Staff Reporter
By Charlie Mullins
AS my many friends in Spain and the UK know, as well as a load of haters in the UK, I’m now living permanently at my villa in Puerto Banus.
I love it here and after nine-months as a resident I can’t think of a good reason why I didn’t make the move a decade ago.
There’s a lot of misinformation kicking about in the UK about how I’m a tax-exile, but as anyone with half a brain knows the Spanish are very skilled at coming up with ways to squeeze a few more Euros out of their own citizens and particularly us expats.
I’ve paid a load in tax over the years, and with Labour running the show I decided enough was enough, and they won’t be getting any more of my cash to waste on hotels for illegal immigrants and crazy schemes for minorities, while taxing working people and businesses to death.
That was the final straw, and now I’m here the world is a much better place.
I’ve had a villa in Spain for 20 years, and I can’t understand why it took so long to wise-up and trade the traffic and noise of London for a sandy beach and the sound of waves.
It occurred to me soon after upping sticks and leaving Blighty that I had more friends here than I did in the place I’d called ‘home’ for 70 odd years… and a bit more thinking about this fact with a drink beside my pool, and it became obvious why.
It’s that life isn’t just about surviving here, fighting for every scrap of anything you want and then fighting some more to somehow hang on to it.
It’s the attitude of people; in London if you try to start a conversation with a stranger in the street or on a train, they think you’re a nutter or about to rob them.
Just the other day I was walking up a steep hill near my villa where there was an elderly lady struggling her way up in front of me.
I didn’t want to startle her when I caught up with her, so I mumbled something about the bastard hill as I approached. Ten minutes later we were still chatting.
That’s a very simple example, but for me it makes it crystal clear how the pace and quality of life on the costas is a better place for humans to live and enjoy life.
It’s like the environment turns people into better versions of themselves, or maybe it’s just that all the decent, nicer people relocated here in the first place.
Just having the time to go off for a beer or a coffee with people you bump into makes living a real pleasure. I love it!
And it’s not like I miss my family in the UK since I can get back in a few hours, and they keep turning up on my doorstep and taking over the place.
I said when I left that I wouldn’t return to the UK until these Labour imbeciles get thrown out of office, but as I approach my one-year anniversary I’m starting to think even a sensible party in charge might not lure me back.
Charlie Mullins OBE is a British businessman. He is the founder of Pimlico Plumbers, London’s largest independent plumbing company, which he sold in 2021
Charlie Mullins I agree with you completely.