Bonus & Wendy's Big Adventure . . . .

[Bonus]

A good way to get the bottom half of your car buffed up in Ainsa town :-)

 

 

 

 

[Matchstix]

Grrrrrrrr

[Erroli8a8]

all I see is lamb chops.

[Gen]

Last Tuesday we visited the local municipal architect and she told us that our Planning Permission License was passed and that she would post it to us on Thursday, registered post. (She only works Tuesdays and Thursdays)

 

By this morning, a week after it was posted, we still hadn't received the letter and we were worried that we had missed the postman (for signing) so this morning we went to the architects office to check on things.

 

Apparently the letter hasn't been posted yet because the architect hasn't signed it off.

 

Seriously, these people would test the patience of a Saint!

 

:-(

 

#hotimpressed

[emoji35]

 

*puts bubbles back in the fridge*

[Bonus]

We went to see the municipal architect today to chase up our planning application - which she had said she would send out by post nearly two weeks ago.

 

She was very apologetic and gave excuses of having been at meetings in other areas of the district but promised that if we go back tomorrow just before close of business (2pm on a Friday) she will personally give us the signed license in our hand.

 

We told her we'd be back tomorrow but in fact we are going to Zaragoza tomorrow for the day so it will be Monday before we go in and fetch it. Better that she expects us tomorrow though . . . .

 

;-)

[Bonus]

We have our Building License! Finally. We went and signed for it today at the municipal architects office. Now we can move forward. What a relief . . . .

 

It is officially time to break out the champagne!

 

:-)

[Pulse]

We have our Building License! Finally. We went and signed for it today at the municipal architects office. Now we can move forward. What a relief . . . .

 

It is officially time to break out the champagne!

 

:-)

Congrats!!!!!!!!!

[Gen]

We have our Building License! Finally. We went and signed for it today at the municipal architects office. Now we can move forward. What a relief . . . .

 

It is officially time to break out the champagne!

 

:-)

Flippen awesome, congrats Bonus & Wendy

 

*REACHES FOR BUBBLY*

[Bonus]

Yesterday we had a meeting with our architect, Pedro Miguel. He went over our Building License with us (3 A4 pages of legal Spanish, obviously) to check that everything is in order. There were no surprises. We have to start the project within a year and finish within three years of the license being issued. If we need an extension after that we can apply for one - that's quite common. The property should be built "as shown on our drawings". Published safety guidelines must be followed by the contractor on site. Don't unduly interfere with the neighbours etc.

 

Of course we now have a fee to pay - calculated as a percentage of the cost of the total works. A percentage of this fee is government tax.

 

In some cases the percentage of tax can be reduced - "for rehabilitation of ancient buildings that fall within special council guidelines". Our building is not special in that way (although it is very special to us) so we get no reduction. On the plus side though, buildings that fall under that "special" heading with the council can only have certain modifications made to them. We would rather pay the full fee and get the finish we want than pay a little less tax but not be allowed to do "this or that" with our building. . . .

[Odinson]

Quick question, Bonus. Are you fluent in Spanish? If not, how do you deal with the langauage barriers?

[Bonus]

Quick question, Bonus. Are you fluent in Spanish? If not, how do you deal with the langauage barriers?

 

I was going to write a post on "learning Spanish" - so now's a good time. . . .

 

Neither of us are fluent in the language but by now (here for 9 months) we speak enough to get by day-to-day with all the usual "casual" stuff.

 

Before leaving SA we had 10 1hr lessons with a great guy from Colombia (which we now wish dearly we'd tried harder at!!). Since getting here we've continued teaching ourselves by using lessons found on the web etc and of course by talking to people around us who only speak Spanish.

 

We mostly manage ok with the easy stuff - you do have to use a bit of imagination with the phone translators, they are not perfect. For the important things we found ourselves bilingual people. Our solicitor and financial advisor speaks pretty good English. Our architect the same. Between us with our basic Spanish and them with their basic English we do ok.

 

As far as the actual learning goes, it's easy enough to learn a couple of hundred words. Verbs, Nouns & Adjectives etc. The difficulty comes with putting them into a sentence that follows the rules of Spanish language and so makes sense to a Spaniard.

 

You get a good idea of the structure of Spanish by listening to a Spanish person speak "bad" English. When they make mistakes with the word order of English it's because they are translating from a Spanish sentence word by word. Equally if we translate an English sentence into Spanish word by word it will be "understandable" but wrong.

 

We say "the blue car", they say "the car blue". We say "short trousers" they say "trousers short". Once you understand this rule it's not too hard to get it right.

 

Tenses are more complicated as are some of the masculine/feminine associations.

 

On the other hand there are lots of words that are easy to remember because there's only a single letter change, like:

 

Guys/Girls  is Chico/Chica

Brother/Sister is Hermano/Hermana . . . . .

[Wendy]

On the language front we actually speak great Spanglish. Bonus does not spend time learning Spanish but speaks to the farmer all the time and learns that way. I do lessons every day on line and also speak Spanish to our friends and the grocers. So Bonus can understand what someone is saying better than I and I can speak better than he. Together we are a little less than terrible.

Thing is there are so many words that are similar thanks to Latin and speaking to anyone younger than 50 is easy. The over 50's are old school and have mostly never heard the sound of a foreign accent so cannot even try to understand.

Bonus had a great time trying to explain an ambulance to Ramon the farmer. He kept saying ambulaans with siren sounds. And saying things like inferma (sick) but nothing. Ramon was blank. Then suddenly a light came on and Ramon said "ambulansia" aaah Si Si. A simple missing ia sound at the end of the word and he had no clue.

But we keep on smiling and waving ????

[Pulse]

I think it makes such a difference with the local community if they see that you are trying and making an effort to learn Spanish.

 

I'm always looking forward to your updates, and glad everything seems on track again

[Bonus]

We are off to Ramon & Rosa's for lunch and champagne this afternoon. Rosa has been saying for months that we will celebrate together when we finally get our building license and of course we got it this week.

 

While we're there I will show Wendy the new lambs that were born yesterday and the day before. 5 lambs in 2 days! Sweet little things.

[BSG]

We are off to Ramon & Rosa's for lunch and champagne this afternoon. Rosa has been saying for months that we will celebrate together when we finally get our building license and of course we got it this week.

 

 

 

While we're there I will show Wendy the new lambs that were born yesterday and the day before. 5 lambs in 2 days! Sweet little things.

In a few weeks they will be just the right size for soft tender potjie [emoji231] or a nice stew! [emoji33] [emoji1]. Please forgive me, this just came up in my head. [emoji56]

 

A bad day cycling is better than a good day working.

[Bonus]

In a few weeks they will be just the right size for soft tender potjie [emoji231] or a nice stew! [emoji33] [emoji1]. Please forgive me, this just came up in my head. [emoji56]

 

A bad day cycling is better than a good day working.

 

 

That's exactly what they are for BSG. No "pet lambs" here I'm afraid.

 

In winter they cook lamb chops on the open fire in the kitchen. They are very nice, even when you know they were walking around last week.