There are literally thousands of other Brits out here. If I were you I\'d avoid the South of Alicante, especially Torrevieja. It\'s not a nice area at all with a high crime rate and I\'ve friends there who are desparate to sell but it\'s hard to resell property there.
I\'m in North Alicante which has fewer Brits (with the exception of Javea). You won\'t need to worry about an expat network as such as it\'s harder to meet actual Spanish people than it is other Brits.
I have two nieces in school here. One\'s 6 and at Spanish school and she loves it. She\'s picking up the language really well and isn\'t having any problems. The other was 14 when she arrived so she\'s at the International School so she can continue with her GCSE\'s.
I can\'t say there\'s anything I especially miss other than the convenience of living somewhere like England. It\'s harder to get things done here. There\'s a long siesta everyday so you have to be a lot more organised. There are things that get on my nerves like power outages happening for no apparent reason, but that may be because I live in a smaller area that isn\'t as organised.
There is A LOT of crime all over the place especially with burglaries. Touch wood I\'ve been lucky but I even had the stones from my garden path taken last night.
The cost of living is lower apart from electricity which is really expensive. My last bill was 300 Eurs for a 6 week period.
I think it\'s a great place for kids to grow up and it can be a wonderful way of life. The climate is fab, by and large the people are lovely and it\'s a lot of fun.[addsig]
