We're off to sunny, sunny Spain

Not just for a holiday this time.

For years we have fantasised about living abroad. Every Friday night after a week in the rat race, we would talk about how we could do it, over a couple of bottles of wine. The ideas seemed so real when all drunk and fuzzy but crashed with a reality every Saturday morning, when we realised that we were probably here for a very long time.

We discussed travelling the world for a year, we talked about buying a caravan and bumbling around Europe, road-schooling the kids - we considered volunteering as a family in places like Ecuador or Columbia.

Every holiday we would look around the place to see if we could live there. Romania too difficult, Cuba impossible, India too mad, France too French but Spain was always just right.

We had lived in Spain before, you see. In Seville, amongst the traditions and ferias - before children when life was different. We can speak the language, love the food and of course the weather is very appealing indeed.

Mallorca felt just right as soon as we landed, it helps that my bezzie lives there as well. We have plotted and schemed, taken the romance out of the move with excel spreadsheet after excel spreadsheet, I have contacted the schools, I have done the maths. We can do this.

We are going to live in Mallorca. We are going in July. We are staying for a year, but probably very much longer.

And yes, the cats are coming with us.