Baxter-Jones Family Journey

Posted by: Minnie Press IT | May 12, 2011

One Year On

Well we’re still here!

It’s hard work and sometimes a bit of a struggle but the deep blue med and the bright blue skies and crisp white wine on the long summer evenings make it all worth while.

Kelvin worked for Stephens Green for 6 months renting the Kitchen and piling all of our savings in keeping a kitchen open which had already been proven to be at the end of it’s course and the owner had had it on the market for 12 months without telling us. Like I said before it’s a Dog eat Dog world here on the Costa Del Sol.

We were very lucky the day that Kelvin told the owners of Stephens Green to jump another opportunity door opened and Kelvin got a contract job with the Infamous Herclues Carvery. Kelvin has been there for 7 months and still very happy.

Nursery Hunting for my little boy Ben!

It was my turn to get into action! I had to find a nursery/pre school for my little boy! This was going to be more difficult that I first thought.

Ben is a very confident and out going sort of chappy and I thought he would have no trouble what so ever settling into a Spainish environment.

We Arrived!

Well here we all were, now living on the Costa Del Sol! Now What?

Jobs was the number one task for week one! Ofcourse not before we got settled into our new Villa in Arroyo.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Kelvin went searching for his NIE number, which meant getting up very early in the morning and hanging around a police station! We weren’t quite sure why we needed one but we knew that if we wanted a legal job we needed to have one. I already had mine from the past, but to be honest I had no plans on working in the near future due to all my previous troubles with work which I was trying to rehibilitate myself.

Kelvin found work within 12 hours of being in Spain, it did help that he had 10 years experience in the Service Trade and he was a qualified, Chef, Bar Manager and Silver Service Waiter as it seemed that as the Costa Del Sol was about to go into the ‘Summer Season’ this was a good industry to be in.

We meet some new friends, www.cbs-costa.com Eddy on the Costa who was also starting a great new business adverture in building Steel Buildings customisable and bought in from Scotland. Eddy made me laugh and motivated me serveral times during the first 6 weeks to keep on going and not to give up on the dream of living on the Costa Del Sol.

Where to start looking for work on the Costa Del Sol?

Well Kelvin got one job from calling someone from an advert in http://www.surinenglish.com/news/ This was for a Chef/Cook making sandwhiches and salads for a bar called Hugos, in Arroyo. Only 25 hours but hey it would have been work. Unfortunely didn’t get the job – wasn’t quailified.

In the beginning most of Kelvins job was going round to all the bars and resturants and built relationships. It’s not what you know but who! You have to be a very friendly person to get a job on the Costa Del Sol, but watch out no one is ever who they say they are and it’s a dog eat dog Costa Del Sol.

Our Life Changing Trip!

The idea of moving to Spain was easy, the hardest part was leaving the family behind.

We spend our last night in the UK with our Mum and Dad in Cambridge. It was really hard leaving them behind, it was even harder for our little boy Ben to leave his Nanna B and Grandfather, there were tears!

We arrived at Portsmouth at 11.00am after a long journey stuck in traffic around the M25, we really didn’t think we were going to make the boat to Sandander, Spain and when we finally arrived and saw the boat was still there there was a sigh of relief!