Maureen: I met Melvyn in Tewkesbury in 1992. I was living aboard a Dutch barge and Melvyn had has barge moored on the same canal. We clicked straight away and spent several years travelling the canals together exploring the waterways of Great Britain whilst planning a retirement in France. We built a boat especially for use on the French canal system in readiness but delayed our move for a few years after accepting a job at a small canal side business in Newbury.
After talking about the future and discussing where we yearned to live we came up with two possibilities – namely France or Spain. We’d enjoyed some great holidays in Spain and my sister and her husband had retired there and it wasn’t long before we began to think seriously about joining them.
Melvyn: We started our property search using the Internet and concentrated on inland Spain. It was important to us to find a mainly Spanish community and we also knew that we wanted to be within walking distance of a town or village. By chance we discovered property agents Spanish Inland Properties on the Internet and were curious about the many homes on its website that were converted caves or had caves incorporated in the property.
Our figures were realistic with our top limit of £60,000 – an immovable figure that our agents understood was our financial top whack. Thankfully we were only shown properties that fell within our range and viewed a range of various sizes and locations, including a newly reformed cave. With taxes this unique property came to just £51,500 but I held back from jumping in there and then and asked for a little more time to talk it over with Maureen back in the UK. She´s a very good listener – and an even better persuader – and within a month we were on a flight to Spain to sign the contracts.
A cave is wonderfully deceptive space-wise and we have plenty of room with two double bedrooms, a bathroom and a lovely large lounge, plus a kitchen, storeroom and utility, large patio with dozens of terracotta pots that are overflowing with sweet-smelling plants. What can I say about the views – they are simply wonderful – looking over a valley out to a local church on top of a hill with the mountains stretching out into the distance beyond. It´s just a ten-minute walk into the village and the locals have been really friendly to us – I can´t wait for the day when our Spanish improves enough to have a proper conversation! We definitely made the right decision in coming to live in Galera: we are both far more relaxed and have more time for our hobbies. I´m convinced a better pace of life will be beneficial to Melvyn´s well-being and when we look out at the view we both feel so content we can´t imagine ever wanting to leave.
