Change Is Good - Why I'm Moving To Spain

It’s usually the kids that go off travelling but this time, it’s the mother.

I’m selling-up in London and swanning off to Spain. Not to the Costa Packet with it’s plethora of cafés serving up Brit food to Leave voters, but the passionate heartland of Andalucia, Seville - where in summer, cafés pump out water vapour over the terraces to cool down the customers and dinnertime is nearly bedtime. If Europe won’t come to me, I will go to it.

Was I pushed or did I jump? Neither, sometimes everything falls into place and you know it’s time.  Are my friends and family in shock? No, to be honest, I’ve talked about moving from my bolt hole in Stoke Newington for so long that the majority of my friends are probably bored stupid with me harping on about it. But the options were always a return to Brighton or a walk on the wild side in St Leonards. Of course, like the rest of us, I’ve gazed in wonder at estate agents boards each time I visited my brother in the Lot-et-Garonne, ‘Only €50 for that enormous, run-down chateau!’ But France has never held my heart, despite their superior patisserie. I lived in Italy for four years in a previous incarnation and the southern European heat,  energy and delight in a boisterous public celebration of almost anything has always been much more my style.

My adult children would definitely benefit from more miles between us. I did fall in love and move to Cornwall 14 years ago but that didn’t work out and seems it wasn’t far enough. Since the death of my husband in 2000  we have lived in each other’s pockets far too much and now, single for five years, all my high days and holidays have been spent with my sons and daughter. I do realise how lucky I am and am eternally grateful but I need to let them go.  With no grandchildren, no partner and no pets, as I friend remarked, I am unfettered. To be honest, it sounds a bit too close to ‘unhinged’ but there may be some truth in that.

Is it crazy at the age of 70, with a history of heart disease, breast cancer, two hearing aids, two cataract ops and various gynae rearrangements to forsake the NHS, ditch my Freedom pass and live in a furnished rental, probably with no lift, in a city where I don’t speak the language? Ladies and gentlemen, may I draw your attention to bears in the woods…

But my E111 medical card will function until December 31st 2020 #allegedly and my phone has free roaming so what else does a woman need? Apart from manzanilla and the opportunity to learn flamenco?

Understandably, there’s maybe an element of wishful thinking in the responses of some of my friends. Later in life, a woman can more easily become a carer – for her partner, a parent or her grandchildren and I am, in many ways, in an enviable position. My work as a writer, workshop and retreat leader means I can operate anywhere there are English speakers so I’m writing lists, speaking to storage places and financial advisors and trying to persuade my kids to take temporary possession of the olive tree, the enormous coffee table and far too many books.

Autumn Celebration

A time to say thank you…

Sam Chesterton, owner of Finca Buenvino, arranging flowers for the drawing room

“Elaine, you are an inspirational teacher and I wish you could have been the course leader on my MA! You’ve encouraged us all with such sensitivity, perception, creativity and fun that I’ll always want to go on writing! Thank you for interconnecting with us all on a deep level and sharing your life and talents with us.”

We have had a wonderful year at Finca Buenvino in 2018 - filled with laughter, love, generosity and gratitude. We have met so many new writers and taken such great pleasure in sharing with them the superb hospitality and food of Sam, Jeannie and Charlie Chesterton - introducing them to the high hills of the Andalucian landscape, the joys of sharing mealtimes, guided walks, mindfulness meditation sessions and of course, the transformational power of writing down our lives in notebooks.

The infinity, salt-water pool which overlooks the Sierra De Aracena Y Picos De Aroche National Park. Finca Buenvino sits in 150 wooded acres which we explore every day, always taking time to sit and write sensory observations and stories in our small notebooks which we carry everywhere.

I will leave it up to comments from my writers on our September week to explain the benefits of a Write It Down! holiday at BV. Thanks to all of them and to everyone who has joined me during the last four years. We will be back here in May, June and September 2019.

“The teaching method’s were superb; constant gentle nudges that got you out of your comfort zone and made your heart and mind wake-up and produce writing that I didn’t know was there - non-judgemental, sensitive, fun, very creative and caring to us all. I would recommend this holiday to anyone interested in writing.’ Heather.”

“Elaine’s teaching created a very good team spirit, pushed us a little so we could all get a lot from the course but did so with humour throughout that was always encouraging. This holiday has finally got me started on a long held resolve to start writing - it was a very enjoyable, relaxing and therapeutic experience. David.”

The Orgasm Tree

Finca Buenvino amongst the sweet chestnuts. Photo by Jenni Bradbury.

Very often, we begin a conversation with a friend on one subject and progress rapidly to something completely different, discovering on the way the most illuminating information.

 This happened to me last week. I was describing the climate at Finca Buenvino in Andalucia, where we run our writing holidays. I explained that whatever the temperature in the summer months, we can always walk because of the shade of the cork oaks and sweet chestnut trees that cover the dehesa - the wooded landscape of the Sierra de Aracena National Park.

‘Oh!’ my friend exclaimed, ‘That’s why the atmosphere is so beneficial for writing and meditation up there! That’s why your writers find it so empowering to stay there. Sweet chestnut’s a well known Bach flower remedy for encouraging new beginnings, transformation into a new and much better life. It’s a treatment for the "dark night of the soul," the despair of those who feel they have reached the limit of their endurance, it’s for a time when old beliefs and patterns break apart and make room for new levels of consciousness. It is the perfect treatment for when you are ready to open up to the light at the end of the tunnel, the light before the new dawn.’ Buenvino certainly has a magical aire, everyone remarks upon this. When I told her that the flowers of the sweet chestnut purportedly smelt like semen, she laughed. ‘Ah yes, it’s known as the orgasm tree because it produces such a surge of transformative emotions!’

The trees blossom in June, we’re there from the 16 -23...do join us.

Music & Dancing

Last night I went to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho with my 28-year-old daughter, 40 years after I was a Saturday-night regular with her father and got down to James Brown. Gone are the days of smoke filled rooms but the atmosphere was just as sultry and seductive. On Mother’s Day this weekend, my three kids are taking me to a hip local eatery where, ‘our Sunday resident DJ will be playing all the Motown/Soul/Disco classics that’ll get your mum on her feet’. Like I need encouragement.

I fell in love in the 60s to the growly vocals of John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson and gave birth to my first child accompanied by a mix-tape of Al Green and Bill Withers. Four years later, it was Prince’s Purple Rain that greeted my second son and after another four years, my daughter arrived to The Gypsy Kings. From my early years in ballet classes, learning the mesmerising steps of the tarantella and mazurka, music and dancing have fortified my life - and every live gig  is a shot of adrenaline far more life enhancing than a vegan lifestyle or statins. My memory of dancing alone on a beach in Costa Rica, plugged into my iPod while my man of the moment tried to stand up on a surf board way out on the waves, is an moment for me that symbolises freedom, happiness and how to be truly alive.  Weddings, parties, friends ‘round for dinner - any excuse and I’m up on the floor.  Even my weekly meditation class has movement, a gentle two-step sway to accompany the preparatory chanting. I hate gyms and am never going to do a marathon but the 15 minutes of disco dancing that I do every morning in the privacy of my own apartment keeps me fit, fills me with utter joy and puts a smile on my face all day.

And this is why I’m taking my digital music library and my Bluetooth portable speaker on my writing retreats in Spain this year; so we can all have the opportunity if the music moves us, to dance with the sun on our faces and our hearts full of  celebration for simply being alive.