Tom - nice to hear from you again - I am posting this here rather than in a private message in case (as I suspect) Frances has put an appeal in the latest TTRA bulletin for missing persons like me!
I have emailed her with my new details, following email from Arthur Lawn, so thank you both!
As to affording villas, fancy or otherwise, for info we have a 4-bed/3-bath 2-storey house with pool on a 1500 square metre plot in a little Spanish village, built new for less than we got for our 2+box semi in Leeds..........
Plus, I have no desire to live in a country like the UK has become, governed by people like govern it, and in any case could not afford to!
We pay around 24 Euros per month for our equivalent to Council Tax, including water, and very drinkable wine is 45 cents (30p) per litre, diesel is 96 cents per litre....and there are 320 days per year of sunshine. The neighbours (all Spanish) give us tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, fresh eggs, nispero, lemons, oreanges...just to be welcoming and to show off their produce. We are 30 minutes from the sea.
On the down side, although the roads inland are as uncrowded as Surrey in the 60s, the standard of driving is abysmal/frightening, and.........I will think of something else eventually!