Moving to Spain and it NOT going to plan

hello there hello welcome back to Scottish couple in Spain as promised as promised on defensive talking about our personal life we don't like talking about our personal life on this channel but it's not person it's just a little update part of the journey journey if you and how how moving to Spain almost went drastically wrong for us and it's been three years and it's been three years and we almost never made it and a lot of people I know a lot other people don't understand how difficult it was and how we went through plan a plan B plan C C and plan we're just now on plan fly by the C your pant and how it went completely wrong well let's go back to the beginning let's go back to 2020 2020 where it all started and all you lovely people that have watched our videos and continue to watch them from way back then thank you and and the thing is is I want to give a special shout out to the likes of Sean xman Ron just amount of help and inspiration to us because we sat and watched his videos back in Scotland when we were in Scotland before we decided to before we even thought about moving to Spain Y and then we did watch a lot of other YouTubers that were in Spain at the time yeah because during 2020 you remember March 2020 when the UK came to a complete Halt and everybody was at home around Britain keeping people at arms length is the new normal exercise once a day is allowed and um that's what we did we we worked from home I was sent to work from home but we watched a lot of A Place in the Sun we watched you got me into watching these people on YouTube yes saying look at this look oh you had been to alakan City for a city break in the December the December before 2019 the year before so you were familiar with the area and yeah that's how we ended up watching videos from here yes it is so yeah thanks to all those YouTubers Lucy benador Enthusiast Sean X mazeron you're the reason why we're here yes pretty much pretty much and A Place in the Sun it wasn't their first for into stay abroad no we both did it when we were younger we both traveled we both knew ultimately we are going to live in Spain um for me initially it was retirement and I always said I would retire to Spain you know but the dreaded b word can I say it brexit was looming yes so that's changed quite a lot um that kind of it speeded things up speeded things up because sitting at home worrying about what's going on in the world you've got a lot of time to think about things a lot of time to go oh wait a minute maybe that retirement plan isn't quite feasible yeah after 2021 yes three years three years flown in of moving to Spain living in Spain [Music] and happy Spain anniversary is that even a work it is official first 6 months of moving to Spain was always to be about exploring exploring and if you look back at our Channel yeah we kind of tried to do it we tried to do it as much as we could we did yes we decided to move in the middle of a pandemic decided to take the plunge we decided we saw a window of the opportunity and we did it we took it and thankfully it's worked out well but it did face its challenges so we spent the first month in t which we were familiar with would' come here on holiday and we were lucky enough to get a friend of ours there his aunt had an empty house at the time and we were able to rent that for up to sort two or three months we ultimately stayed there a month we stay there a month took us a month to find a property and that is how we ended up in player flamco why did we choose player flamco or did player flamco choose us player flamco kindly chose us the circumstances the circumstances yeah um at the time I I used to go back home I would go to the football week in week out yes um if there was a midweek game youd go to the midweek game home away everything I would go and I kind of missed that you love the football yeah so a little bit of research a little bit of Googling a little bit of Facebook searches and I found this really nice Pub that shows all the football matches so I thought if we can get a house that's near there that would be ideal we could walk up and down to the P yeah and we wanted somewhere that was big enough for us but big enough for family to come and visit wanted a swimming pool so we ended up on an urbanization a quad house and it was lovely yeah uh really liked it but it was a short-term rental this wasn't a long term right it because of the rests yeah that was the start that was the start when the travel restrictions lifted and people started to come back out things were picking up and it was it was getting busier for us at that point because we'd gone 10 months now we gave ourselves a year we can't make this work in a year we're going back to Scotland yeah 10 months in and finally we had the opportunity to try and make it work I had a floor business back home and I was quite good oh I still am um grinding marble and I've got 20 years experience working in the floor flooring industry on the restoration side of of old floors hav stayed and worked in Edinburgh well haven't worked in Edinburgh for the last 20 years before a new thing or two about old properties and old floors so we've seen this as a an opportunity to try and bring that business over here and grow that business here but is the ideal type of business to transfer from one country to the other and the fact that the the exper population was significant enough to make the transition easier for us as well and the fact that there's absolutely millions of square meters of marble around about here that need looked after but it didn't work out as well as what we thought and my little dream M yes and you had a dream of KJ's coffee yes keto coffee yes yes so we had all plans and that was plan a and due to the fact that it was Holiday Homes and it's an area that is all Holiday Homes and the lack of people being here and we the flooring business aware of that yeah it took a while for us to adjust to that it was about a year before the floor business really got started up because there was nobody here yeah um at that point my plans just they were out the window it wasn't even on hold anymore that's I need to look at Plan B I need to think of something else I I started looking for work cuz my plans were as I say that was gone that that wasn't happening it's not happening but anyway lucky enough to get a job um when you there's one thing that I did say when we were back in the UK back in Scotland um before we moved and I said don't be too surprised if we're doing something if we're doing something completely different completely different in a year's time because I knew we had to have a a plan A and A Plan B and a plan C to make this work cuz it ultimately it was our dream yeah so yeah play flamco was too quiet ultimately at the time even when people started to come out that's when we realized that you know what Holiday Homes coming and going by that time I had started working remotely for a company so I was working in the house you were working um the holiday lifestyle that we'd enjoyed it wasn't fitting in full-time work we just thought this isn't for us we can't do it I'd spent 14 years in 10 so and I knew that the type of lifestyle that that people could fall into the Trap that they could fall into they sitting in the pub every night you know the whole expart lifestyle and that's something that I was well aware that I didn't want to fall into when we moved here think if you're working in the hospitality industry it's great fun I did that when I was younger I spent about 10 years working in bars and restaurants and clubs um and it's a great lifestyle it is but it's not what we wanted no it's not it's not the spin that we wanted to move to yeah so the decision was made yes let's move back to TOA we wanted to move back to torka we found an apartment in the city center and it was beautiful it was perfect it had enough room for an office to work at home from spare room for visitors we had restaurants and bars on our doorstep we had beautiful views of the Mediterranean and the marina and it was just perfect wasn't it but it was a shortterm gap which ended up two years two years we went there for we reckoned 6 months a year at the most and we're going to move on and we were there for 2 years we're there for 2 years because we loved TOA that much let's be honest it was it was great fun it felt like home yeah it's a great City it's got a lot to offer you know for Holiday makers and for living there as well all year round but we have left to we have left we get to that we felt like after the first year in Tor OFA we thought right we've made it we've done it we've got through all that we're going to survive this we're building a life in Spain we're going to be able to do this brilliant and then we started to think where do we really really really want to live anyway to OFA was a blaster it lasted two years loads of videos about t OFA and our experiences the channel was never meant to be an information Channel about TOA the channel was meant to be about our experiences yeah we've missed a bit out actually we've missed plan B Plan B was Plan B do we go back to the UK we were 3 months away from saying that's it we need we're going back to Scotland we're going back and you've got to remember at that time there was lots of people that that jumped ship back in 2020 and came to Spain and there was a lot of people we saw a lot of people arrive at never made it never made it past two or three months we have to sort of congratul congratulate ourselves on the fact that we stuck it out and there was a lot of people you know they they came over to and make the Dream Work MH and this is one of the hardest thing to do is to rock up another country hard do it during normal circum says never mind in the middle of a pandemic where you have these restrictions and you couldn't do what you wanted to do it was just but we kept the faith I suppose and we pushed ourselves this will end at some point this will end we said right three months and that's it and then I I landed that job that I'm doing now YouTube started YouTube started taking four jobs started to come in and it sit back and watch the money roll in no it [Laughter] wasn't it was go and eat tap us and put on a stone yeah plan C was everything's working out we're moving to T yes so two years in the city center two years in the city center and we decided we've had enough of this yeah we used to visit KT Andy from Mountain View Farm yeah and every time we left their house we would look at each other no you would well I would this is it so nice out here it's so peaceful it's so beautiful imagine if we had a garden and we could grow our own vegetables and be semi self-sufficient and and my response was I'm not ready for piping slippers just yet it's not piping slippers it is piping slippers anyway anyway it's all about lifestyle yeah about a year of Chip Chip chipping away at them yeah something clicked didn't it one day with you and you decided right the time is right yeah the time is right to leave Tor ve and try something different and when I make up my mind oh everything happens quite quick yeah that's it happen very quickly yes it does happen very quickly luckily we were very very lucky to find our kind of Ideal house which is I call it semi Campo we're not in the Campo as in isolated not like you know other people that we know that live in the middle of nowhere yeah we are in a little area we have neighbors there are streets there are houses everywhere it's just on the very outskirts of a village um we're still in the same region so if you think coming Inland from torva you have places you've got alaradi and Dolores kacha kosa desura um Sedro ravan yeah you know all these little towns and Villages that that's where we at um so we've been exploring them all although and I love it but it's still not our ideal Spain it's still not the ideal whitewashed Village but that's a plan and that's probably why we haven't bought just now cuz people have been asking why why haven't we bought because let's face it we we're not sure where we want to stay yeah and we have a dream we have a dream and it's now about putting things in place that we can manifest that dream to come true yeah and we're getting there we are getting there and it's all about ideas change and and the way that ultimately that you're a way off on another tent now right we're small towns small villages cheaper cost of living the cheaper cost of living we used to e out a lot in t we did and we like eating it we like food this is what we like to do some people have hobbies doing this that are the next thing ours is going out to restaurants so we ate out a lot and we have eaten out in a few different restaurants in a couple of the towns that are near us I have had very similar dishes the standard of food the quality of food that we've found so far has just been exceptional there is no you know it's not like a lower quality or anything like that there's some fantastic restaurants we found good food um at a fraction of the price of what you pay in TOA like at the seafront around the Marina and the City Center because that is your touristic prices it's tourist driven although it's cheap compared to the UK of course it's cheap of course it's cheap um but it's not as cheap as what it can be cheap if you come a little bit Inland the prices in restaurants drop as well menu DOA similar price 9 10 12 depending but look at the amount of food that you get but the main menu and things the menu de mean you they give you the salad oh I know it's huge the menu to De here's on another level you get basically you get a salad to share you get your first course your second course your poster coffee coffee you drink and it's it's and it's a lot of food we went for one one day the first one we had and it was where were we we we'd gone to kachow that day Los candas yes is that how you say it the restaurant and she forgot the salad she forgot Sal you know and we looked I was like I cannot eat another bite no could eat she forgot the salad and she brought the salad out at the end and she says oh I'm really sorry really sorry um I forgot your salad you want it and we like you have no laugh another example just very quickly yeah um my favorite thing to eat when we go out is either steak or salmon I love salmon salmon um salmon salmon Anda yes there's two restaurants that I liked and I used to get the salmon each time one was € 18 and the other restaurant was 19 same dish bit of salmon grilled vegetables plent of simple love it I got it here in a really nice Spanish restaurant and it cost 8 for the same dish for a beautiful piece of salmon really nice fresh vegetable you have to tell the real story so w for sitting waiting on the foods coming out we were thinking have we order Tapas did we just order Tapas that tap or share or something we thought can't be main courses it can't be main coures can't be a main course and it was and it was it was and it was huge it was flabbergast yeah the bit of salmon was twice the size of what you get down the road yeah so so yeah the actual cost of eating out I would say much much cheaper one restaurant we've been to is probably onp par similar prices a really nice seafood restaurant but you know we will probably start to do a bit more food videos again now that we're definely I think going forward for the channel there's going to be if you remember back right at the beginning if you had subscribed to the channel right at the start and you watching their joury we were going to do a thing called tap has Tuesday but tap has Tuesday kind of went into just every kind of video reviewing food back in 2020 202 literally nothing else the way that we the way that we seen it at the time was when we were helping at these restaurants to let everybody know that they were still open and we felt that we were doing something good we were giving something to the community the local commun we didn't even realize it was happening at first until somebody said I had a customer come in because they saw on YouTube thank you and we went wo yeah that's interesting it's all about just it was all about helping the restaurants out at the time cuz we knew how hard those type of businesses were were struggling due to the lack of people some people assumed that places were closed and wer there was there was a handful that struggled on and managed to make it through didn't they yeah so going forward with the channel Tapas Tuesday will reemerge we hope no it will it's it will it will reemerge and it be is going to different Tapas bars and different towns and different locations and experiencing the real Spain about living in and you know not going for fish and chips on a Friday not going for an English breakfast experiencing the type of Spain that a Scottish breakfast was so good that was amazing steak Square sausage oh and black pudding from so anyway move on from that those videos will will continue yeah TOA videos will continue cuz we're just 20 minutes up the road Julie yeah um those videos continue I know we will be popping back to Tor we've been back we've done a couple of videos but yeah we'll be back and forth but maybe you know a little bit more of the Life in The Villages and the food in the restaurants and more of the difference in 2024 we'll definitely be doing more videos around a wider area of Spain because let's face it Spain is a wonderful country and it's huge it is massive we're on the Costa Blanca and if you haven't watched our first one of the First videos that we did where we we drove from Scotland all the way to Spain during lockdown and it was funny because if I was to do that video again mhm I would actually do it quite similar but there would be a lot more it would probably be a longer video and a lot more of the actual experiences talking about our experiences we were very naive at that point and it was just we had no idea what this channel was going to do we were doing it for our own memories and an easy way to share it with our family back in Scotland and that drive when there was no one else on the road driving for over 2 and 1 half hours 3 hours and never seen another car on the road was just was like out of an Apocalypse movie but life now we can get up in the morning we could pick oranges off the tree we can then go and squeeze those oranges and get the freshest orange juice ever that's wonderful we've shaded the the Mediterranean Sea in the marina for mountains and Countryside which is nice it is nice but I do miss the sea I miss the sea I do miss the sea I will admit I miss it but it's just down the road and you can pick lemons for your din tonic at night I can if I I don't need to buy Lemons at the moment because I've got a tree full of them just one of the reasons that I really wanted to come and live in a place like this is to try it is to experience yes and see if our forever home might be something something similar or somewhere in between we shall see thank you to everyone that's subscribed to the channel the whole 8,000 and odd which is completely bizarre the next big Target is 10,000 subscribers oh no the next one is 10,000 subscribers because yes Alia Alia and Stan alaria is throwing us a party they are we are going to have a 10,000 subscriber party and everyone's invited to it will be in T of EO just because there's a big Square there and there's a lot of bars so if there is a lot of people tur up um it'll be good and if you do see us say hello because sometimes people come up and they'll say hello and it's lovely and it's great and we do enjoy it and we really appreciate it as well I love it and I always forget names sometimes people will send a message saying I saw you and it but I didn't want to say hello just say hello just say hello say hello so on that not we hope you've enjoyed this video about Earth First a little backstory 3 years in Spain going into her fourth mhm who would have thought it who would have thought it who would have thought it all those people that said that we' be back home in 6 months all these people that said don't do it don't do it you'll lose everything I know we're still here we're still here living the dream yep is it still the dream of course yeah it is it is I'm do this this chapter I'm really enjoying yes I know you love it the good thing is as well you might have just seen the video that we put out of Jenny and the fact that she got cancelled by my got here if you haven't watched that video watch that video now it'll be just up here or here here and on that is it to the bit Jen loves the garden oh yeah she loves the garden absolutely loves it apartment life with a dog is difficult because you're out the door in the lift down the stairs around the restaurant and then you know she can do what she needs to do just opening the door and having the dog run out into the garden is really really nice so would a question that people will ask is if you had your all over again would you still do it would we move to SP would you move to SP yes 100% yes yes definitely I am 100% glad that we beat that brexit deadline because I see how difficult it is for people and what they're having to do and and the cost and if if you are still thinking about moving to Spain and retiring in Spain don't be put off by by anything that was said and don't be put off by take it with a pinch of salt especially when he says something take it with a pinch of Sal it's just our opinions and sometime it's just you know it's it's what we see and but yeah you know make your own mind up no matter what country you're from if you want to move to Spain do it it's a fabulous country really love it it's a bit cold in the winter for me I understand why my dad stayed in teny so long because I know it does get cold in the winter especially when you've been here for a few years and you're about a climatized to the warmer weather but the Winter's short you know it's worth it it is that it isn't that bad at all love it absolutely so if you've got any questions put them in the comment section of this video and we will try our best to answer them try to answer them if we don't answer them we might answer them in a video format that might be a little bit easier even if it's just a YouTube shot we'll do a video and then we'll tag you on it Q&A yeah which might be a little bit easier and a little bit more enjoyable for you and give you a little bit more content to watch of us I don't know why people want to watch us I still don't know I don't know either anyway I still find it very very strange yes from the women that hated getting a picture taken I know I wouldn't even get my photo Tak with her no and now you can't shut me up and on that [Music] note

Channel: Scottish Couple In Spain

Views: 63,490

Keywords: Moving to Spain, moving to spain, scottish couple in spain, moving to spain from uk, living in spain from uk, moving to spain 2024, Scottish couple spain

Id: 5PWfFbyj9Q8

Length: 24min 59sec (1499 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2023