Caroline and Gary Cole from Chippenham in Wiltshire have nine children between them and dream of getting everyone together in a house in Spain. They went out to film in Spain in February 2022 looking for a three-bedroom property with a pool with a budget of £150,000 in the areas around Valencia city. The show concluded with them having an offer of £148,000 accepted for property number five, and some happy tears …
Caroline and Gary were blown away by just how much house they could afford. The property in Pedrabla northwest of Valencia city has four bedrooms, a games room, a bar. It came fully furnished and the couple completed on the purchase in May 2022. You can find five-bedroom properties listed there for around the same budget as shown on the show last year.
“Actually the purchase process was quite straightforward, although we discovered that there were two other sets of buyers in the background that we had only narrowly beaten into having an offer accepted,” says Caroline, 59, who is an Evri courier. “One of them had been due to fly out but hadn’t got their Covid jabs.”
The couple spent a fortnight out at their new property, fixing it up a little, tidying up the garden then getting to enjoy it. “The Belgian vendors left everything – even glasses in the kitchen,” she says. “”it was very clear that the husband clearly didn’t want to sell, but his wife did.”
They plan to spruce up the outside a bit and paint around the pool. It needed a good clean when they finally completed the sale. Caroline sounds disappointed they haven’t managed to spend more time out at their new home – they’ve only been out once since that first fortnight and haven’t really had a chance to explore the area yet.
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She had never visited Pedralba before the filming. They’ve also not made use of ‘Den’s Bar’ – the little shack that sits by the pool, complete with bar stool. “My brother used to run a catering company and had a Den’s Diner,” she says.
“We’ve had some family health matters to deal with,” she says in explanation. “But I really hope that we can all gather together there as a family before too long – there are no more trips planned as yet.” Gary, 67, is part retired from his job as a lorry driver – he’s working one or two days a week.
Going on the show she says was fun, she says. As an avid watcher of the TV show she applied without thinking too much about it and couldn’t believe it when they got the phone call. “The crew was lovely and Jasmine too. We definitely wouldn’t have ended up going to buy the place if we hadn’t of gone on the show.” It indeed seems hard to imagine that they would have done so with so much to deal with back home, but hopefully they will get to make the most of it soon.
