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A Year Living In Asturias
Judy and myself have loved Spain ever since our first visits. I had an opportunity to take a year out of work so we visited Asturias in November 2005 to see whether we’d like to live there.
Pictures of Gijón
  
We stayed in the coastal city of Gijón with a view to looking at properties for rent in the capital city of Oviedo. After our first day we decided we liked Gijón so much that we switched our house hunting there.
Nuestra Casa (Our Home) in Somió, Gijón
  
I had learnt some Spanish so I rang Allen Globe estate agents and arranged a meeting. Our contact, Alfonso was a very nice chap and knew of a property that would be perfect for us. A detached house with a garden (which we needed for our dog) in a pretty suburb called Somió just a mile or so from the city centre. After viewing we decided to take it.
On our return from Gijón to Dunfermline where we were renting, I rang Alfonso and arranged for us to move in early January 2006. We arranged our move with Clarke and Rose and on the 6th January we set off for Northern Spain. We were taking our last surviving dog, Herman with us so we needed to travel by car. We stopped off in Letchworth (my home town) to stay with my parents for a few days and then continued our journey to Folkestone, through the tunnel and then through France. Our first night in France we stopped just outside Orleans. The next day we just made Spain and stopped at San Sebastian. The next morning we arrived in Gijón and met with Alfonso to sign the rental contract and move in.
Our Friends in Gijón
  
We had a fantastic time living in Asturias and made many new friends. I placed an advert for language exchange (intercambio) and we met and made friends with Víctor and his family. Our lessons involved meeting up at the Scourmont Bar in the city centre and continuing with a visit to numerous wine bars or sidrerias - I learnt a lot from Víctor! Our “casero” (landlord) was a guy called Monchu and he owned a farm just behind where we lived. He was very generous and gave us all sorts of food from his farm and also the delicious “sidra” which he made and for which Asturias is most famous and justly proud.
We moved back to the UK to my home town of Letchworth at the end of December 2006. It was with mixed feelings we left Gijón and Somió. We were leaving behind a lot of new friends, a fantastic country and the beautiful province of Asturias - but we had to get back to work in the UK.
Graham Fox
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