As a diversion from describing our life as downshifters, it’s worth looking at a major feature of our lives at the time perhaps as a warning to others who may mistakenly think that downshifting is all happiness and bliss. One of the features of our downshifting career [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 17 Downshifting to Spain

As a diversion from describing our life as downshifters, it’s worth looking at a major feature of our lives at the time perhaps as a warning to others who may mistakenly think that downshifting is all happiness and bliss. One of the features of our downshifting career was a constant lack of money. There is an often held belief that downshifting is all about living the simple life, growing your own and living free from the constraints of the vulgar modern world - and money.  To all those who think this, think again. Every downshifter who told me this in spain (and they were usually German hippies) were, when we got to know them better and found out – being subsidised by their parents or receiving one of the home country’s incredibly generous benefits. They had free money. They didn’t have to work. In all our years as downshifters in Spain, I didn’t meet anyone living that life who didn’t either have to work or were receiving money from parents – or even on some sort of benefit from their home country.

On one occasion, following a lousy harvest and a very poor time for us and an overspend on the house, we passed New Year’s Eve with 2 pesetas. You can’t buy anything with 2 pesetas and so I stuck them in my diary with sellotape and welcomed in the year 2000. They are still there. On another occasion, I had to borrow to fly back to the UK to be a seasonal traffic warden for 5 months. I left my wife and kids with no money at all. (Fortunately in many small towns and villages in Spain, you can buy and pay later). When I returned, I spent days going round all the small shops paying our bills.

Being rich isn’t necessarily the way to happiness in life, but it can make you less miserable. I think it was Spike Milligan who said that and he was right. Money – or rather lack of it was a constant sore point in our life as downshifters. many will immediately respond by saying ‘but isn’t that the whole point of it? Isn’t that the reason you chose this life – to get away from the problems and hassles of jobs/money/ commuting and so on? Well let me say now that that is a total misconception. If you are living in a nice place and working hard and you want a beer from a nice, local bar, overflowing with bonhomie and life, just how are you going to pay for that beer without money?

I remember moving from Castellar to Aracena and passing the lights and Christmas decorations of El Corte Ingle on the Seville bypass road at San Juan de Aznalfarache. We had just been blasted out of our Mill in the Hozgarganta river by a huge flood (future post) and were moving up to Aracena, at night, with a van full of cats and dogs in fruit boxes, ourselves and a pile of wet belongings. I couldn’t ever imagine being able to enjoy the scenes behind those Christmas lights simply because at that time, we had no money – or nothing beyond the very essentials of living. It wasn’t a good feeling and we know of many a downshifter (and downshifting families) who had to return to the UK and other Northern European countries simply because they couldn’t find the money to live.

Bartering does work in certain circumstances. For example we let local stockholders use our land for their sheep. Not only did it keep the grass down (and free from being a fire hazard) but it also got us into the local community and as a big bonus gave us in return fruit and vegetables and a lamb at Christmas. Mind you, we had to kill it ourselves. (We out-sourced the job)! We also let black pigs eat our acorns and in return received fine sausages – but none of this can get you a hard earned beer, milk, tampax, decent shoes and clothes or new building materials for essential jobs around the house and so on. For that you need money and before you think about downshifting for real, do get this aspect of your life sorted out. Or let your parents subsidise you, or make sure you can claim a generous benefit. Or make sure you are rich in the first place.

OR, even better start a small business and in my forthcoming book I will explain more. Ultimately, unless you have a private income, you must earn your own money.

The problem with living in a rat infested hovel is that it is difficult to sleep at night and with the amount of physical work that I needed to do to get building materials down a near vertical slope to build a house meant that I [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 15   Downshifting to Spain

The problem with living in a rat infested hovel is that it is difficult to sleep at night and with the amount of physical work that I needed to do to get building materials down a near vertical slope to build a house meant that I needed all of the sleep I could get.  Leaving wife and soon to be new daughter in Los Romanes, I travelled down each Monday to Castellar and set about the task of getting the building materials down the slope. With the help of a supermarket trolley on a steel cable I and a band of hippies who agreed to help in exchange for pay and beer we commenced what turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever undertaken. The delivery lorry would drop the sand or cement bags or bricks etc next to the track. Then we would move this to a spot near the trolley and then load up the trolley. It could take 3 bags of cement or 6 breeze blocks or 15 roof tiles. The first three bags of cement which comprised our very first load rocketed off down the hill, hit a rock at the bottom near the house, exploded and shot over the cliff to the valley far below. Spectacular but expensive and we had to retrieve the very bent up trolley. Pulling the trolley back up the cliff was a killer in itself. Gradually we got the hang of it and over the next 3 months of blood, sweat and tears we moved an entire house down the cliff, brick by brick and tile by tile. Sand was the most difficult item and also the heaviest and there was never enough. My friend from Los Romanes, Jaques masterminded the building and within a couple of months a house emerged from the ruin. The views were spectacular and the place was fit for wife and daughter – and all the furniture, boxes and other heavy belongings that we had to manoevre down the cliff. The bees were very happy at their new location producing some of the best honey and honeydew that I have tasted. An old item of furniture left over from the recent hippy occupation of the place provided firewood for our first open fire and the presence of cannabis hidden in the knot holes of the wood provided us with our first and only trip leaving  me dreaming of small and vicious teddy bears. Heaven only knows what it did to our two month old daughter but we survived and the rest of the wood was thrown out, only to attract a group of the local hippies who diligently searched it for more knot holes. After this, a stiff drink in Mara’s bar in the castle was definitely called for and as this bar was the only cannabis free environment in the area it was doubly welcome. The castle boasted a village within the walls with narrow streets, scented bouganvillia, jasmine and dama de noche climbing the walls and trellises and flamenco music from Diego’s bar (which sold my honey) adding to the wonderful atmosphere a place which time forgot. There was even a tea room in one of the tiny little bars. Many of the hippies (who lived mainly outside the castle walls) were delightful people and it is easy to remember people like Jeff who was I believe the best guitarist I’ve ever met – his rendition of Pink Floyd and other artists was supreme, or Samantha who could make some of the best jewelry items around. Unfortunately it was a culture based on drugs, hard and soft for the most part and many of the hippies ended up caught by the police and ending up inside or wasting their huge talents on doing absolutely nothing – or even dying.

It was in the castle that I came second in an international cookery competition with my special curry. (International because the hippies came from all over the place). The first place had to be won by a female Spaniard which was entirely acceptable and so my second place was all the more pleasing and Annabel has laughed about it ever since. Even more pleasing was that because I packaged my honey in small hexagonal pots and put these in little wooden crates stamped with the words ‘Miel de Andalucia’ and placed a picture of the castle on the label and so on, my honey became the accepted honey of the area and earned me more pesetas (at the time) for less actual honey.  It was good business and everyone was happy.

When friends came out from the UK to see us we put them up in the Posada in the castle, a magnificent old place owned by Jenny Hoad (wife of Lew Hoad the Australian Wimbledon champion). The place was run by Dotty, an Englishwoman in her 60s who had previously wanted to run a high class brothel in the area and had even secured a bank loan for the purpose, but eventually this didn’t work out and so she ran the posada. Her foodwas excellent and her hospitality generous and she was loved by all. Unfortunately she eventually had to flee over some petty regulation or other and was a sad loss to the castle. Fortunately the authorities had warned her of her impending doom before actually doing anything so that she had time to flee the coup. The castle was populated by a wealth of such characters often living on the edge of things and even Philipe Gonzalez the bonzai loving, first post Franco prime minister had a house there and could often be seen cooking an evening meal. All in all, definitely the perfect background for a good book.

We had been in Spain for 18 months and for some reason we had itchy feet. The small house called Finca Granadero that we had bought was now a beautiful Andalucin cottage with beams and nooks and crannies that the previous owner had blocked up and [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 13 Downshifting to Spain

We had been in Spain for 18 months and for some reason we had itchy feet. The small house called Finca Granadero that we had bought was now a beautiful Andalucin cottage with beams and nooks and crannies that the previous owner had blocked up and that we had opened up and revealed. The plumbing was good and worked (by this stage I was a master plumber) and even the electricity worked as well as could be expected. We installed a brilliant little wood burning stove and built a chimney, which kept us warm and generally we were becoming comfortable.  The authorities offered each house a radio phone and we quickly took advantage of this and so were finally contactable. This communications ‘improvement’ in our lives actually turned out to be one of those brilliant, modern ideas that can end up destroying the closely knit fabric of communities. Now we had our own phone we didn’t have to go to the ‘telephone man’s house anymore. Going there was like going to a form of social club. We met others waiting to make their calls and chatted and got to know them, and we caught a glimpse of real Spanish life as we became part of the telephone man’s family life. We were there for their meals, their rest periods, their arguments, their television (which was always on) and they would tell us of their triumphs and disasters. Because there was no instant communication we learned to wait; we learned patience and we learned about the rest of our community. They were all interested in us of late because Annabel had become pregnant and this news caused quite a stir. 

The bees were now established in two apiaries and having got over the problems of varroa – which was in Spain but not in the UK at that time and so caught me by surprise – we were able to plan our next business moves. We survived the swarming season – just. The first swarm hung up in a tree just below the house and I went up a ladder with my box to collect it. I banged the branch with my hand and the bees dropped into the box. Holding the branch with my right hand and the box in my left, I was about to descend when the ladder fell away and I was left hanging. I called Annabel who arrived centuries too late and by this stage I had hit the ground nd was covered in bees. Even swarm bees get angry if you mess around with them enough and these got angry. As usual I hadn’t put any protective clothing on so the pair of us fled. A small gang of them got up my trouser leg and were moving rapidly upwards In this circumstance it is important to stop them at the knee, and as I hopped around holding my trouser leg Annabel rushed inside the house and locked the door citing unborn child and so on. I’m still not sure how I survived.

But as I said, we were getting itchy feet (all our lives we had moved every year or so due to military backgrounds and in my case a military childhood as well) and so we decided to move and we began looking around at suitable sites and locations that would be good for us and good for the bees. Little did we know that we would end up in the centre of a bunch of hippies in a hovel half way down a cliff with no water, no electricity and no approach to the ‘dwelling’ other than scrambling across a near vertical rock face with foot holds carved into it – with a two month old baby!  But more of that later.

My next move in the Sharam electricity saga was a visit to the company offices in Velez Malaga accompanied by grovelling explanations about misunderstandings, absences of mind, invalidism; genuine error of judgement and so on but all seemed to be of no avail. The electricity was [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 12 Downshifting to Spain

My next move in the Sharam electricity saga was a visit to the company offices in Velez Malaga accompanied by grovelling explanations about misunderstandings, absences of mind, invalidism; genuine error of judgement and so on but all seemed to be of no avail. The electricity was to be cut off in two days and legal proceedings commenced. There appeared to be only one solution and that was to go nuclear. The next day, Sharam drove me down to Velez and after having generally scared me to death, parked on the yellow lines outside the glass windowed offices of the electricity company. He then emerged from the car, sticks akimbo and hobbled painfully into the office where he fell flat on his face. I hadn’t actually asked him to do that but it was very effective. Numerous staff members rushed over to help him to a chair and untangle his sticks and limbs. He grinned at me as he was solicitously sat down in a comfy chair and immediately we were at the head of the queue. I explained to a harassed supervisor that here was the criminal himself and that he was expecting the electricity to go off the next day and that if he fell over in the dark and broke his head open or disappeared down the gorge, he deserved it for being bad, but that it wouldn’t stop him suing the electric company for their inhuman practices in depriving a handicapped man of the essentials of life. Sharam nodded his head in agreement as I spoke. The Spanish are very particular about this sort of thing and would go a million miles out of their way to avoid impeding someone who is disabled and within minutes the by now horrified supervisor had organised for a new electric meter to be installed at the house, a new reading to be taken in two weeks time, the line paperwork to be regularised, apologised for any inconvenience and giving me a knowing smile said “obviously a paperwork error seňor. You can take the gentleman home now.” No mention of legal proceedings, fraud or nameless other charges. Sharam and I hurried out swiftly in case anyone changed their minds and just to be on the safe side, I drove home.

Sharam’s new home needed to be remote because of his continuing requirements for daily challenge and I knew that the small place down the track from us belonging to an English couple from Birmingham might well do the trick. They only frequented the place a once [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 11 Downshifting to Spain

Sharam’s new home needed to be remote because of his continuing requirements for daily challenge and I knew that the small place down the track from us belonging to an English couple from Birmingham might well do the trick. They only frequented the place a once or twice a year and upon enquiry were delighted to have someone look after it in the meantime. It had electricity and more or less mains water and was perched on the side of a steep gorge. Having secured permission for Sharam’s move we negotiated a reasonable rent with a consideration for me, and Sharam happily moved in. Unfortunately, this coincided with one of those rare periods in Spanish country life when ‘the system’ decided to start being efficient and just after Sharam’s move, along came the authorities in the form of an electric meter reader, who noticed that the shack had no meter but it did have electricity because with Sharam in it, it had a light on. Rules and regulations in the countryside of Spain were often sidestepped and few people took much notice of them but every now and again failure to obey the rules did have consequences and the consequence of this particular sidestepping was the arrival of an electricity company inspector on my doorstep. He had with him proof that electricity was being siphoned off from a mains line and not being paid for and that as I was responsible for the building, I was responsible for the theft and fraud as well as Sharam and the owner of the property. He informed me that the electricity would be turned off in two days and that the owner, me and Sharam would all be prosecuted for fraud and other nameless charges which he would think about in the meantime. The fact that just about every other house in the area was doing the same and had been doing so ever since electricity reached the area was evidently of no importance. This was out first tricky time with the authorities since we arrived in Spain and it was case of learning fast how to deal with the bureaucracy. I immediately went up the track to the telephone man’s house where the local public phone was situated in the family sitting room and over the blast of the TV, I contacted the house owner. “Oh yes, David, we did fix up some electricity a few years back. Took it off the mains. Why, has the line broken?”  I explained the situation. “Oh well,” he exclaimed cheerfully, “I’m absolutely certain that a man of your calibre can sort it out. Keep in touch though; let us know what happens. Annabel can phone if you’re in prison.” When I had put the phone down, the telephone man’s daughter turned the TV down so that we could negotiate payment for the call and after paying and exchanging the usual niceties with the assembled family, I hurried off home.

Within a year, we had turned a very pretty Andalucian country cottage that had been turned into seaside villa back into a very pretty Andalucian cottage only now with better facilities such as electricity, water, a wood burning stove and an operational septic tank, and we [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 10 Downshifting to Spain

Within a year, we had turned a very pretty Andalucian country cottage that had been turned into seaside villa back into a very pretty Andalucian cottage only now with better facilities such as electricity, water, a wood burning stove and an operational septic tank, and we had started some basic landscaping. Things were getting easier all round. We had established our bees in several places but found that they weren’t thriving very well. Also, I lost hives due to varroa, something I had no experience of in Lincolnshire. I should have known it was in Spain and I should have taken precautions but I was new to the game and hoped that it just wouldn’t appear in my hives. Some hope! But that’s another story.

Our nearest neighbour was a man in his 70s who was renting the house just above us. He had some terrible muscle wasting disease and couldn’t walk without sticks and even then not for long. But, we would see him struggling over the uneven ground on his evening walks and giving cheery waves to all who passed. He always had a smile on his face and seemed at peace with the world. His name was Sharam (he was Swiss but had taken on a Buddhist name) and he told us that he lived out in the wilds because it presented a constant daily challenge and this challenge and the hardship that went with it prevented him from giving up. He was too busy trying to keep moving to die. He had a small car in which he went off to town every now and again and he usually returned on the back of a transporter after rolling in the ditch somewhere due to his inability to drive because of his disease. I always wondered how he managed to keep renewing his licence and one day after he had arrived back in a particularly battered state I called round for a glass of beer and eventually got round to the subject. “Oh that’s easy”, he replied to my question with a huge grin. “I just send the renewal forms off to Switzerland with this photo” – he handed me a photo of him at the age of twenty – “I white lie, obfuscate and blur all the other essential details on the form, obviously no one checks anything and eventually another license appears. What else can I do? If they take my license away that would really be the end”. A true downshifting expert I thought and my opinion of the Swiss bureaucracy rose 100 points on the spot. I had thought they were efficient!

One day however, much his distress, Sharam was told that the cottage was to be sold and that he had a couple of weeks to move. The subsequent shenanigans nearly caused us all to be arrested.

Now that the house was literally out of the mud we were able to start turning it back into a small Andalucian country cottage. We wrecked and re-did the bathroom; we ripped out the false plasterboard arches which concealed beautiful wooden beams; we placed wood and [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 9 Downshifting to Spain

Now that the house was literally out of the mud we were able to start turning it back into a small Andalucian country cottage. We wrecked and re-did the bathroom; we ripped out the false plasterboard arches which concealed beautiful wooden beams; we placed wood and glass doors between the sitting room and the stairs area and we built another toilet near the stairs. Old Antonio the retired goatherd from up the road came to visit frequently. He limped up the driveway with his black and white cat which had an identical limp from an identical injury and would talk for hours about the times when he lived in the place. The new glass and wooden doors between the stairs and the sitting room were one of our last luxury items. We had them made to fit by Ernesto Crespillo a small scale master carpenter from Velez Malaga. He used pine that he explained came from abroad by ship, plane and train and he assured us it wouldn’t swell or warp like local pine. His work was superb but expensive and a new local factory called ‘The Black Cow’ started to mass produce ready made pine doors of all shapes and sizes and very much cheaper prices. Sure enough, Ernesto went out of business and the area was flooded with Black Cow doors which either wouldn’t shut or if they did shut, wouldn’t open again unless it was hot and sunny in which case the pine shrank so much that gaps appeared between the frame and the door. Consumerism was rapidly advancing in Spain which one the one hand made life easier but on the other, products were dumbed down to a more trashy level which I guess most people now accept as the norm.

It was now time to acquire some bees. After all, that was why we were there. We heard from a friend that an old boy was downsizing his bee stocks and contacted him in Velez Malaga. He turned up about an hour and a half late for [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 5 Downshifting to Spain

It was now time to acquire some bees. After all, that was why we were there. We heard from a friend that an old boy was downsizing his bee stocks and contacted him in Velez Malaga. He turned up about an hour and a half late for our appointment and immediately took us off to one of his favourite bars for a pre-work brandy and a gossip about bees and how there was so much future in it and wasn’t I lucky to be able to buy at very reasonable cost his bee hives full of specially trained, hard working, completely tranquil bees. As usual, reality was different. We approached his apiary along a horrendous series of narrow tracks with million foot drops on either side and on arrival were nearly pasted into oblivion by the bees which attacked on sight. I’d heard about the Iberica bee and so wasn’t unduly surprised at their ferocity, but it was explained to me that it was all due to a series of low pressure systems crossing this part of Spain that had upset them. The television had said so. Usually you could stroke them as though they were flies! What ever that meant! I was never able to stroke an Iberica without having to run for it!
I purchased 40 stock to start off with and we were then rushed to the old boy’s house in town to celebrate with several or more glasses of the local filth drawn up from a deep amphora set into the ground. I took more than I should have (I needed it) and was eventually forced back home, mumbling and scratching my many stings, by my wife.
Now all we had to do was move the hives to some new sites. Three of the locals offered to help me and from the way they spoke I thought they were experts on the subject (another thing I found common in Spain). Bees are moved at night and so one late evening off we set and very soon reality again hit me in the face when I found out that none of them had ever had anything to do with bees before and so another adventure of the Keystone Cops look-alikes began. Only this time the horror lasted all night!

After stalling this potential thief who was the owner of the supermarket in the nearby village of Los Romanes, we contacted our lawyer. Once you have a set of deeds in Spain, you can keep them, even after you have sold the property. New deeds [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 4 Downshifting To Spain

After stalling this potential thief who was the owner of the supermarket in the nearby village of Los Romanes, we contacted our lawyer. Once you have a set of deeds in Spain, you can keep them, even after you have sold the property. New deeds are made up for the new owner and in the deeds register, it is only these latest dated deeds that count. The grocer had simply tried it on with a set of old deeds and a letter from the lawyer threatening a court case shut him up immediately. He assumed that we were rich and ignorant and found that we were neither. We had passed the first of many tests that would try us in Spain. Sometime after this event, we mentioned the incident to some Spanish friends who far from being surprised actually said, “Well he had to try didn’t he. He owns a supermarket. He is an important man!” It was our first realisation that, however well you thought you knew these people, their 1000 years of different history to ours just made them think so very differently. It was a continuing theme throughout our time in 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 [...]]]> 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.