There are many features of everyday life in Spain to which you will have to adjust. Some are easy – some difficult.

Mañana

Mañana – tomorrow – is a fact of life in Spain. The slower pace of life leads to the situation where it is not a disaster if something is not achieved today. There is always tomorrow. When you arrange to have something done on Wednesday it might end up that it is not done on Wednesday of this week but you need not worry it will be done next week – on Wednesday. When you first arrive it can be extremely frustrating but you soon learn to live with it and, horror of horrors, you actually find yourself beginning to fall into the same trap and you start delaying things until tomorrow. Unless a job is vitally important, does it really matter if there is a bit of a delay in completing it? In actual fact mañana becomes a bit of a joke.

Manaña does not just apply to delays of a few days. When you make appointments in Spain it is common for the person you have arranged to meet to turn up late. This can be annoying when you’re not used to it, but before long you too will develop a more relaxed attitude to time and start turning up late for meetings. It is all part of the much more laid back Spanish attitude to life generally and when you have accepted it as part of life it certainly reduces stress. Reducing stress probably also means that you will live longer!

Siesta

Siesta is a wonderful Spanish institution. The tradition of siesta was, of course, intended to protect the population from the heat of the sun in the middle of the day but it has been carried forward to modern times. There is something wonderful, particularly in the summer months, about drawing the curtains and lying down for a couple of hours in the afternoon and many expatriates very quickly learn to appreciate siesta. It is also important to note that you can cause great irritation if you disturb people during this time.

Of course in the big cities the tradition has all but disappeared in modern times. Spain would not be able to exist in a multinational business environment if all offices, banks and shops closed between 2 and 5 in the afternoon, but siesta is still a strong tradition in smaller communities. If you go five miles inland from the Costa del Sol there is just nobody on the street between these hours. The curtains are drawn and all you see is sleepy dogs or cats lying in the doorways. Small communities become almost like ghost towns.

Siesta can have its irritations. Since the shops usually close in the afternoon even in the coastal resorts it can be annoying if you have forgotten to buy something important and there is no way you can obtain it until 5 pm. I am afraid if this is the case there is nothing you can do about it. Businesses then re-open and stay open until late in the evening.

In traditional Spain siesta has really shaped the Spanish way of life. In practice the Spanish have a 14-day week. They get up quite early and work until lunch-time. They then have a light lunch and go back to sleep for a few hours, waking up refreshed for the second part of the day, when they go back to work or re-open the shop. A quick visit to the tapas bar on the way home to stave off the pangs of hunger and then dinner very late – sometimes even as late as 11 pm. After dinner entertainment and talking can go on until the early hours of the morning before another short period of sleep to refresh the body before the next working day.

So this means that the average traditional Spaniard has two periods of sleep in every day and two periods of work or socialising – the 14-day week. It is for this reason that foreigners are warned that the Spanish can be guilty of being noisy until very late at night.

RELAXED PACE OF LIFE

Having now settled in to our new life in Spain we have had the opportunity to re-evaluate just what it is that we feel makes the lifestyle here better than it was in London or indeed in the UK generally. Having made this re-evaluation there is now no way that we would ever consider going back permanently to the UK. The way we feel at the moment we do not even wish to go back for a holiday – in some respects this is a very sad state of affairs but it is the truth. We would rather that our friends in the UK came to stay with us. So what is it that makes our new lifestyle superior?

Freedom from the stress of big city living has to be a major benefit of life on the Costa del Sol. There are fewer people around and those who are around have the time to enjoy life even if they are working. When you walk through a Spanish town people will actually say ‘Hola’ (Hello) to complete strangers. When you enter a shop or reach the check-out in the supermarket you are greeted with a smile and an ‘Hola’ or ‘Buenos dias’ I have to say that this rarely happened to us in the south-east of England. The other wonderful thing is that you are greeted with a smile. Living in London I began to think that the British had lost the ability to smile.

The mañana attitude helps you to relax and become more philosophical. Does it really matter if there is a delay? So long as real emergencies are dealt with as they happen that is all that really matters. I have to say that real emergencies, domestic or medical, are dealt with on a much more rapid time scale than we were used to in London and at lower cost. When the main fuse blew in an apartment belonging to one of our neighbours on a Sunday evening an emergency electrician was there within 30 minutes and his charge for the call-out and the repair was only 60 euros (£40). This is probably less than the call-out charge alone in the UK.

When you first arrive in Spain the queues in the bank or the post office or other public services can be an irritation. I would be dishonest if I said that it did not bother me to begin with, but way back then I was probably still in London mode. After I adapted and started to look around only to see that delays did not seem to bother the locals, I too adapted to the fact that really there is no rush. What is the point of getting upset? Life here is very laid back and ultimately this will probably add years to one’s life. In fact we have been told that a move to the Costa del Sol could add five years to your life expectancy. I do not think that this has yet been the subject of a clinical trial but it would be interesting to find out.

THE WEATHER

The weather, the ‘blue drizzle’, of southern Spain definitely improves your lifestyle. Unless you actually experience it long term you cannot really appreciate how wonderful it is to wake up on more than 300 days of each year to clear blue skies and sunshine. As a self-employed consultant in the UK my office was on the second floor of the house in which we lived and was south facing. I was amazed that for most days of the year I needed to have a light switched on. This is not the case on the Costa del Sol. Apart from the fact that the sun shines most of the year it is also the quality of the light which improves life. The light of the Mediterranean gives such a luminous touch to the colours of your surroundings, a real picture postcard effect which you appreciate throughout the year.

I was worried that perhaps it might be too hot in the height of the summer but experience has shown that so long as the orientation of your property is correct the summer heat should not be a problem. There are times when it can be better to get out of the sun in the middle of the day, which you will learn to do if you live in Spain. Remember why siesta developed! Later in the afternoon you can happily return to the sun and enjoy it. Summer evenings are wonderful. Very rarely does it feel too hot in the evening but you can still live outside comfortably – the terrace or the garden really does become an outdoor room.

An important factor in keeping the climate in southern Spain very pleasant is the relatively low humidity. I have visited countries where not only was the temperature high but the humidity was also above 90 per cent. It is only then that heat becomes unbearable. The only time that the weather can be a bit of a problem is when the hot winds blow from the Sahara. When this happens the Spanish advise you to stay indoors and close all doors and windows to keep the heat out until the wind drops.

Winter is absolutely delightful, with mostly blue skies and daytime temperatures in the 60s Fahrenheit or between 15 and 20° Celsius. At night temperatures do drop but rarely below 50° Fahrenheit (10° Celsius).

It would, however, be totally wrong to paint a picture of year-round idyllic weather. There are days when the sky is overcast but somehow the grey does not appear to be so dark. There are also days when it rains and when it rains in southern Spain it is tropical style rain. Two minutes outside and you are absolutely soaked to the skin. The roads turn into rivers and really the only thing to do is to stay indoors. The consolation is that the rain will not last and tomorrow or the day after the sun will probably be shining again. It would be almost unheard of here to experience several days or weeks of continual rain and grey skies. Without this rain the coast would not remain so green for most of the year. It is only in the height of the summer that the landscape does become a bit barren. Every living plant tends to go into a dormant phase and dries up until the autumn rain arrives. I have to say also that there are times when you almost wish for a day without sun (believe it or not!).

Suffice it to say that when northern Europe is experiencing heavy rainfall, snow or freezing conditions the Costa del Sol is probably basking in sunshine. Spain is probably Europe’s sunniest country and the Costa del Sol is truly the sunniest region.

The weather alone could provide a very good reason to live here but there are still more positives which I would like you to consider.