Victoria Twead

It’s an uncomfortable feeling being without passports. We applied a month ago, and paid a hefty fee to have them delivered by courier. Had we filled out the forms correctly? Were our photographs acceptable? Had the passports got lost in

The reason we wanted extra burglar bars fitted, and doors replaced, was because we were planning to visit Australia this winter. We wanted to leave the house secure and watertight. We had contacted our builders in March, thinking that would

Way back in March I contacted our favourite builders. We needed a new back door, a new terrace door, and front door burglar-bars fitted. None of it was urgent but we wanted the work done before the following winter. Our

Nobody likes being covered from head to toe in big red blotches, and I’m no exception. Unfortunately, that is what happened to me this month. Some kind of allergy maybe? I felt fine but looked like I’d been stung by

Since we moved to our Spanish mountain village, we’ve discovered that the Spanish are incredibly resourceful and find ingenious ways to recycle items that Brits happily throw away. The previous owner of our house used an upside-down frying-pan to cap

Joe and I have never once suffered from homesickness since we moved to our tiny Spanish mountain village back in 2004. We adore everything about our life in El Hoyo; the people, the weather, the food and the slow pace

Nearly ten summers have passed since we left England to settle in our little Spanish mountain village. “What do you want to do for your birthday this year?” I asked Joe. “Hmm… I think just a day at the beach.

Coming from Britain and moving to a tiny, crazy, Spanish mountain village was always going to be a bit of a culture shock for Joe and me. Despite this being our tenth year in El Hoyo, the shock has not

I guess it was all my fault because there was nothing really wrong with our toilet seat. It was just old, and I wanted a new one. Joe agreed. We’d had it for nine years, since we’d first built the

In our part of Andalucia, we’re lucky. We’ve never suffered from a water shortage as natural springs abound. Just outside El Hoyo is a place where locals fill their water containers, and in the next village is a spring, still