Nuestra Casa

The furniture( and stuff), from our house in England has arrived at last, nine days late, the fourth date given to us since we arrived, and I don’t really want to bore you with my annoyance with the removals company , but I will for just a minute!

Their lack of communication and care ( at times), was not good, and many of the boxes had been re-labelled (incorrectly), I had to wash the White Company cushions that had just been shoved into a box unwrapped, before I could put them on our bed .They had emptied the contents of a chest of drawers into a box ( again unwrapped), and three boxes are still on the van somewhere in Spain. Several boxes for storage came here to the house and vice versa, even though they were originally packed in two batches supervised by me.

Suffice to say, we were very unhappy and frustrated, and it had cost us thousands of pounds, and rearranging of various appointments three times, as last week we were in the middle of seeing our architect, putting our application for Residencia in and buying a car…

Anyway, we don’t want to see (or flatten to throw away in the recycling bin), a cardboard box for a very long time!

It`s been weird seeing favourite pieces of furniture (such as a black lacquered table ), in situ here, rather than in our old home in Norfolk. There it was used to display part of our vast collection of shells. Here it is going to be used as a drinks table. I bought the `Drink More Gin` print, to go next to it. Not that I drink Gin. My husband and son do, and most people we know do too.

My whole cookery book selection is now put away,(colour coded of course!), and our lovely French olive oil jars and confit pots, are sitting next to our Spanish green glass carboys. We’ve had bedside tables and mirrors sprayed white, and we’ve put the Royal Academy Summer Show 2011 poster up-the year my clever artist husband had one of his lino-cuts in the revered exhibition, and the vintage `Fish Dock `signage I bought him on Ebay one Christmas. All these memories make a house into a home.

Our things are finding good homes to go to. We still have far too many clothes! The study was the most difficult to sort, and with a new room coming, (when planning goes through- which could be months, ggrrrhhh ,Viva Espana!), there is more stuff in there, than will be eventually.

Our super large mirrors have made the best difference to our already (I think), lovely home; opening it up even more, and creating more light, with which our house is flooded anyway, and what makes it such a cool , bright space to live in.

Just before the furniture arrived , we had two walls at the back of the house re-tiled, replacing the large , brown ,not our taste, pamment type tiles that were dark and ugly, with blue and white geometric ones. We are thrilled with them, our builder did a brilliant job , and they have really opened up the space around the dining table on the terrace, and again by the pool. They also match the ones we put on the front of the house. So they look contemporary, but with a nod to Spanish style. Just like our `casa`. We love it.