A Larger Purchase.

OK, so while we have been lazing around doing nothing(!) ... we have bought a house!!! 

Well two to be precise! 

And a swimming pool.

PANIC has set in BIG TIME.

Location is great, just 10km from Playa del Coco, in a small village called Playa Hermosa. The price is fantastic (don't forget DH has been looking for years, you know him and his property porn!!!). Plus we got it for less than advertised, which is always a bonus!

BUT ...

Have we done the right thing? Is it too soon to be buying in this foreign land? We have only been here a relatively short space of time.

Of course DH answers in the affirmative to all my worrying questions. Typically British (in his love of chattels at least), he is very sentimental about possessing his own 'castle'. The past 18 months of renting in the UK was an abomination in his eyes. Ownership is what it is all about for the kid from Caracas.

Naturally, YS is over the moon that he has his own swimming pool; and it is warm too, just heated by the sun. Requests for a pet tortoise are now coming in thick and fast, and of course he petitions for a puppy or two, a kitten and so on ...

But back to the topic in hand. The main house, currently called Casa Fe, is habitable and empty of all the furniture displayed on the web-page, thankfully. All it really needs for now is a lick of paint; the renovations and updating can wait for a year or so - I am sure, that in time, we will learn to love the burgundy bathroom suites! Besides, we did grow quite attached to the mint green/yellow suite that we had in Upper Hale all those years ago! 

We aim to be in by early December - if all paperwork goes according to plan!!!!!

Meanwhile, the little house, which I have christened 'La Casita', is literally just a shell; no windows, no doors, no electrics, no bathroom, absolutely nothing. It just has 4 walls, a ceiling and a load of sockets and fittings for lights etc.. A fixer-upper that will no doubt be the subject of a number of future blogs!

The Entrance to Our New House

The Weather

When we Brits have nothing to say, we usually talk about the climate.

I thought then, that some of you may be interested in the impending weather conditions here in Coco.

It looks like more late afternoon / early evening storms are due, but at least we we see the sun all morning.

Costa Rica - Playa del Coco 15-Day Weather Forecasts

Correos de Costa Rica

Took our first visit the the Correos yesterday.

The Correos in Playa del Coco
Sorry not a great picture, but I 'borrowed' it from Google Images.

Those that know me, will recall my love of visiting the Post Office in the UK. Trudging to the Wellington Centre in Aldershot, weighed down with packages from our Ebay sales; a Santa's Sack of goodies for me to post (always with a miscalculation in the postage we charged, despite using both Ebay and the Post Office price charts).

No matter what time of day my pilgrimage took place, I would without fail be greeted with a queue. I would frequently joke with my office buddy that if I hadn't returned within the hour, to send out the search parties. However, time was always put to good use in those long lines, and I would ruminate over the books and magazines WHSmith so kindly displayed to illustrate where to stand and wait: surely the passage of people was a pointer? Why go to college to learn how to be a techy, when you can stand in the Post Office track and study from the enormous display of computer publications for free? MacUser, 3DWorld, PC Format, they are all there, ready to be thumbed and thumbed again by immovable people in an inert progression.

Therefore, I looked forward to our first trip to the Correos here in Costa Rica with great anticipation!!!! How long could it possibly take to set up a PO Box, being as it took a protracted four hours to get car insurance? Why bother with a PO Box at all, I hear you ask? Well, it appears that is the only relatively safe way to receive any mail! See in Costa Rica, there is a distinct lack of street names to where mail (or ambulances and so on) can be sent. When asking for directions from the Tico's, the responses always seem to be obtuse; you are informed that  "...it's opposite the red house...",  "Turn left at the big tree" or even "300 metres south of ...". Now my navigation skills are not great, but if the sun is not shining, how am I supposed to know where south is? To add to the lack of street names, there appears to be a distinct absence of postie's too; not a Postman Pat and his Black and White Cat to be seen; no little red vans, no beaten-up bicycles, no abandoned elastic bands by your front door.

How then to secure a Post Office Box? Sometimes they are available and sometimes they are not. We were told by a friend that you had to wait until someone dies before the Correos would allocate a new one to a new customer.  Someone else told us they had a three year wait for theirs. Great! 

But hey, we had a few hours to spare before we picked the kids up from school, so why not try our luck? 

Low and behold, the place was empty. No people, no queue, no lingering body odour, no random publications, no advertising flyers.  Nothing. Nichts. Nada. An enterprise of nothingness.

DH and I approached the counter with apprehension; the Hawaiian-shirted cartero did not look best pleased that we were about to disturb his busy schedule. DH chatted to him for a while, buttering him up, before asking the big question. "Ocho Semanas" he tells us. I suppose eight weeks is better than waiting three years, but ever persisitent, DH goes in for the kill and appeals to him some more. A quick chat with his superior in an antechamber and we are told to come back next week, with our passports, and they will see what they can do. What day? Another consultation with the hidden bureaucrat and it is agreed that Wednesday would be a good day to return, as it's not so busy!!

All in all, a five minute visit. No PO Box, but then no queue. Result!

Water, water everywhere ...

Dios Mio! 

The first water bill came in today! 

OMG, what a shocker! 

One months water here in Coco has cost us almost the same as a year in the UK!!!!! How the hell did that happen? 

Admittedly water is more expensive here in the Guanacaste region, than in San Jose and the Central Valley, but seriously, there must be some sort of mistake. An acquaintance joked that perhaps we have paid the water invoice for the whole condo; ha, bloody ha! I think we have paid to supply the water for the entire f*****g Octotal mountain!!

A quick flash back to the summer of '76 (I was 5), and I try to recall all the water saving ideas that my Mother and Grandparents practiced. I can only really remember saving the washing up water to water the plants (and of course Bjorg won Wimbledon and I learnt to ride my bicycle without the stabilisers!).

But back to the present and the problem of the price of water. A new regime perhaps? We have to be more water efficient  Unlike the Costa Ricans, who don't appear to conserve their water even though they promote themselves as an environmentally sustainable county (more on that another day I think).

So, no more showering for us then!

In future, Mondays will be allocated as wash-day and all clothes will be laundered in the Pacific Ocean; I shall carry the basket on my head - 1km to the beach and 1km back again (uphill). Note to self, better get fit!

Maybe the rainwater can be saved to wash the dishes. October is the height of the rainy season and we have already been conducting an experiment; we have placed a bucket outside on the balcony, to see how much H2O we can catch - this has been going on for a week now and we have yet to catch a millimeter. 

Perhaps DH would like to lug the dishes to the sea daily to be washed? Part of his weight training programme??

Is it good luck when ...?

Why is it you never have a camera when you need one?

Just popped into Coco to try and get YS a pair of shoes. Hanging from the trees outside the shops were about ten black monkeys! There were even a few babies too. Just swinging from tree to tree, watching the people below in the streets, munching on a few leaves. Most probably howler monkeys. But this afternoon, they all were very quite, no howls could be heard: this usually only takes place either in the early morning or evening, when they are checking out the area for competitors. The beach-side boutiques in Coco are obviously not worthy of defending!

Really rather beautiful and quite fascinating creatures ... that is until they started pooping!!! Large splats of what looked like chocolate ice cream were falling from the branches onto the road below. "One scoop or two senor?".  Luckily, no Tico or turismo were in the line of fire!

It did make me wonder though, if monkey poop on your shoulder, like pigeon poop, is considered lucky? Google didn't throw up any answers, but it did lead me to a site where monkey poop beans make the best coffee - YUCK! Now I know why I prefer tea.

The Three Monkey Musketeers.

'Testing the Water' - my first blog.

OK so here we go, the initial letters, words, sentences and paragraphs of my first ever blog.

To kick off an introduction is needed; me, I am 42 years old, British and have lived in the same area all my life, albeit in various different houses. Although I have a degree in English Literature and History of Art, I am not a career girl. Instead I raised our 2 boys (aged 16 and 11) and helped run our now defunct Car Body Repairs business. I recently married my long-suffering partner of 24 years.

The DH ('darling husband' to which, for the purpose of this blog,  I will always refer to him as!) was originally from Venezuela, moved to England when he was 17 and has been here for over 30 years - he would like to go back 'home' for some sunshine and warmth, but that is not really an option what with the politics over there! So the DH looked to the next best thing he could find and Costa Rica was the winner; beautiful surroundings, warm seas, spectacular wildlife, fantastic micro-climates, a slower pace of life and most importantly of all, a safe and stable country. After years of listening to this dream of his, I finally relented and agreed to the big upheaval.

Together, as a family, we are upping sticks from the affluent South-East of England and are moving indefinitely to Costa Rica. Our plan is to move to the North-West area of Guanacaste, exact town yet to be decided, but somewhere near Playa del Coco. First of all we will rent a house (one of the conditions of this big move is that the house has to have a pool!!!); the kids will go to International School; within a few months DH hopes to have set up a small business and will be able to work. If all goes well, who knows, we may stay forever, set up a B&B and live happily ever after!

I hope that this blog will be an outlet for the trials and tribulations that  we will no doubt come across; an on-line diary so that our friends and family in England and across the world can be kept up-to-date with our everyday life. I also plan to include the hopes and expectations of our mid-life crisis!

Give me time and I will learn to add photos, links and all sorts of things to my blog.

Here's to our own little adventure, a gap-year for the family!

And we are off!