More and more RED TAPE

So where was I? so we moved to Iznajar renting a fab house with pool so that both our families and friends could visit....and they di... thank God for budget airlines. We then started the process to get permission to build Brazos Abiertos Casa Rural (which means Open Arms) it has take 18months hard slog through unbelievable red tape and just when we thought we were there another new law came in and if I hear the word 'pero' (BUT) once more from an official I think I'll scream!!! The local town hall have been excellent and the Mayoress Isabel Lobato ALCALDESA DE IZNAJAR (who now oficially walks on water for us) has been fantastic in her support
Pero we now have all the permissions and a licence to build etc etc....so we start next week (we hope)

So here are a few photos of our beautiful 20,000 sq metre olive grove and the ruin which will soon be transformed from the photo on the left to the one on the right....if only it was that easy!!!

Why are we here??

A few years ago I and a like minded friend (Sheelagh) decided to do something a little different and move to another country to set up a business (another one as we already run www.tic1.co.uk in the UK) With a background in education and working with children/adults and parents with special needs we decided to set up a fully accessible rural guest house with paying guests who would enable us to offer free holiday accommodation to a range of folks who needed time out for lots of reasons, one of which was parents/carers who had a child in a hospice.

We both firmly believe that everyone should try to give something back if they can...so this is our effort. I am not going to tell you a great deal about our journey to get here as that's for a book I want to write someday....I can hear you saying yada yada but you never know and when you see the book 'The Bus Stop in Las Chozas' you'll say Oh My God she wrote it!!

In January 2005 we went to Southern France and spent a week looking for a place to buy. Easy you would think!! We found a few properties in really pretty villages but unfortunately most of the other houses were owned by foreigners and shut up for most of the year. In addition it was mighty cold, so after numerous hot chocolates with Amaretto we both looked at each other and said "South, we need to go South" ...our search continued.

In April 2005 we visited southern Spain. Our criteria was specific, we wanted to be near water and no more than 1 hour from an airport so that cut things down quite a bit.

After driving around for a few days we decide to visit Iznajar about an hour inland from Malaga. We were driving along the A333 into Iznajar and about a mile from the village we turned the corner and there was a view that left us both breathless...a beautiful village clinging onto a rock face above the lake and we both said "this is it".