About us

There are five of us: two adults and three daughters aged six, eight and ten. We live on the Costa del Sol — not on holiday, but with school bags, parents' evenings and electricity bills. This site is the answer to the questions we get asked again and again: by friends back home, by new families in town, and by ourselves, back when we weren't here yet.

Why we write without names or faces

Our children are six, eight and ten. They didn't ask to be on the internet. So you won't find any names here, no faces, and nothing that would let you work out where we live. We call them "our eldest", "the middle one" and "the youngest", and that's how it stays until they're old enough to decide for themselves.

Who is legally responsible for this site is set out in full in the legal notice — that's a requirement and we have no problem with it. Our children just don't belong in there.

What the pictures here are — and aren't

All the photographs on this site are mood images from the region, not family photos. The illustrations for the admin and school topics we built ourselves. So if there's a family standing on a beach somewhere: that isn't us.

What you'll find here

Four sections, roughly following the order we went through ourselves:

• Arriving — the admin that sits between "we're moving" and "we live here".
• School & kids — choosing a school, enrolling, and an honest answer to how long Spanish really takes.
• Daily life & home — renting, the underestimated winter and what a family month costs.
• Days out & beaches — what works for six, eight and ten at the same time.

What you won't find here

No legal advice, no tax tips, no estate agency offers. We're a family, not a law firm. Everything here is our experience, written down as precisely as we can and dated to when it was true. Authorities change rules, prices move, and what worked for us may not work for you. Always check deadlines and forms with the office responsible.

And: we don't sell anything. Should that ever change, it will be clearly marked on the post in question — as advertising, not hidden.

Why do this at all

Because in our first year it would have helped enormously if someone had written down that the padrón matters more than anything else, that houses here are cold in winter, and that an eight-year-old goes silent for six months before she speaks Spanish. Nobody had. Now somebody has.