The joys and woes of moving into a new place!

OK, we've been living here just over a week now and over all we know it was a good move but boy have we had some fun.

On the first night, having moved all our stuff, taken delivery of our furniture and boxes from storage and got the place straight to be able to cook a meal and fall into bed - oh, hang on the bed needs building - it's in boxes and we don't have a mattress yet.

OK, so Neil decided to make something to eat while I made up the single beds downstairs. Then we'll make an action plan for tomorrow and a shopping list- now we are in an unfurnished place there are things we will need to buy - like a kettle - for the time being we have brought the one from the other villa round to use.

Once Neil had decided what we would be havng for dinner he tootled off into the kitchen to start cooking it - and that's when we discovered out first problem - we cannot have more than 2 rings on the hob plus the oven, or microwave without the electrics tripping - AND we cannot have the kettle on at the same time as doing 4 slices of toast in the toaster .....OK.

So, after wandering back and forth to the fuse box a few times to reset the fuses we finally had a meal on the table. During this episode with the fuse box we also learned that if we wanted to have the electric radiators on to heat downstairs, one of them had to be plugged into the kitchen other wise the fuses tripped. Anyway, enough done we decided to worry about it tomorrow.

The next day we asked the owners if they had ever had problems with the electrics and they said no, so we persevered on a while longer. But on Monday night we really had a bad night with the electrics tripping. It was already dark outside and when the electrics tripped it took the whole lot out. So, first thing was trying to find candles so we could see what we were doing. In the old place I knew exactly where they were but in this place - no, no idea. As it happened we'd had friends round the night before and they had brought us a scented candle as a house warming present and Neil remembered where I'd put it so we lit that and used it to look for the bigger candles I had bought incase of power cuts. The electrics must have tripped about 6 times in short succession and the fuse box was getting hotter and hotter and at one point the fuses wouldn't go back - so we called the management company and told him of the problem.

He asked if we could recreate the problem if he brought an electrician round and we said yes, no problem. The following day we had a sparky check the electrics and it turned out there was a problem with one of the breakers, it was getting too hot and not tripping when it should and needed replacing, and was actually dangerous and could catch a light - he would be back the following day to change. It also seems that the hob we have uses so much power, more than anything he'd come across before and that's why things were tripping when we were cooking. At least we know now and can work around it until the hob is changed for something less greedy on the electrics.

The house is full of very nice light fittings, sinks etc and when we went to IKEA to get some bedroom units we saw all of the items in IKEA, I seemed to walk around the place saying 'we've got that' 'that's like ours' etc. We got some good bedroom units and a couple of good storage bits for the bathrooms so, although it's a bit of a trek to IKEA in Murcia - once or twice a year, it's worth the trip. It tickled me in IKEA that we could pick up a catalogue in either Spanish or English, I'm not sure IKEA in the UK would have a catalogue in a second language.

We built our new bed which we had bought in last years sales in the UK and brought with us and then toddled off to get a mattress for it from Hannibals in Aguilas. It's a king sized bed and I expected to have to wait for the mattress to be delivered but no, Neil and the guy in the shop managed to push, pull and fold it into the back of our car and we man-handled it out of the car and up the stairs and onto the bed. That night we were able to sleep in our new bed for the first time - and we were back to an upstairs bedroom - lovely.

A week on we had sorted out where all the keys go, how everything works and have just about finished unpacking all our boxes, and so the final piece in the jigsaw of making this our home was the Hot Tub.

Before we had thought about moving to Spain we were considering getting a hot tub to help ease the pains and problems of my arthritis. When we decided we would move to Spain we continued to want a Hot Tub rather than a pool, then we could use it all year round and in summer cool the temperature down and use it as a plunge pool. Just before Christmas, Neil was up at Desert Springs for a game of golf and got talking to someone on the first tee. It turned out to be Charles from Sundance Spa's in Antas & Mojacar and they had a big sale on so Neil got details of where he was and we took a trip down to have a look at his Spa's

My only requirement was that there was a laying down seat as most of the problems from my arthristis are in my back. We decided on a lovely Spa that should have been over €12,000 and was reduced to under €7,000 - all we had to do was wait to be in our new place and it could be delivered. And so, as soon as we knew when we would be moving in we had phoned Charles to arranged a delivery date - last week we took delivery of it.

It's bigger than it looked in the shop, it's bubbly and it's wonderful.