Change of life?

The hot topic at the minute seems to be all about the menopause and its effects on women. I have to say I feel quite guilty that I never had a single symptom, so I got away with everything very, very lightly. However, I do remember when I was 52 thinking that if the change of life was coming then I was going to have a very big change, in a different way – so I moved to Spain!

My first house was a very standard 3 bed, 2 bath house with a lovely pool. I used to look out of my kitchen window and be totally amazed that I had a swimming pool all to myself, bliss!

My younger daughter, Alice, came with me to Spain. She is a qualified beauty therapist and she opened her own salon in our little town. Her clientele was made up of both English-speaking as well as Spanish people, so she learned to speak Spanish rather more rapidy than I did. She also had a Spanish boyfriend which also helped!

Winters in Almeria province are generally mild, to the extent that you can often have Christmas dinner outside on the patio, a real change from Northern Ireland.

There were so many changes in my first couple of years in Spain that looking back on things now it seems like a different life. I moved to Spain on St Patrick’s Day 2008, and in November of that year my mother died. A horrible shock, and even worse as I was no longer within a few miles of home.

However, the following year I met Peter, and we’ve been together ever since. So, together now for 14 years this year, and married for 4 years this September.

We lived together in my house – he was divorced and temporarily staying in an apartment in our little town, Arboleas, but had a big apartment in La Mata, near Torrevieja. We decided that we needed to buy a house that belonged to both of us so we put both properties on the market, took a big deep breath and found the house we now live in, the one you can see on the front page.

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