Diary of a Downshifter – Part 3 Downshifting To Spain
So we had arrived. It was unnerving to think that this was it. The cottage was fairly sound but still lacked electricity and in fact compared to what was to come over the next few years, it was pure luxury. Many days later the electricians came and in the meantime we begged jerry cans of water from neighbours. Our water was pumped from our water tank by electricity. Had we thought about it properly we’d have made sure that the line from the tank to the house was down hill. Instead it was uphill. Then 5 days into it all the heavens broke and we went from a deficit of water in the house to a huge surplus. Water came in through the back wall in rivers, flowed through the house and out of the front door. We battled it by night and day and in the meantime all our boxes in the sitting room became sodden. There was no relief though. Any fixit job had to be major and we couldn’t do that until the rain stopped. Essentially the house had to be dug out of the hill at the back (where we should have had our water tank). The stone walls of the house were no protection against ground water at all. I went from bar to bar chasing JCB digger drivers but of course after a rain storm of that intensity they were all engaged in digging out roads and farms. Eventually however we got one and it was a cause for celebration when a big yellow JCB came and parked on the land. The driver looked at the problem, grunted and promised to return the next day – but he left his machine on our land which re-assured us. Sure enough he arrived promptly at 8 the next morning, powered up and disappeared. A spilled load of tomatoes was blocking a road. But he returned after a day and two days later the ground behind the house was now level with the house. The first problem was solved. Another miracle occurred when the electricity boys arrived the next day and connected us up. We had light and we had water where it was meant to be, and we had a neighbour who claimed that half our land was his and he had papers to prove it. Not only that, he was going to drive a track through to it on an ancient track way through our land and build a house almost next to ours – unless we bought the land off him at an extortionate price.
