Ronda, Spain, Spanish, Themes, and Everything Else

Having completed the renovation of the bedroom, all we really need to do now is wait for the carpet to settle for a couple of days before cutting off the edges, then we can move the furniture in and put up curtains.

The other half is getting a bit excited about this, she hates sleeping in the living room. I'm sure she'll also quickly fill the window sill with small green plant-like things, I just hope they don't set off my hay fever every morning.

I've decided we won't be doing any more renovations on this apartment, we need to get another house again, and with the market in Germany as expensive as it is the only real option for massive capital growth would be apartments in Berlin, which doesn't appeal to us. The apartment (wohnung) we're in now is the first time in my life I've ever lived in an apartment building, and I'm not enjoying it. So I have no desire to invest in an apartment.

For one thing, it isn't easy to get out into the garden, three flights of steps, and then you have no privacy, and apartments are so noisy. You can also hear every sound from the neighbours.

Tomorrow we head off on our travels again, this time to France. The plan is to see if we can find a farmhouse to renovate, preferably with its own garden so we can just step out the back door onto the verandah.

Some of you might wonder why we came to Germany when we might buy in France, well honestly we're not settled anywhere yet, we've even looked further afield like Bulgaria, but right now France seems like a good option for capital growth, whereas Bulgaria and other parts of Eastern Europe seem too much like speculative markets.

Of course in a perfect world I'd love to go back to Africa, I still feel the connection that all Africans have with their homeland, black and white, but reality is that this isn't an option at the moment. Oh well. France it might be. Or maybe even Tuscany if we can find something that doesn't cost a couple of million Euros.