Any mums in Spain want to chat?

[skydancer1]

That's it really. I'm English (DP too). We have a two year old boy and live in Valencia.

claricebean - your poor DH Your right about the idiosyncracies though. Fortunately we haven´t come across any yet as all the scans, etc for DS2 have been passed from Materno to the Hospital Militar so haven´t had to ferry anything around with me. Just had a whole load of paperwork to pick up and carry around while DS2´s appointments and things were being sorted.

How long did it take for you two to become residents? I'm still on a temporary SIP card and haven't even managed to get that far for my DS yet. The other day I took him to the local emergencia after an extended time of vomiting/not eating or drinking/coughing and he was treated very well - promptly and thoroughly.

Hope DS is ok skydancer. We were given NIE cards when we first registered in Granada. Bizarrely mine for 5 years and DH's, DD1+2 for 1 year. Theirs' have subsequently come up for renewal and been renewed for a further 5 years. But mine is overdue for renewal now and I have heard that they are not issuing them to foreigners anymore. Not sure how accurate that is, but it has prompted a great deal of lethargy in me. I really must go and ask for myself. DD3 doesn't have one either, although she has her SS card etc. Is that what you mean by residents?

hello all, claricebean were you on the april 2007 mum's thread as claricebeansmum? [wave]

I live in mallorca with my dh (spanish) and 17mo ds. Been here 5 1/2 years. Although it's maybe taken a while to build solid friendships (as it would anywhere) i had a bit of an 'in' to a social scene very quickly as I moved out to stay with a childhood friend, then through her met my dh, and his friends.. etc.. I did find it hard at first after having ds. Like you all say with all our friends at home giving conflicting advice it constantly feels like i am on the defensive, often including dh

I did find an english mum and babies group where I met a couple of lovely girls, so we often call to have a moan about dh's threatening to rush the kids off to urgencias AGAIN with a snotty nose

aaah cultural differences...

Have a look on www.mumsinspain.com I haven't been in ages and it's nowhere near as active as MN (or wasn't last time i looked) but they might have suggestions of activities near you so worth a look.

re. the resident thing - well mine took a couple of months i think but that was also because of having to mail off for this form, then take it to that office for a stamp, then parachute into another department, twirl several times and stand on my head, often much dilly dallying between stages for me..

Mine runs out next year I think but i have also heard they are not issuing cards anymore and give you a letter which is apparently a HUGE pain as no other official places recognise it

Thanks Claricebean. Ds is ok now but they had to clean out his nose/sinuses and after that he could drink again and not long after eat. he had been losing weight and had sunken eyes . Anyway now both his parents have the same bug and are busy throwing up etc and trying to look after 2 year old at the same time. Don't know how you do it at times like these with more kids - but maybe they entertain one another

Hi maveta
Skydancer - dreaded lurgy doing the rounds in our house at the moment as well.
Re: residencias - they have been replaced with an A4 piece of paper without your photo on. Nowhere recognises it and you are supposed to carry it everywhere with you. You´re not supposed to laminate it or copy it - a completely and utter bloody nightmare. Fortunately me, DH & DS1 still have the cards but DS2 is going to have a stupid bit of paper. Initially I got my residencia within a couple of months as did DS1. DH´s took nearly a year!!!! That was nearly 9 years ago though.

Thanks Soph, sorry to hear you guys are down with the lurgy! If it's the same one we had it's a nasty one. I'm still pretty out of it, bad guts and constant headache.

Anyway this residencia... sounds pretty useless! Why do they give you a form nobody recognises? I mean - should I be bovvered??

Hi all, hope you had good weekends. I can only get to a computer during the week as the one we´ve got at home isn´t connected to the internet yet.
Skydancer - we´re getting there thanks, but poor DS2 sounds like he smokes 80 a day. That´s the problem with sending them off to nursery so young - kennel cough Know what you mean about residencia, it´s such a pain we have to have them ... however, you wouldn´t want to be stopped by the Guardia Civil without one! Must build up to doing DS2s over half term

Hi everyone, well we are al still in the UK but hoping to come over and try Spain out for a year with a view to making it permanant, totally fed up with it over here. Any tips would be greatly appreciated, especially need to know about schooling? Where is a reasonable place to settle, priorities are to be near the sea and within a reasonable distance to civilisation, docs, hosp ect.

Hey come to Valencia Lupins . Great climate, on the sea, 3rd largest city in Spain. Nice places to live in the suburbs (just north of the city mainly). On all the ryan air/easy jet routes. But I don't have much to compare it with in Spain as have only been here a little while and not travelled much yet.

Skydancer thanks sounds lovely, not sure I could do city life, at the mo I live in a tiny hamlet of 5 hiuses and 2 farms , I m not saying thats what I want again, any chance you could give me some names of suburbs so I know what I am looking for, or do I just look for long term rentals in Valencia?

Hows the weather today, its pouring with rain and nblowing a gale here, and because we are on the edge of dartmoor it is super bleak!

Well I don't know these places but have heard they are quieter (no doubt much cheaper too) places to live about 25 Kms north of Valencia - Lliria, L'Eliana, Betera. The weather has been great all last week - late 20cs and sunny, however, it might be rainier for a few days as of tomorrow. Generally though the climate is great - apart from late July and most of August which is very hot with a high humidity factor.

Thanks I mentioned Valencia to dp and he was very excited due to there being the moto gp race there at the end of the season, so I have the go ahead to look there lol! I think we will probably pop over in a month or so and spend a good few weeks driving around and seeing where we like, as I say the only priority is to be near the sea, have a great day and enjoy the weathern (sobs jealously )

{grin] Yes they like their racing here. Regarding what you said about city life, I find this city to be a bit of a boring, quiet, backwater place, but maybe it's because I'm a Londoner . It's pleasant really - not frenetic like most cities. Although you might want to avoid Las Fallas festival in mid March as that is total 24 hour craziness/cannon fire/window rattling street parties at maximum volume until 4.am etc (unless you like that sort of thing).

OOOO that sounds like fun! Guess I am just going to have to visit and see, I did a quick look around a website earlier and was really impressed with the prices, I have seen cheaper in other parts of Spain but I am guessing that is probably full of lager lout English in thier hols which is not really ideal, I could probably cope with laid back city life as there is no way I could live in London, what is it like for crime and are there any English or half and half schools, I have seen some private ones, do you have to pay at all of them or are there some free one, Sorry told you I was just starting to look, tell me if I am being a pest, also do you prefer it, how would you descibe living over there, you hear of life changing amazing stories followed by horror stories, or is it just same old same old, work rest and very little play?

Hi Lupins. We live in the Canary Islands, so the answers to your questions may differ slightly from those who live on the mainland. Crime rate here is quite low, there are English & Spanish schools here but no "half & half". All Spanish schools teach some English and all English schools follow the Spanish curriculum in regards to sociales, etc. The difference is that all other subjects are taught in English. There are no free private schools over here & don´t think there are on the mainland either. Although there are things I miss I most definitely prefer living here. We still work, rest & play but the pace of life is different here, children are allowed everywhere and anywhere at any time of the day and the majority of people are very welcoming and will help when they can. Hope this helps a little

Hi skydancer and soph. Hope you're both OK.

Maveta - yes, it was me on the April 2007 thread. But my name was the same. Someone else posts as CB's mum - nothing to do with me. I had to leave the thread as my sporadic visits just weren't enough to keep up with it. How are you doing? I saw a thread title about pregnancies, so assume some people are going back for more!

Lupin - when we were choosing where to live in Spain, language was very important to us. We wanted to bring up our DC bilingually, but in Spanish rather than one of Spain's other official languages (Galician, Basque and Catalan). There is a big push going on in those areas to teach in them in order to reintroduce them. (They were banned in Franco's time and their usage diminished greatly). We felt that English and Spanish would be enough for the DC to cope with, without adding a thrid into the mix. Not sure how relevant that is in your case, or how old your DC are, but might be something to consider.

Hi claricebean. We´re fine although DH is now going down with man-flu will dose him up with alcohol medicine tonight & see if that does the trick DS2 still has a nasty cough but my friend´s husband (he´s a pharmacist) gave us some drops for the day & suppository (sp?) at night. He had one last night & slept all night without coughing - it was bliss Hopefully he´ll start sounding better in a couple of days

Hi

I live in Spain!!! In cantabria, which on days like today can feel a bit too close to home.

Have joined in late as Ive been off on hols in Minorca and had that, Ohhh I could really live here feeling again. Just dont tell DP

I moved here 2 years ago, with DP who is Spainsh. All was hunky dorey until fell pregnant with DS, like others have said the isolation is a biggy. I also feel out off it with friends back in UK, everyone seems to be having babies and doing lovely mummy/baby stuff together .

By the way regards resident paper I haven´t had any problem with mine whatso ever, actually for over a year I had an unofficial one , but no-one ever said anything until DS was born and then I had to chase down new one. The new one is green and has some lovely new numbers for you to spout out every time you go to the bank/town hall.

Hi claricebean (thanks for asking after us!) and all (and welcome patoamarillo), I've still been a bit in recovery after that awful bug but also got rather involved with another thread on here in my spare time. To come back to Lupin's language question, yes there is state provision of Spanish education (but cant remember if from 3 or 6??) and in Valencia there are also English and bilingual schools. This is a big area of concern for me as my natural inclination was to put my DS in to a bilingual nursery/pre-school, thinking he might suffer as his English is already so good at two (and I didn't want him not to keep developing in English) but so many people advised me that he would learn Spanish quicker and integrate better if I just threw him in at the deep end to a local nursery. So I have (started this month - he still doesn't like it much , or at any rate still looks at me like a betrayed lamb to slaughter at the separation. I'm still so ignorant with the language I'm not sure how much Spanish or Valenciano (Catalan) he is getting there. - but I think with very young ones they may stick more with Spanish. I'm still wondering what to do when he's three though. have others gone the bilingual education route or did you just put your DCs in the Spanish system?

BTW am only putting ds in nursery a few hours a day until he does acclimatise a bit. I'm still not working here yet so can do that. I do get a bit shocked at how many kids here seem placed in nurseries full-time from months old - but apparently two or three months is all women here get as maternity leave - so i guess if they have to work they do. But it's sad

SKYDANCER I can see the sense in "throwing him into the deep end" especially as he is still so young and would have nothing to compare other nursery/ school to.

I wasnt after free private schools, sorry if that was misunderstood, I was wondering if there were state led predominatly English schools where there was no need to pay fee's as they were state led, rather than privately led.

My dd is 6 and my ds 18months, am not too worried about ds, I feel he will just fit in, he doesnt even speak English yet, so he can pick it up as he goes and I would probably put him in a Spanish led enviroment as I feel it important to blend into your surroundings to a certain degree, my problem is what to do with dd, do I keep her at home until she knows enough to get by, hmmmmm I dont know what to do

Also can someone fill me in on car stuff (I know boring) we need to get a new car, if we get one over here, which ideally we need to do we have to change the tax to spanish tax , also I have heard you need to change the plates? do you do this straight away, are we just better off buying a cheap runabout for over here for a few months then getting a decent car over there, or get a decent car over here - which really we could do with for reliability everyday and also our Spain exploring?

Also what do you all do for jobs, if anything? SKY I know you are on mat leave but will you go to work and what will you do, is finding work over there easy (ish),

Sorry last one for tnite, my dp is currently on sick leave (wont bore you with that one just yet) anyway it may turn out to be long term, can you still claim benefits from the English system over there and does anyone know which ones, does it include tax credits?

Night night all, have a lovely day tomorrow, can I just say the sun actually shone for quite a few hrs today yipeeeee

Hi soph and skydancer. Hope you and your families are recovering from your various illnesses. We have a cold doing the rounds and DS is off school with a sore throat today, but are not doing to badly.

School here is state funded from 3 years old. Although there are some state run bilingual schools in Andalucia, the level of English spoken by the teachers is often pretty limited so, while it might offer a Spanish child a bit extra, I can't imagine a British child would get that much out of it. DH teaches in a private international school which teaches the English curriculum plus some extras in Spanish. Our oldest 3 DC go to the local state Spanish school. We are very happy with it. The teachers are mostly very good and DD1 and DD2 speak Spanish as well as their classmates (although their vocabulary is limited to things they talk about in school, so their English is currently still the dominant language).

Welcome patoamarillo. Lupin sorry, I don't know anything about bringing cars over - we bought ours here - or about UK benefits being paid here.

CLARICEBEAN thanks so much, how old are your dc, did they go straight into Spanish school, I think we are going to start learning the lingo while we are still here for a few months, dd has an Usborne 1st Spanish book lol,