After our incredible European road trip, we started 2016 with a trip to the little town of Pego, Spain to visit my Mum and Stepdad. Almost as soon as we arrived, we fell in love with this little corner of the globe. Nestled at the bottom of the mountains, surrounded by orange groves and just a ten minute drive to the beach, Pego really is beautiful!
We arrived in Pego on Twelfth Night, the evening before Epiphany, and just in time to watch the parade at the local fiesta.
Once the parade finished,, we returned to mums villa for our ‘Twelfth Night Dinner’. Whilst I’m not sure if there is actually a traditional dinner in Spain, we probably weren’t close with our comforting jacket potatoes served with curry and beans. All the same, it was a good dinner!
With no internet or TV, we spent the evening, and the rest that followed, reading and knitting and doing suduko puzzles. It was a welcome break a usually very technological life sat in front of a screen of some sort. I even discovered the colouring in craze and filled in a few (too many) pages from my sisters enchanted forest colouring book!
Whilst in Pego, we booked to look round a few of the townhouses for sale near mum – with the current low house prices we had already considered purchasing a little Spanish house nearby that we could use as a holiday home, so we set off to see what was on sale. Despite our love of home renovations, we planned to buy a house that was in a pretty good state of repair which we could rent out. Those houses however just weren’t for us….
Within 5 days of arriving in Pego, we had viewed six houses, and had put in a very cheeky offer in on a town house just 15 minutes walk from mums. This offer, to our complete surprise, was accepted straight away!
Beaches near Pego
A few days later, Mum & Gary took us to see the beach we could see from our new house. Despite travelling to some incredible places together for 10 years, Darren and I agreed that the beaches on the Costa Blanco that we could see from our terrace were the most beautiful in the world!
Without a return flight booked, we ended up staying in Pego with Mum and Gary for two weeks, in which time Darren earned our keep by helping to fit two new bathrooms. I on the other hand chopped not nearly enough wood for the fire, but did manage to read 5 books (from my perhaps now over ambiotios target of 52 this year).
Flying back to the UK for a few days to finish our tax returns on time, our next trip was imminent. We were off to Bangkok, exactly 10 years to the day that we boarded the first plane that started our travel adventures.
For now, our 6th renovation project would have to wait!
