it whilst you can

We used to see a lot on the coast. Youngish families came out with a bit of money from a house sale (probably). They would put the kids in private school, range rover. Do a bit of ducking and diving and after a year or two they were gone, usually leaving debts behind. We used to call them the one year millionaires

I know people who have left Spain and returned, others who have moved to France. All part of lifes changing pattern

For us it was never a perrmanent move and there came a time after eight years when it was just right to return. We did not have to work so no problem there, but many younger Brits in our part of Spain returned because of the unemployment (40% in our part of Spain).

We returned permanently to the UK in December having sold our house to another early retired Brit couple. We had kept our house in the UK.

And....we have got jobs, despite being retired for eight years! We are now professional House /Petsitters for an agency.

We enjoyed our time in Spain and are now glad to be back in the UK, but will visit our Spanish village frequently.

Jackie that is true luckily I no longer have a mortgage in UK or Spain but in the UK the interest rate set by Bank of England does not seem to be tied in for those paying a mortgage and is in fact going up. Those on trackers I believe are benefitting. Unfortunately for lots of savers it is being tied in to interest rate suppose win win for the banks. Belize I spent quite a while there in the forces 76 to 78 beautiful but very dodgy however no doubt it has changed a lot since then.

I'm quite surprised at the number of people considering alternatives to an expat life in Spain. We've been here for many years now, but I must admit we are also considering either a return to the UK, or moving elsewhere. For us it's a strange and new phenomenon, having always thought of this as the final destination. I don't even know what brought it on, it sort of came out of the blue, for no particular reason.

The trouble is, we haven't found anywhere remotely suitable or any better than Spain. We considered Australia, Canada, South Africa and the US and have links in all of those countries, but on closer examination didn't think any of them to be better than Spain.

On reflection, a lot of our friends and relatives who have gone back to the UK have done so for personal reasons, often a relationship break-up allegedly caused by Spain itself. I know it sounds daft, but a slightly different lifestyle in Spain, with more socialising among like-minded people who drink more than back home and walk about in alluring clothes, because it's hot, might be a reason for infidelity, even if just imagined? I've got no idea if that's true. (I was startled the other day to see a married lady I know walking about in hot pants and her lady friend was wearing spray-on trousers).

We've even got a place to go back to in the UK, and it was OK 25 years ago, but I've been back for a look and it's horrible now. But there are nice places a few miles away.

When I say dodgy one Squaddie had a disagreement over a girl and was crucified by being nailed to a door an thrown in the Belize river!!!!!!!!!!!

it is a sad fact that if you should dump £1m in a bank they will pay you about 4% interest, but if you use that £1m to borrow £500,000 they will charge you 15%. No guesses as to who keeps the difference and for what purpose.

spent alot of time in Spore and HK in the forces, the Google streetwalks are not of the places I remember, they pulled down the Fleet Club to build on top, nothing much remains of those times now. But that is modern lif I suppose.

reminds me of the matelot who was found floating in a monsoon ditch in Nee Soon, Singapore. he was found face up and alive, but only just

he wasnt the first

This one wasn't alive as I say don't know about now but Belize river had some nasty beasties in it back then, wasn't nicknamed sweet water canal for nothing.

Mind being evil squaddies we used to stand on the main bridge and throw a few cents in the river llocal kids would be straight in and always managed to retrieve the money, no health and safety for them lads. Great place and there were some ex Squaddies living there back then and seemed to do very well for themselves.

my first visit to Singapore in the 60's was a real eye opener for a teenager straight out of training

dead bodies in the monsoon ditches down near Raffles Hotel, a dead body in Singapore Roads between the ships moored out there.

one night a Malaysian patrol boat fired its 40mm Bofors on a tree floating the wrong way - against the current. Tracer all over the place, tanker passing ran aground. Turned out it was from Indonesia, hollowed out, they got some of the bodies but one or two were so full of gun metal they didnt float.

yup, the things you see during a night watch at anchor, we almost lost our radar to a couple of pieces of flying tracer.

Funny I was on Bofors in Belize!! belive it or not they had got rid of them but when Belize reared it's head again in late 75 they had to bring them out of mothballs. This was believe it or not due to Cuban Missile crisis previous no missiles allowed in the Carribean changed 78 when they allowed the Rapier missiles in.

I remember visiting Bofors UK factory in Grantham, one of the directors was a dodgy Tory MP who later went to prison for telling porkies about his hotel expenses.
I was in RN Signals so only learnt how to use a 303

missed the marksman badge by a couple of points due to a sore shoulder after firing all day

Reminds me of some British neighbours we have

They have a Range Rover, must have cost £50k back in the day - maybe 5 years ago, been on UK number plates for the 3 years we've been here. There are bits missing off it and a huge dent that has never been fixed. The girl hangs out with the other British kids in the village. The husband does something to do with aircon, they have rented a garage in our building that is full with really old looking aircon units, no idea why.

They're still here though so must be getting by

There's my nosey neighbour report for the day!

Please.

Rosemary