In a week’s time my blog ‘Living in Rural Mallorca’ will be on year old, and this is my 91st post. However, I have no grounds to boast, because it’s been a few weeks since I last posted anything, and a few followers have even been in touch with me to see if I still reside on Planet Earth – let alone in our finca.

Here are excuses I could have used:

• We won the Euromillions lottery and are now living on our own private island.
• The dog ate my computer (well, that one has been known to be used where missing homework is concerned, but fails here because we don’t have a dog – and they may eat paper, but probably not plastic and metal).
• The BBC decided to make a documentary about our life as expats in rural Mallorca and we’ve been up to our ears in Pan Stick, clapper boards, and Angela Rippon.

However, none of these is true, so here’s the reality: we’ve been busy.

Springing into Action

May is the month when we prepare our outdoor spaces for summer: dragging the outdoor furniture from its winter storage, doing any necessary repairs, cleaning the terracotta-tiled terraces, and that most time-consuming of tasks . . . weeding. Into the mix this year we also added some external wall-painting and interior ceiling-painting. And, in case we weren’t quite busy enough, I found myself writing a large amount of copy for the magazine for which I work as a freelance writer.

May is also the month when my father and his younger brother (my Uncle Ray) always come to stay for their spring holiday. This year we had an added treat: my brother, his wife, my three nieces and two boyfriends (my nieces’, not my brother’s!) decided to holiday here at the same time. Our little finca certainly couldn’t accommodate everyone, so brother rented a nearby finca for his family and we all got together, here and there, to enjoy ourselves over the course of a ten-day period. Blog? At midnight, I was just too tired to fire up the computer.

A Romantic Taste of Rural Mallorcan Life

A finca life can involve a lot of work – as you’ve probably gathered if you’ve read some of my previous 90 posts – but it also offers the chance to escape the stresses of daily urban living. If you’d like a taste of this Mallorcan rural life – without the maintenance and financial upkeep – check out the lovely place my brother and his wife rented for their holiday, by Googling ‘Ses Pedres, Manacor’ (or check it out on TripAdvisor).

Ses Pedres

Apart from being in a lovely rural location (yet still very convenient for Manacor and the beaches of the east coast), the owners were charming – supplying fresh eggs from their chickens, citrus fruits from the land, and even a home-made sobrasada (the Mallorcan cured pork delicacy – presumably made from a previous finca resident). And to add to the enjoyment, the extensive land around the finca was home to chickens, a young Mallorcan black pig and a Menorcan breed of horse.

Could be tempted to book a holiday there ourselves – if only we had the time …

Jan Edwards Copyright2013