Joanna Vanbergen likes Spain but the reality of endless days with nothing to do has made her regret leaving the UK and she is now desperate to return
A grandmother who left the UK for Spain has revealed she now regrets the move and wants to return home as the reality of a new life abroad is “boring” with “nothing to do.”
Joanna Vanbergen, 68, and her husband James were living in Tunbridge Wells, but moved to Estepona in the Costa del Sol two-and-a-half years ago.
Ms Vanbergen explained to The i Paper that her family had owned property in the Spanish town since 1966 and she knew the place as well as she did her home in the UK and had always wondered what it would be like to retire there.
“When I was 10, my sister who is 20 years older than me bought a flat out here so my family began coming here a lot,” she said. “Then my father bought a place here too and then myself and my husband bought a flat out here as a holiday home.
“We then swapped the flat for the bungalow we are living in now and we have been coming out here a lot on holidays.”
Whiile Joanna Vanbergen enjoyed visiting Spain, retiring there has been a different matter
When living in the UK, Ms Vanbergen says she would buy and sell vintage clothes and bric a brac on a self employed basis and describes herself as a “Del Boy type of character”, while her husband ran a garage door company.
The couple decided to retire to Spain as her husband wanted to give up work as he was finding physical work more difficult and Ms Vanbergen said they had always wondered what it would be like living in Spain, rather than just holidaying there.
“I knew the place as well as I knew home so we just wanted to see what it would be like to actually live here,” she said. “Then a woman said she wanted to rent our home in the UK so we decided to bite the bullet and applied for a visa to go and live in Spain.”
While Ms Vanbergen’s husband is happy out in Spain and content with his new life, she herself is bored and wants to return to the UK.
She is in Spain on a non-lucrative visa, which means she cannot work out there. Although she could apply to work self employed in Spain, she explains the system means the expenses are so great, you have to earn a lot of money to make it worthwhile. “I don’t want to be doing that at my age – I just want to dabble.
“Basically, if I worked in Spain, I would have to earn £1,000 a month if I worked self employed just to cover the bills of it. But in England, you can just do a little bit of work if you want.”
Instead, Ms Vanbergen, who has two sons and three grandchildren, says she faces endless days of boredom and not knowing what to do to fill her time.
Even though she likes Spain and is living in a lovely two-bedroom bungalow with an enclosed garden and a swimming pool, she says she cannot bear the thought of waking up each day and having nothing to do.
Joanna Vanbergen and her husband James live in a two-bedroom bungalow in Spain
“I’m not into gardening or home-making and I’m not really into leisure or going out for coffee mornings and lunch all the time or that sort of thing. I like to feel like I am achieving something each day,” she said.
“I wake up each morning and think: ‘What day is it? What shall I do today?’ Sometimes, the highlight is going out to post a letter.
“I still feel like a 30-year-old inside and I consider myself to be fairly intelligent and bright. I just can’t bear the thought of having nothing to do.
“Even though Spain is very pleasant, I am sitting here bored stiff with not enough to fill my days.”
When people live in Spain, they do not spend their time sunbathing, says Ms Vanbergen as it is completely different to a two-week holiday. “Everybody who lives here, they don’t sunbathe. I have some English friends out here and do a bit of charity work and whenever we go out anywhere together, we are always looking for the shade as it is too hot.”
Joanna Vanbergen’s home in Spain has a swimming pool
Ms Vanbergen longs to return to the UK and go back to buying and selling vintage clothes and items as she says that is like “breathing” to her and she loves the thrill of finding quality items to sell on. “The fun is in the finding and buying of things and I get such a buzz,” she said.
“I bought and sold vintage ladies clothes and handbags and bric a brac and I want to go back to living in the UK and doing that. I once bought two vases for three euros each in a charity shop and they would be worth about £600 in England. I just love the fun of it.”
As her tenant in the UK has given notice to leave, Ms Vanbergen feels it is the perfect time to become resident in the UK again. However, she says she and her husband are still in debate about it as he does not think they will be able to afford retirement without having a rental income.
Joanna Vanbergen longs to return to the UK and go back to the thrill of buying and selling vintage goods
“We are only on state pensions and are not rich people,” she said. “We have two homes which we own outright – our home in the UK and our home in Spain. But you can’t spend a brick so my husband doesn’t think we can afford to be retired in the UK.
“However, I am telling him that I can go back to earning some money so we will be alright.
“I just want to go back to the UK as I have realised that I need to work and enforced leisure is not my thing. For me, Spain is great for visiting, but not for living in.”