As previously mentioned, we had so much paperwork to complete to bring Woody, that I was wary of actually arriving in Spain. Therefore, not wanting to waste money, I’d found the cheapest accommodation that I could just a couple of hours drive from Santander. The Air B&B listing attractively reported that the house was one kilometre from the beach – perfect! Feedback indicated that the ‘barbeque’ was across the yard & knowing that most Southern european houses have external summer ktchens, this wasn’t a problem. It was only after booking that I translated other reviews to discover that the kitchen was separate from the accommodation…
No worries, we were travelling to meet new people & experience, well, new experiences!
We had two rooms separated by a shower room, they were tiny & soulless & we had no storage, even with our meagre possessions. Although our rooms attached the main house, the connecting door was locked & we had to cross the yard to access the kitchen, storage & laundry room via a lounge area. We were staying on a working organic fruit & vegetable farm & I immediately thought it was well setup for volunteer WOOFA workers, rather than holiday makers. At least our rooms were clean
whilst the main house was dingy. There were missing light bulbs, cobwebs & dust whilst there were slug trails on the worktop in the kitchen. We had to go to the lounge for internet access which could have been available in our apartment with a booster, but disappointingly wasn’t.
Added to our difficulties, there was a resident dog on the farm, a lovely young animal who was either left loose or tied-up. He was always hungry & not shy of accessing our rooms so we lost our dog food & treats on more than one occasion. We were permanently closing doors to shut the parrot in & dogs in, or out, depending which ones! We knew almost immediately that we needed to move on from this place as it was too small for a long-term stay so spent a fair few hours browsing holiday let websites for our next home.
Asturias is a beautiful green region, not so different in fauna to the UK, so a good introduction to living in a foreign land. The climate was similar too, so after a few days of (to us) hot sunshine, we experienced damp, drizzle, fog & rain, but it stayed warm! During our 12 days, we had even thirds of hot sun, dry cloud & drizzle or heavy rain which would have been disappointing had we been on holiday for a week or two.
But this was permanent!
On the morning of day two, I set off with the dogs down the hill to the beach for a few hours sun-bathing leaving Rob instructions to fetch us at midday. It was glorious, red hot & quiet with just a handful of others on the beach. I’d noticed a guy walk down to take photos & he & Rob got chatting. Chris was a watch-maker/clock & old camera repairer from Belgium staying in the local village. He accepted our invitation for a beer & we spent a pleasant couple of hours back at the farm supping beer in the shade & putting the world to rights.
We’d arranged to meet for lunch the following day & after driving round & round the rural lanes looking for a green painted restaurant, Chris eventually flagged us down outside one painted blue! We truly felt on holiday drinking beers into the afternoon.