In August 2001 I made the big move.
After having lived and worked in the UK all my life, at the end of May 2001 I finally got the courage to quit my job in London and sell my flat. So in August I moved lock, stock and barrel to Barcelona.
For the previous three and half years I’d been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend from Barcelona. Remember that in those pre-broadband days there were no cheap overseas phone calls and nothing like Skype, Facetime, Whatapp or any of the apps we now take for granted. Simply communicating was far from straightforward.
So you can guess what happened:
My phone bill shot through the roof. Two hour calls at 20p per minute soon add up.
According to my credit bills the only thing I seemed to pay for was easyJet flights.
I lived for those weekends when I’d fly to Barcelona or she’d fly to the UK, but they were few and far between. In those in-between days I’d either be remembering the time we’d spent together or thinking about the net time we’d meet.
Things needed to change for both of us. I had a very well paid job in a startup while she was much more poorly paid and her future uncertain. It was clear what had to be done to move our lives forward…
So I quit.
Truth is I hated my job and was sick and tired of the commute, office politics and endless meetings. I planned on moving into my girlfriend’s flat in Barcelona and taking some time off to decide what to do next. That turned out to be easy. The internet. And so I worked from a home office in Barcelona for nine years with plenty of weekends in L’Escala and summer holidays spent there and in Port de la Selva.
Then in 2010 we bought a house in the comarca (roughly equivalent to a county) of La Selva. That’s where you find the towns of the southern Costa Brava and an easy drive to the more southern towns of the central Costa Brava in the comarca of Baix Empordà. The northern Costa Brava (Alt Emprodà) starts at L’Escala, which is just an hour away.
Since moving here we’ve got to know the coastline and towns and there is plenty more to explore. And along the way we’ve learnt all about the practicalities of buying property and all that entails. How to deal with the things that come up with living somewhere permanently, good and bad, and big life events like getting married.
Started back in 2013 as a blog about the area, in 2017 I’ve relaunched Costa Brava Lifestyle as an insider’s guide to the region. Over the coming months I’m going to be adding new pages on an ongoing basis and if there is anything you’d like to know, want to share, comment on or disagree with me about I’d love to hear from you.
So leave a comment on the pages where you can or send me an email. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
All the best,
David Leigh
