Hi guys!

I’ve been in Ibiza for just under three weeks and am absolutely loving it so far.  How I am loving it I don’t know, which sounds a weird thing to say, but when you hear the dramas I have been through you will know what I mean!

Margo arrived safely after her three-day ferry and car drive, but my poor husband, Scott had to deal with Margo’s 12 hours of sea-sickness! No, I’m not joking, I had no idea dogs could get sea sick either!? Scott and Margo were exhausted when they finally arrived at the house.

The children have settled into school and Henry and Imogen are especially enjoying it. Archie on the other hand had a few problems with a kid who wouldn’t let him play football at break time. Anyway, luckily the problem has been solved since I brought him his own football and now all the children ask Arch if they can play with him and his ball (including the child who left him out!). Archie being Archie has let him play and now there seem to be no problems!

On a plus side I have joined B-Fit gym. I am loving the variety of classes on offer and have already got my eyes on a personal trainer, but not like that!! I’ve been watching how they train their clients and there’s one I’m particularly impressed by. I’ll keep you posted.

This current week has been scorchio and I’d like to say I’ve been at the beach every day, but when you aren’t actually on holiday it’s very different. I feel that although I love living here I have just gone from one routine to the same routine in a different country! By the time I have done the school run, been to the gym, had a shower (and there’s no chance of hanging out in your gym gear all day because you get too sticky after training), had some lunch, checked emails, walked Margo, posted on social media and then prepared dinner, it’s time to collect the kids and start the homework, dinner and bedtime routine!

I’ve started Spanish lessons (yep, I don’t hang around). Actually that should say I started Spanish lessons! I had three lessons and then on the fourth pulled a sicky! Bless her, she was a lovely girl but I’ve decided I’m not feeling it and that I want to be taught by an English teacher. It is very hard to grasp the pronunciation of certain words from a Spanish person and I find it bloody exhausting to be honest!

I’m now teaching myself through a CD which I have to say is excellent! I’m now hoping that before long my conversation with the Spanish speaking gardener and cleaner I have will become less of a game of charades as we try to communicate.

Now on to the dramas that have happened over the past couple of weeks!

Since arriving our hot water has broken three times! That’s pretty good going considering we have only been here three weeks! Finding a decent plumber was a mission in itself but to then have one out who’s English was as good as my Spanish was testing to say the least!  I reckon I could have won an award for the greasiest hair going! Anyway, fingers crossed it stays working now.

Secondly, no one told me that when you buy petrol out here you have to pay for it first at the kiosk. I was at the pump for about ten minutes trying to work out why the pump wasn’t working. It wasn’t until some nice man smirking at me pointed to the shop and said ‘go pay!’ I felt like such a wally!

My husband’s been suffering from something called uveitis – it is where the muscles behind the eye get extremely tight similar to arthritis and you can’t open the eye properly. It’s very painful and the only thing the specialists can do is to give steroid drops to dilate the pupil and help relax the muscles. He’s not had it for years, but it shows up when he is particularly stressed. Whereas I was stressed packing up the house to move it’s been the other way round for him as he’s been in charge of this end.

Immy fell off the monkey bars at school and needed an x-ray after her arm swelled to double the size. Scott was away, so I travelled around the island looking for the local hospital and yet again had to play charades as I tried to explain what had happened and what she needed! Four hours later we got out of the hospital and luckily it wasn’t broken. Immy loves to milk it so she couldn’t wait to go to go to school and show her friends the bandage.

As I left the hospital worn out and starving I then have another drama! Seriously I couldn’t make this up if you paid me …..

I’m in my right-hand drive car which is a problem when it comes to pulling out tickets from the machine in car parks, as the ticket machines are situated on the other side. As I approached the ticket machine I asked Immy to grab the ticket out of the machine. She couldn’t because a) her arm doesn’t stretch far enough and b) it’s her bad arm anyway and she’s not prepared to move it. So, by this point I have cars building up behind me, I put the hand break on and climb over to reach for the ticket. I drop the ticket, have to get out of the car and walk round to pick it up off the floor, but I am unaware it has gone under my car! So I’m literally on all fours trying to reach for it! By this point I’ve got some impatient Spanish woman beeping. I tell her to f%$£ off as by this point I’m feeling the pressure, get back in my car and stupidly pull out on the wrong side of the road!!!! I’ve got a car beeping at me and I’m in such a rage I assume it’s the impatient woman behind me! I then realise what is going on and I very sharpishly steer over onto the correct side of the road! By this point I was literally sweating, Immy was moaning about her arm which wasn’t even broken, I’ve nearly killed us both and have had road rage all in the space of five minutes.

Last but not least I had my card randomly cloned in America! Luckily my bank saw the transaction and cancelled the card but that meant that I was left not only without a card but without being able to download a translation app on to my phone as my iTunes account wouldn’t let me buy anything as the card had been cancelled! So as my husband returned to England for work I was left with no translation app and no card!

It’s weird because as I write this blog I realise that I’ve actually had to deal with a lot of crappy problems these past few weeks, some of which are to be expected. It makes me realise that I must be really loving it here as these problems hadn’t really bothered me as you would have expected.

On that note, I’ll try and stay away from any further dramas and hopefully only have positivity to share with you. Although I hope I’ve made you smile or even crack a laugh as you have read this!

Take care

Love Kate x