It started as a temporary experiment. Now Donald Trelford thinks Majorca will take over from London as his permanent home
It seemed like a bad omen. Just as the furniture vans arrived at our finca on a hillside overlooking the old town of Pollenca, the heavens opened in one of the fiercest rainstorms in the history of Majorca.
One year on, the outlook is much, much brighter. My wife and I have let our house in London for two years in an experiment to see if we want to make a permanent move to the island. Claire's family have had a casita in the nearby port, Puerto Pollenca, for many years and we had been using it seven or eight times a year.
It became a ritual to return to Islington from Luton airport on a Sunday evening, open the stack of mail, check telephone messages and ring friends and family. Then we'd look at each other and say: "Why don't we go back now?" At first it was a standing joke, then we thought, after a particularly awful English winter: why not? Parents are gone and children grown up.
The finca has four bedrooms, three terraces, a pool with orange trees, an orchard of fig, olive, pear and lemon trees, mountain views all round, and a field at the bottom to stop anyone building in front of us. The garden (8,000 square metres of it) glitters with bougainvillea, hibiscus, irises, roses and towering cactus plants.
We bought the house from a recently divorced German woman, who had converted it in 1995 and seemed desperate to sell. Many of her compatriots paid too much for property in northern Majorca in the 1990s while their economy was riding high before a fall.
We saw dozens up for sale - the good, the bad and the indescribably ugly - at inflated prices from one to two million euros. Between first seeing this one in February last year and buying in September, the price had fallen by nearly a quarter to about £500,000.
The old town of Pollenca is cosmopolitan, artistic, with respected music festivals. Nearby Alcudia is noticeably German, though there are more Britons in Puerto Pollenca. Generally speaking, the Germans are selling and the British are buying. Property in fashionable places like Andraix, Deya and Fornalutx are at a premium, though apartments can still be found in Puerto Pollenca for about £200, 000. Those with sea views cost at least twice as much.
Buying property in Spain can be a clandestine affair. Estate agents take a fixed commission of 5 per cent for doing not a lot. To minimise capital gains tax, many deals are in "black" and "white" money - the price on the deeds and the "real" price, which can be half as much again.
As a result, on the day of sale, furtive-looking buyers can be seen leaving banks carrying bags packed full of euro notes, which are then tipped out on a lawyer's table to be counted and hidden away before the notary enters to formalise the transaction at the lower price.
As we discovered, a sharp lawyer is essential. Ours, a real terrier, found that the pool and the top floor of the finca, where we have our own quarters, had been built illegally and never registered. Luckily, since this had happened more than seven years ago, the seller simply had to pay a fine and the additions could be entered in the deeds.
As well as Ana, the lawyer, we have acquired an Anglo-Spanish support team for maintaining the finca - Lorenzo looks after the pool, Tomeo the water, Steve the taps and drains, Mike the electrics, and various blokes arrive to cut the grass (I know, I know, I should be doing this myself).
We have found our own eclectic set of friends while steering clear of the "expat" community (charming people, I'm sure, but those cravats and blazers aren't really our style). We have also acquired two wild cats - Nelson, a one-eyed tabby, and a beautiful Siamese who arrived pathetically with a broken leg, whom we can't quite bring ourselves to call Lady Hamilton.
What do I do myself then, you might ask (a question my wife has been known to raise)? Well, I spend a good deal of time in my study, a converted garage, and venture out in early evening for planting and watering chores in the garden. As a journalist, I can work anywhere with broadband, mobile and Sky dish. I go to London every month for meetings and still get the odd overseas assignment.
A typical day starts with 10 lengths in the pool, then a glass of our own orange juice in front of the BBC eight o'clock news (an hour later in Majorca), a quick check on e-mails, then a 10-minute walk into town to buy the English papers (all available the same day) and a coffee in the square to read them and the redirected mail from our post box. It is oddly pleasing that the waiters now know our order without asking.
One of the many pleasures of living here is a relaxed feeling you get about space and time. In London I always feel harassed, exhausted simply by moving from one appointment to the next.
But here I can be back home by 11am and then make a leisurely decision on how to spend the rest of the day. Market days are key fixtures in the calendar - Wednesday in the port and Sunday in Pollenca, where you can sit in the square and watch the world and his partner go by.
We have both found it hard to shed an English Puritan guilt about simply lying by the pool and reading a book - though we're getting over it. This is easier when guests are staying.
We enjoy having visitors, mainly because we only invite people we like, but also because it keeps us in touch with UK gossip and allows us to enjoy the garden or show them the sights and the best walks and restaurants, many off the tourist track. But we've found that five nights are about enough for guests: after that you want your house back.
What do we miss? Not much. At first we missed pork pies, smoked fish, Brussels sprouts and decent raspberries. But for former "townies" we have become surprisingly self-sufficient, growing our own tomatoes, peppers and chillies and eating oranges, pears and figs from our own trees. We plan to harvest our own olives in November.
Language, I have to admit, is a problem. I don't have the gift of tongues and even when I try out some hesitant Spanish in an accent learnt from Michel Thomas tapes, the locals invariably reply in English.
It doesn't help that the Mallorquins have their own language, a branch of Catalan, which is as different from classic Castilian as Welsh is from English. We keep on trying, because it seems bad manners to live in somebody else's country and not attempt their language.
The Spanish, thank goodness, are friendly to foreigners, even when they wander around in sweaty, pot-bellied vests or (horror of horrors) no top at all.
The local fiestas, of which there are many, are put on with great gusto and a wholly uncynical relish for role-playing and dressing up, and are not seen by young men simply as an excuse to get drunk.
At the half-way mark in our experiment we feel fitter - swimming, tennis and walking, and there's a golf course five minutes away which I haven't yet got round to.
We are eating more healthily, with more fish, fruit and vegetables (drink is another matter: you can get a bottle of cava or a reasonable wine for less than £3 a bottle, which requires more discipline to resist than we are capable of). Living is certainly cheaper.
Then, crucially, there's the weather, which is superb from May to October, and the winters, of course, are much milder than Britain. This means fewer clothes - no ties, socks or jackets and often nothing at all in the summer, which liberates the soul.
It may be the sunshine, the mountain views, the big skies, the birdsong - or that relaxed sense of time and space - but we definitely enjoy a heightened sense of well-being that we didn't feel in London (which is, in any event, only two hours away). The experiment still has a year to run, but we think we know the outcome already.
Annabel Kantaria
Anna Nicholas
Stephen Clarke
Mark Johnson