Tranquilo

 She looked at me intently.

"A las diez, si?"

Yes, I was absolutely sure that I would be at the stables for 10am, as the lady in the shop requested. It is not hard to be on time. Punctuality is a particular skill of mine. I had 10 bales of straw arriving for my horses, I sat on the mounting block from 09.59 - waiting.

"They won't come at 10 o'clock Mummy, " said the ever wise P, "This is Spain!"

We all waited patiently for an hour, unloaded the frigging straw and laughed at the tranquilo approach. No apologies for being late of course -  I have just learnt to be grateful that people turn up at all.

I *live* in Mallorca

We did it, we bought a house and moved again.

To write it in one sentence sounds trite - so easy to do, but actually so flipping hard to accomplish.

But we have done it. All those years of talking about living and working in Spain have finally been achieved and I'm not going to lie, it feels great. I belong here, amongst the olive and the carob trees, the screaming cicadas and infestations of ants. I like accidentally ordering food I didn't ask for in restaurants and recognising one word out of twenty and winging it. I absolutely love Spain and all she has to offer, which is a good thing because we are staying.

The move was sweaty. And stressful as moving house always is. I tried to persuade him him to get rid of some of his belongings, but the 2000 books and 400 LP's followed us to our new and permanent house. The horses got transported down the motorway at 130km/hour and arrived terrified, with their eyes rolling around in the backs of their heads as though they had been on a roller coaster without knowing it was ever going to end. Los pobres. They are now tranquilo as life should be on a Mediterranean island. The cats meow-ed a little on their journey to the south west of the island, taking it all in their little well-travelled cattie paws. They walked around the new house, hid for 30 minutes, sniffed the familiarity and went out for a quick kill - as you do.

Recovered from their transit

We have tortoises in the new garden, wild and wonderful. Our ears pop every time we come home - we live that far up a mountain. We can see the sea from the top of the house and the yucca plant has just flowered. Hibiscus reminds me that I am somewhere foreign and the sun is always there.

The annoyances and difficulties I will write of in the future, but just now I would like to sit back, amongst the unpacked boxes and take all in what has happened.

We live in Spain. Again. And I am so very, very glad indeed.

On the move .... again

It should be easier this time, having moved my entire belongings, plus 2 cats and 2 kids, only a year ago. Except this time I seem to have acquired 2 horses and all their equipment as well. We are moving from the beautiful 'finca in Inca' to somewhere nearer the children's school. The 4 hour daily journeys, up and down the motorway amongst accidents and hire cars was impossible. Everyone said it would be, but I guess I had to work it out for myself.

So we bought a house. It was a stressful, traumatic, worrying, confusing, expensive and heart-in-the-mouth experience. Brexit had better work out OK, because it looks like we are staying.

We have the keys now and are just waiting to move. The lists, the jobs, the goodbyes to neighbours and the cleaning - although not as intense as the move from the UK - needs to be done and logistically thought out.

The cats skirt their travel cages not wanting to believe they are on the move again. This will be the last time catties, I promise. Because I am not going anywhere for a very long time.

A new house for the foreseeable future

Sports day

Great whispers and shocked chatter started the school sports day this morning, over coffees and behind Gucci sunglasses.

"Did you hear? About the lady who fell, she had 6 stitches and knocked out her teeth! She sprained both wrists and her child was hysterical at the sight of his mum..."

Sharp intakes of breath ensued, this was obviously a dangerous subject. The mothers race on sports day.

Oh how I giggled and remembered my spectacular crash in front of the whole school a few years ago in Sussex. The adrenaline that coursed my veins as I thought I was going to win, the feeling of flying and impressed my body could still run so fast made a hilarious story. And it seems there were plenty of stories to share, everyone had a calamity to report; of vicious competitiveness, of weeks of training for the event, of boobs flying and torn muscles.

I looked down at my shoes and wandered if I could do it.

Nooooooooo, my kids shouted. Pleeeeeeeeease don't do it, they chorused, not wanting the mother with a smashed up face.

So I settled for cheering on my daughters' efforts in the egg and spoon race - which she won of course.

Competitive? Us?

Sports day in Mallorca - the same all over the world!

Summer happened

Summer happened, just like that, a couple of weeks ago now. Where everything that was once green, has turned brown overnight. The spring flowers have withered leaving grass seed pods and allium skeletons, petrified and roasting.

The horses routine has turned upside down, inside in the day and out all night. The cat has turned into her Magaluf - party style cat, hunting and vomiting by night and comatose in the day.

Ice lollies are mandatory, bikinis live at the front of my drawers, swimming lessons have started in school, the air con is permanently on in the car, I am dirty brown, the duvet has disappeared from the bed, the mosquito repellent is on, BBQ's every weekend, siestas imperative and luke-warm showers save our electricity bills.

Summer has happened. I can hardly believe we have another 9 degrees to go.

Spot cools down in the sprayers and mud

The other one is a bit mental and sunbathes at lunctime

Psycho cat

La Gordita

Podgey. Porky. Rounded. Full. Well-conditioned. Chunky. Plump. Heavy. Big-boned. Over-weight. Large. Solid.

There is no getting round it, my mare is FAT.

I am not entirely sure when it happened. Some time between this:

and this:

Fat happened.

It always takes someone else to point it out and I felt as bad as taking a child to the dentist with tooth decay. It is my fault she is large and I can no longer feel her ribs.

The diet started today and she was not amused. She probably lives in fear that she will look and feel like this again:

Multas #2-7, (and very nearly #8)

I seem to be very good at getting multas (fines). In fact I might crown myself the multa queen, or Queen Multa - which sounds a little more formal.

Multa number 1 as you may remember was a little misdemeanour - just a wee bit of parking on a wee bit of grass. Easily done, not easy to pay.

Multas numbers 2 to 7, that's six more fines, were found by looking for them on a website, roughly translated to lookforyourdrivingfines.com. Some kind soul had told me that you can look up your fines and I had just a sneaky suspicion that I may have driven down some roads in Palma that I perhaps shouldn't have. Turns out I have done it six times.

Once again, near impossible to pay these buggering fines. And if you don't pay, they accrue interest. And when they have accrued the maximum interest they (not sure who they are) whip it out of your bank account without telling you - which kind of figures, as they never tell you about the fines anyway.

It's an insane system. Beautiful Spanish bureaucracy. Thank goodness for bilingual friends who have held my hand throughout this process and dried my tears over the 600 euros lost. I now have one (legal) way into Palma and one way out, without incurring crazy costs.

Spain enjoys a good fine. They fine you for washing your car in the street, for playing music too loud, for not wearing a shirt, for not carrying poo bags for your dog - and if your horse craps on the road. I was told politely about the 120 euro fine for my horse pooping in the street, since then I have diligently kicked it into the hedge and remounted or driven back to pick it up after the ride.

After a beautiful ride on the horse I look after, waving to all the farmers and greeting the cyclists with a grin, we met the Ajuntament of Calvia. Basically the town council were out in force. As I nodded a polite 'Hola' the horse I was riding proceeded to do a big, fat steaming, squishy pile of poo - all the way up the road, I look round and there stood two burly Spanish men with reflecting aviators - I leapt off my surprised horse and kicked the offending caca into a sort-of hedge. Dredging up all the Spanish I knew, I grovelled apologising for the timing of the horses poo, that I was cleaning the roads, although my nice new leather boots were now covered in brown digested grass.

Sorry I said.

Que guapo! They replied, referring to my horse. Guapisimo!

I grinned, they cooed over the horse's beauty and multa number 8 was swiftly avoided.

The great poo-er himself (the horse not me)