Anyone know Spain?

[Elf]

As you may have seen from a recent thread, we are off to live in Spain in January :0 I was wondering if anyone had any info to pass on. We are going to live just down the coast from Barcelona by the way.

I was thinking about things like, where is good to buy children's clothes, DD is 14 months BTW. We buy quite a bit of cheap stuff from Mothercare and Adams here which we think is good for basics. I'm sure it will be easy to find expensive stuff but basic stuff would be good to know about.

Also, I'm wondering where would be a good starting off point to find out about baby activities. Here I would go to the NCT and would know where noticeboards are and which magazine to buy and stuff, but in a new place, I feel a bit lost. I found here that one thing leads to another and hope that it will be like that there too.

What about health food? There is a healthfood shop in our new town but neither of us have been inside it. Does anyone know of a good company there, or how much stuff they have, or perhaps a mail order company?

I've forgotten some other stuff I was wondering about but I would be grateful and interested in anyone's knowledge. I won't be able to get back on the computer for a few days but I will be back so please if you know anything, pass it on! Thanks.

Hi Elf

I live in Granada (Southern Spain) and we used to live on the coast. Don't know how useful the following is:

1. Stock up on baby clothes before you come! You're right, decent expensive clothes are fairly easy to get (El Corte Ingles or small shops), but cheap Spanish clothes really are awful. The cut is much smaller tha UK clothes and the quality of, e.g. the poppers really shows.

2. The Spanish don't seem to do the organised group/activities as much as the English. Admittedly we live in a small village, but even on trips to the town I haven't heard of a toddler group/ mother and baby group. On the coast there are the ex-pat groups but that may not help you much. There are however hundreds of small nurseries ("guardarias" even in small towns and I would ask in one of those - dd is a bit young just yet.

3. You can buy herbal remedies etc in many parafarmacias. Health food as such is not common, and I certainly haven't seen a chain of shops (just small ones) - you'll just have to try them.

4. If you haven't already, buy a book called "living and working in Spain". It's by David Gloucester I think (memory not good today - I've written about it before though)

good luck

I've mentioned this to Lucy123 before, but remember that Calpol is unknown in Spain, well, in my experience! Pharmacies sell paracetamol drops for babies and children that have to be calculated (instructions in Spanish) by bodyweight. Take plenty of Calpol with you if you rely on it here.

Thank you Lucy123 and MandyD, I wasn't being rude, the computer has been broken for the last few weeks and I couldn't get back on. Thanks for the tips, better do a quick clothes shop!