A new life in Andalucía

Many happy returns - to the bathroom

Back in November, two months after we had arrived here in the Alpujarras, we set off on the first of many trips to explore other, lower areas within Andalucía,  to where we might relocate.  This first jaunt led us into the western Granada province and we combined it with a trip to the bodyshop near the capital where our car was to be repaired.  Picking up a hire car turned out to be a bit of a farce though.  We met the insurance broker from Bérchules - who, during the week, lives and works near the bodyshop - when we dropped off our car.  The idea was that he should take us into Granada where we would pick up the hire car.  When he arrived, it soon became obvious though that we couldn´t simply load our luggage into his vehicle and jump in ourselves.  Why not?  Well, it would have been a bit cramped, as the good man had turned up in a Smart car.  To cut a long story slightly short, this is what we did: insurance man and I got into Smart car and went to his house where I had coffee and chatted to his wife.  Insurance man then drove back to bodyshop where he picked up Ian and together they drove into Granada to pick up hire car; they then drove back to insurance man´s house in convoy, I got into hire car with Ian, we returned to bodyshop where we loaded luggage into hire car and finally set off on our journey.  Phew! 

It was raining and after dark when we arrived at the B&B we had booked in a place called Loja (well, there wouldn´t have been much to see had it still been daylight to be honest).  We received a very warm welcome (the only thing about the place which was warm) from the owners and were duly shown to our room on the first floor.  The proprietor sheepishly informed us that, unfortunately, all (both!) en suite rooms had already been occupied and therefore we would have to use the bathroom one flight of stairs up from our bedroom.  Would that be ok?  We´d have it to ourselves and it would only be for one night.  The next day, there would be an en suite room available.  Not really wanting to venture out in search of another B&B, we had little option but to agree and so we settled into our room. It was absolutely freezing in there.  Luckily, there was an electric heater but the entire room only had one socket.  Slight problem here - we needed three: one for the heater, one for the bedside table lamp and one for my mobile phone which had run out of juice.  Tricky.  The solution: the heater gave out a warm glow, so the light wasn´t really required (the disadvantage was that the bright light kept me awake half the night), so we only needed one more socket for the mobile phone charger.  It occurred to us there might be one in the bathroom, so we skipped up the stairs (to keep warm) to check it out.  Well, I’ve seen big bathrooms in my life but this one was ginormous.  There was a toilet and a washbasin at one end of the room and – after a 2-minute walk as it seemed – you arrived at a corner bath at the other end of the room.  There wasn´t a socket in sight and – what was worse – no form of heating in there either.  It was so icy that I simply wasn´t brave enough to get into the bath and risk hypothermia or frostbite, so I settled for a quick cat lick instead.  Not nice. 

The next day after breakfast, we stepped outside the front door, feeling grubby and cold but soon thawed out as it was much warmer outdoors than it had been inside.  We met up with an estate agent, with whom we had been in email contact, who showed us a house which she thought might be suitable.  Well, she obviously didn´t know us very well.  The house which belonged to a dear old lady who had lived there for nearly forty years, consisted of lots of poky rooms, one leading into the next.  Yet again, no form of heating visible throughout the entire house.  Just how do they cope in winter?  The place had been ´modernised´ at some point in as much as that it did have a kitchen and bathroom - the only snag being that to get to these from the main part of the house, which contained the lounge and master bedroom, you first had to venture outside and cross the courtyard.  Can you imagine? “Darling, you´ve got your shoes and coat on.  Are you off somewhere nice?”  “Oh, not really, I´m just on my way to the kitchen to put the kettle on.  Fancy a cuppa?  Damn, I think it´s raining.  Now where´s the brolly when you need it?”  Well, we couldn´t, so we soon said our goodbyes.  Sure, the house could have been altered so the layout would have been much more practical but with the asking price already matching the top end of our budget, major structural work was a definite no no.  Besides, we didn´t really like the area.  Most of the villages seemed fairly new and didn´t have any character.  The churches looked as if they had been built from preformed concrete slabs bolted together and the streets were wide, straight and lined with grotty bars.  Not for us.  One more night in the freezer, then we´d move on.  Looking forward to our en suite room, we couldn´t wait to inspect the bathroom.  Although it wasn´t as huge as the one on the top floor we´d been schlepping up to the previous night, it was still bigger than the actual bedroom.  Hmm.  Craving a shower more than anything in the world, Ian got ready to launch himself into the cubicle.  There followed a succession of mumbled expletives, taps were turned on and off again for a while and finally Ian reappeared to declare there was no hot water.  As there was nobody about to complain to, I contented myself with yet another cat lick whereas Ian steadfastly refused to get dressed without having had a proper hot shower.  He stayed in his dressing gown until the owners got home some hours later.  Needless to say, Mr B&B didn´t manage to reinstate the hot water either but promised to get it fixed the very next day which of course was of no help to us whatsoever.  Even though our host was very apologetic about the problems we had encountered, he didn´t feel sufficiently sorry for us to reduce our bill and charged us the full whack.  We left Loja the next day, hoping never to return.

Heading down south, we passed through some pleasant countryside and stopped off in beautiful Antequera on the way.  It really is an interesting place and our spirits rose a little.  Things were looking up.  Surely, the second half of the trip would be much better, compensating us fully for the mediocre first half?  Little did we know.  We headed for a place called Álora where we intended to spend one night only.  The following day was Ian´s birthday and the plan was to stay somewhere near Málaga and book into a swish hotel, have a lavish meal and forget the past few days.  We found a hostal which had rooms available and the nice man behind the reception desk willingly handed us a bunch of keys when we asked if we could take a look at the room before committing ourselves to spending  a night there.  We galloped upstairs and frantically turned on all the taps to check if there was any hot water (once bitten…).  If anyone could have seen us, they would have declared us totally bonkers.  Hot water seemed to be flowing freely, so back downstairs in the lobby, we gave reception man the nod and went in search of a bar to quench our thirst.  Much to our astonishment, the guy behind the bar refused to serve us.  “¡Ya son la´ tre´!” (It´s three o´clock!) he barked in an Andalucian accent.  Well, I can honestly say that has never happened to us before in Spain – most unusual.  We were beginning to dislike this place.  We  managed to find another bar which was open and, feeling peckish, we ordered a portion of meatballs (a bit cold in the middle but quite tasty nevertheless) which we washed down with a couple of cold beers.  Back in the hostal, after a siesta, more swearing in the shower ensued – the water was actually much too hot this time.  Only a trick (lift the shower lever halfway up rather than all the way, then turn the cold water on first and ever so gradually add the hot water) prevented us from scalding ourselves.  We did have a very pleasant evening though and found a nice restaurant where we dined on pâté and fish.  After coffee and brandy in a bar next to our hostal, we fell into bed contentedly, looking forward to what the next day would bring. Unfortunately, we didn´t have to wait very long to find out what that would be.

The day started unexpectedly early – at 4:30 am to be precise.  I´ll deal with the events of that day fairly briefly because the memory is still far too painful.  Ian and I both ended up suffering the most awful bout of food poisoning you can possibly imagine.  At about 10am the next morning, after we had taken it in turns to visit the bathroom on an increasingly frequent basis, lying on our beds half-dead and groaning, we decided that in order to have only the faintest chance of driving back to Granada the following day (Málaga by now a forgotten dream) to pick up our car and return to the Alpujarras, we would definitely need the helping hand of a doctor.  We were in no fit state to get ourselves to the nearest surgery, so with great difficulty Ian dragged himself downstairs to reception, phoned the local medical centre and eventually succeeded in talking them into sending a doctor out to us.  Only a few minutes later not one, not two but three medics came to our aid.  After a thorough examination, an injection in the bum and a prescription for what seemed like half the stock of a large pharmacy, they left again as quickly as they had appeared telling us to eat cooked carrots, rice and fish.  Apart from the fact that we felt sick merely thinking about food, not a very practical suggestion for somebody who was stuck in a simple little hostal.  Ah well, I suppose they had meant well.  The valient birthday boy eventually managed to pluck up the courage to totter to the nearest pharmacy to get our medication which enabled us to set off back home the following day after a day spent in the room with only the sweet music of a pneumatic drill rising from the street below for entertainment.  We were quite shaky for several days and it took us about a week to get over it fully. I can honestly say that I have never felt worse in my entire life. Was it the meatballs (the likeliest culprit in my opinion), the pâté or the fish? – we´ll never know for sure.

Luckily, nothing went wrong as far as the car was concerned: it was not only ready in time on Friday afternoon, as promised but also sparkling clean and looking as good as new.  Well, I suppose we did deserve some luck after all we had endured.   

¡Adiós!

Siesta time for the giant in Antequera

posted by A new life in Andalucía with 0 Comments

Some do not like it hot

When we arrived here in the Alpujarras with a car full of our most treasured belongings but no furniture of course (this is still stored in a friend´s barn in Norfolk - at least we hope it is, as I haven´t heard from him for ages), one of the first things we bought was a standard lamp, a computer desk and two folding chairs.  The folding chairs play a very important role in our daily life: they are taken out on a fairly regular basis (unless it´s cloudy or rainy but that, thankfully,  is a rare occurrence here in southern Spain), plonked in the garden and we then sit on them for some considerable time, mainly reading (sometimes writing) and sipping mugs of tea or coffee.  We do love the sun and when our landlady comes into the garden to repot plants, hack down bushes or water the lettuce, we often wonder what exactly she makes of it – us sunning ourselves in T-shirt and shorts, slapping on the factor 15 whilst she is rummaging and busily accomplishing tasks, wearing a thick jumper, cardigan and long trousers.  The Spaniards here are not keen on the sun and they avoid it whenever they can.  They would certainly never be caught basking in it like we do.  If Spanish people go out for a drink in a bar, they will either sit indoors or outside in the shade, happy to leave the sunny spots to the foreigners.  We have passed and admired many roof terraces on our walks through the village - beautifully tiled, quiet, tucked-away spaces with colourful plants and gorgeous views across the valley.  You will never see people sitting out on these roof terraces though; their sole purpose being to provide a place to dry the washing. 

Fair enough - people are not all sun worshippers - but there is one thing that I will never understand about Spanish people.  Living in a hot country, you´d think that they would feel the cold easily; however, when it´s winter time, they hardly use any heating at all and are mightily surprised that they seem to get one cold after the other.  Most Spaniards simply wrap up warm and then either move about constantly, accomplishing household chores, or they sit around a so-called mesa camilla.  This is a round wooden table with a shelf at the bottom that houses a heating device.  In the good old days this used to be a round, cast iron receptacle containing glowing coals: nowadays, the modern equivalent is an electric version that contains water which is heated up when the device is plugged in.  The table is covered with a thick and very long table cloth, reaching right down to the floor.  The idea is that you lift the cloth and stick your legs underneath it as closely to the heat source as you can possibly bear.  This results in people nearly burning their tootsies to a crisp whilst their entire upper bodies remain frozen.  Great idea. 

When we moved into our apartment in Bérchules we had four different forms of heating available to us.  The first one was the said mesa camilla which we have in fact never used .  The second one was an open fire-place.  To make a real fire seemed a great idea at the time – very authentic, rustic and a tad romantic too.  The novelty soon wore off though.  The wood required was heavy and therefore it was a pain to carry it from the car to the flat.  We also noticed that you could easily go through an entire crate of firewood in one night, which made this option quite costly too.   The other disadvantage was that the room would be filled with thick smoke within a matter of minutes.  If you didn´t want to feel like a kipper and in order to let the smoke escape, you had no choice but to open the window which somehow defeated the object.  The third means to warm up was a gas heater which ran off a butane gas bottle which only costs 12 euros, lasts for ages and is delivered to your door by dumper truck.  Quite cost-effective and hassle-free - but very stinky.  The final heating device was a little electric oil-filled radiator which was great.  We liked it so much that we bought three more.  Every time we had bought another one (for the modest sum of about 40 euros) and lugged it up the road to the flat, our landlady´s daughter would give us a bemused look and ask: ¿Otro radiador?  (Another radiator?).  Yeah well, … 

We might live in southern Spain but we also live at an altitude of 1300m, so it does get cold in the winter.  When our parents came to visit for Christmas and the New Year, we had several radiators going 24 : 7.  Ian´s Dad is 85 years old and we weren´t exactly going to make him wear the entire contents of his suitcase and either park him next to the mesa camilla or make him mop the kitchen floor to work up a sweat. 

As a consequence, we had been preparing ourselves mentally for a bit of a shock as to the size of the ´lecky bill for November and December, convinced it would be the biggest bill ever issued in Bérchules or maybe even within the entire Alpujarras.  A few weeks later, on a fine day in January, our landlady´s daughter stepped into the garden (where, of course,  we were sitting in the sunshine at the time), waving the dreaded electricity bill over her head and finally thrusting it into my hands.  My eyes bulged when I spotted the amount we owed.  To my great surprise it was nowhere near as high as we had anticipated but a modest 75 euros – yet another reason to live in Spain: the cost of living here is so much lower compared to the UK.  What were all these people on about, saying electricity in Spain was as expensive as back in England, if not more so?  Rubbish.  We paid the bill and over the next few days related the story to a fair few people.  “Are you sure it wasn´t an estimated bill?”, asked a fellow villager.  Absolutely no way as I had seen the meter reader with my own eyes a few days before the bill arrived – so there! 

We were quite blasé when the next bill arrived last week.  Without ageing relatives in the house and with long spells of hot and sunny weather in January and February, we hadn´t really used the radiators a great deal, so we didn´t flinch at the sight of the landlady´s daughter approaching us, Chamberlain-like, with paper in hand.  We weren´t even alarmed when she asked if we had used a lot more electricity over the last two months.  What was she talking about?  We´d used a lot less, consequently the bill would probably be minute.  How wrong we were.  The amount was 335 euros and a few cents.  Yes, you have read correctly.  This caused quite a stir as neither our landlady, nor her daughter, nor any of the neighbours had ever seen a bill for that amount.  “No es posible!”, they squawked excitedly, all convinced that the meter reader had made a huge mistake when he came to read our meter.  Our landlady told us to leave it with her and she subsequently phoned the electricity board several times (I´m glad I wasn´t the hapless person who happened to answer her call) with the result that another meter reader was sent out the very next day to verify the last reading.  The good news was that, yes indeed, the meter reader had made a mistake.  The bad news was that he had made the mistake on the first bill which should have been much, much higher than it actually had been.  The second reading turned out to be correct.  Compensating for the kilowatts that had not been charged, they had simply ´whacked up´ the second bill.  Ouch.  Our lovely landlady must have felt really sorry for us as she ended up giving us lunch that day, presumably so that we didn´t have any further expenses. 

That night in the Posada bar, however, we compared bills with other villagers and guess what?  Two bills were actually higher than ours (both for English residents it has to be said) which made me feel a whole lot better.  The electricity companies really must love Brits abroad.

Ah well, I´d better finish this blog now.  I need to throw on an extra fleece and I have a kitchen floor to mop.

Warm wishes.

A cat in the doghouse

The Monday after our personal injury and car damage weekend (see previous blog), Ian was out in the garden hanging up some washing whilst I was inside, speaking to my Dad on the phone, sorting out boring car insurance stuff.  Both Jasmine and Grace, our cats who a few weeks prior had been flown into Granada (costing us an absolute fortune but what the heck – the little darlings are worth every penny as the following story will prove), were out in the garden with him.  We never worry too much about Jasmine´s whereabouts as she usually just plonks herself somewhere in the garden where she can still be found some considerable time later, unless she gets fed up, in which case she simply trots back indoors, usually to curl up somewhere and sleep for several hours (I definitely want to be a cat in my next life).  Grace is a different kettle of fish though.  Back in England, we used to spend many hours frantically searching for her,  eventually finding her in various locations: fast asleep in the neighbour´s barn, under bushes, in the utility room sink, under the bed, trapped in between some wire fencing to name but a few of her favourite hidey holes. 

The instruction with which I released Ian and the cats into the garden was therefore to keep an eye on Grace – admittedly a bit difficult if you are putting washing out on the line. 

The inevitable happened – of course.  I finished my phonecall and when I went back out into the garden, I was far from surprised  to see Jasmine sniffing around some rusty buckets whilst the ever elusive Grace had fully lived up to her reputation in as much as she was nowhere to be seen.  Ian reassured me she had been scratching at a tree trunk only 2 seconds prior.  The tree indeed showed signs of cat claws but there was no sign of Grace. 

There ensued about an hour-long search within the confines of the small garden and even our landlady got involved, starting to hack down several flowers and bushes to ensure the cat was not hiding underneath the foliage (she probably would have been chopped to bits if she had).  In the meantime, our landlady´s daughter was running up and down the street, stopping people at random and asking them if they had seen a black cat  which was  gordito (very fat), as she charmingly put it.  I was too worried to sulk.  Some time later, whilst walking through the garden rustling a bag of cat treats, I suddenly became aware of a faint miaowing sound which I followed until I stood in front of a window, obscured by iron bars, which belonged to a derelict house bordering onto our little garden.  I looked through the window and there she was – my Grace, looking at me with her big amber eyes which said “Get me out of here.”  I am not entirely sure how exactly she had managed to get into the house but as it no doubt had involved some scary neck-breaking scramble along a narrow ledge above a steep drop down into an alleyway which runs in between the garden and the village church, I preferred not to think about it.  One thing became evident straight away though: she might have managed to find her way into the house but I knew for sure she wouldn´t be able to get back out again on her own – I do know my daft cat after all.

First off, Ian and I tried to open up the window further by digging the iron bars out of their cement foundation (Ian had gone up to a friend´s building site to borrow some tools).  We then pushed a long piece of wood, which we found in our landlady´s shed, through the window, so Grace could climb up it and out of the window to freedom.  The angle of the very narrow piece of wood was far too steep and yet again I knew that she would never make it.  There was only one solution to our (or rather Grace´s) problem – we had to enter the house through the main door which unfortunately was securely locked.  We asked  around the village to ascertain if anybody knew of the whereabouts of the owner but it soon became apparent that the latter had not been seen in the village for several years and it was generally assumed that the good man had passed away some time ago.  This meant we had no choice but to break down the door.

A short while later Ian, crowbar in hand, took a swing at the door but the old thing wasn´t having any of it and put up a rather brave fight.  By now there was quite a crowd of villagers gathered around to watch the show.  Of course they found all this fairly intriguing and displayed a great deal of interest in what was going on (without any doubt mainly because they were keen to take a look inside the long- sealed property rather than being seriously worried about the well-being of our idiotic cat).

The door finally capitulated and Ian found himself inside the house where a scene of true chaos presented itself.  Parts of the ceiling had come down and fallen into one of the downstairs rooms, consequently fridge, chairs and other household items were balancing precariously on top of one another.  While Ian was still trying to take in the devastation inside the house, our darling Grace came trotting down the crumbling stairs with cobwebs stuck to her ears and tail and gave him a look as if to say: “About bloody time.”

Ian grabbed the cat, called me to come and get her (I was at the time still standing by the little window in case she had decided to make an appearance there after all), so I started running down the street and arrived just in time…  in order to witness how Grace jumped out of Ian´s arms.  The group of onlookers had been surrounding Ian and cat and, in true Spanish fashion, everybody was squawking loudly which obviously got a bit too much for our little escape artist.  She legged it back into the house of horrors and disappeared into the room which I described earlier (the one where the ceiling was threatening to crash down onto the floor together with various items of the inventory) - definitely a no-go area.

Calls, promises of cat treats by rustling of goodie bag did not achieve anything.  The cat didn´t fancy making a reappearance.  We became more and more suspicious that the cat was treating this as some sort of game.  Well, if she was, we surely didn´t want to play anymore.  It was absolutely freezing in the house and quite frankly we´d had enough.  What now?  For a second or two I toyed with the idea of simply leaving her to her own fate in there.  But what if the ceiling came down and the fridge fell on top of her?  Ian and I went to get some folding chairs, hot tea and warm coats and were fully intending to sit there and wait until the cat felt inclined to reappear.  Maybe if we stopped chasing her, she´d eventually get bored and would resurface?

We would have probably been sitting there for a long, long time if it hadn´t been for a young neighbour of ours who passed by, asked why we were camping outside an abandoned house (yes, we did feel pretty silly by this stage), simply walked into the house, climbed over tumbled down ceiling beams into the room where our darling cat was hiding, grabbed the fugitive and handed her to me.  Of course we did try to stop the young girl from entering the room but she was very determined and our protest useless.  I stuffed Grace into the cat carrier which I had brought down with me and only just prevented yet another attempt to escape.  Now I was getting cross.  I lugged the weighty container back up the road (not an easy task with a ´fat´ cat trapped inside, it has to be said) and finally back home.  The first thing Grace did upon arrival was to polish off all biscuits in the dish after which she deposited some very smelly nuggets in the litter tray.  Having accomplished that, she jumped up onto the sofa, had a good wash and then curled up to catch up on her beauty sleep. Not a miaow of thanks, no apology – nothing.  Ungrateful critter.

Needless to say, we were not amused and very cross with Grace for at least 23 minutes or so.  This little incident had cost us over 4 hours and we weren´t exactly looking forward to finding out how much it would cost us to get a carpenter to fix the door we had hacked to pieces.  It actually didn´t cost us a cent, would you believe?  We´d asked a friend who knew somebody whose cousin´s fiancée´s brother-in-law was a carpenter and he promised to sort it.  Needless to say, this never happened even though we kept nagging the friend every now and then.  We had already given up when several weeks later, on our way to the supermarket, we noticed the door had been secured again.  Somebody had smeared plaster all around the door frame in which they had embedded several iron bars criss-crossing the door for extra security.  A neat job it wasn´t but effective at keeping out unwanted visitors, no doubt.  Should Grace decide she fancies another adventure in the house, we certainly won´t be able to free her again, that´s for sure.

¡´sta logo!

Grace looking as if butter wouldn´t melt

Nicky did not have much to drink but the car gets smashed

When we moved out of our little casita at  El Cercado after a month, shifting our belongings to the flat in Bérchules proved a bit tricky to say the least.  We first persisted in taking our fairly large car as close to the front door as possible and as a result nearly burned out the clutch.  As there was nowhere to turn the vehicle around in the narrow and steep backstreets (which, of course, had never been built with cars in mind), we had no option but to back the car out again (a  difficult and lengthy procedure, observed by several bemused villagers, one of whom asked if we were lost).  In addition to moving our stuff out, we cleaned the casita from top to bottom, ensuring we left the place as spick and span as we had found it.  It was an exhausting day and we were very touched, and grateful, when Laura and her husband Salvador, who run El Cercado, presented us with a lovely surprise as our leaving gift: they invited us to stay in the luxurious honeymoon suite, complete with big jacuzzi and – how thoughtful – even a bottle of bubbly nicely chilling in the fridge.  Throughout the day we had worked up a healthy appetite and after all that pampering in de luxe surroundings, we felt like treating ourselves to a lavish meal in the evening but – alas – Laura and family had decided to close the restaurant that night.  They asked us to join them for a meal out at the burger bar down in Cádiar where we ´feasted´ on greasy burgers and chips, looking into one another´s blue-tinted faces and shouting at the top of our voices over the loud music throbbing out of the fridge-sized speakers.  An evening of contrasts, one might say.

About two weeks later, Ian, myself and a couple we had befriended went to a cena de la castaña (a supper celebrating the chestnut harvest) at one of the restaurants in Bérchules.  We had lots to eat and even managed a few roasted chestnuts washed down with some anis dulce (a sweet aniseed-flavoured liquor), despite having vowed never to let another chestnut pass our lips, at least not that winter.  We had had an absolute bellyfull of the, initially, lovely things after collecting two rucksacks full during one of our mountain walks.  I roasted some (we still have several kilos remaining) and subsequently puréed them to make a delicious if rich soup. It had also become something of an early Saturday evening ritual for our landlady to roast vast amounts over a big fire in the back garden.  Along with other relatives and neighbours we were invited to join the peeling committee.  The deal was that you could eat as many as you liked as long as you kept on peeling the chestnuts which would be frozen and eaten at Christmas.  The novelty eventually wore off though and we soon concentrated on the peeling rather than the scoffing part. 

Anyway, back to the cena: nicely replete (more with food than with alcohol I´d like to point out at this stage), we found ourselves walking home, accompanied by our friend Juan who was taking his dogs out for pre-bedtime walkies.  We stopped to look at a refurbished village house in the street above.  To be able to take it in properly, I took a step back but, unfortunately, where I tried to put my foot  there was no road but a dark void.  I tumbled down a vertical drop of several feet and would have continued falling, down another level into a field, if our friend hadn´t grabbed my arm which did cause a big bruise to appear the following day but luckily prevented any serious injury.  The first thing I noticed was that I had lost one of my rings (luckily, Ian managed to find it the next day); the second thing was that, in trying to cushion my fall with my arms and hands, I had landed on my little finger which was now very sore and swollen.  My ankle, too, was throbbing.  Fortunately, I had been wearing boots, otherwise I might well have broken my ankle.  Supported by Ian, I hobbled home and back inside our own four walls, as the shock wore off, I had a little cry because I really was in considerable pain. (My finger still troubled me months later.) Ouch.

The next morning, after an interrupted night´s sleep, I installed myself on the sofa, drugged up to the eyeballs with painkillers, book and TV / DVD remote control in hand and cat on lap.  Ian was out and about and when he popped in briefly to grab the car keys, mumbling something incomprehensible, I barely glanced up.  He was back only a few minutes later and, with a fairly serious expression on his face, announced that he had some bad news.  Not more bad news, please ….  Overnight, somebody had smashed into our car which had been parked in the church square but instead of leaving a note, the culprit had simply left a badly-dented tailgate and a shattered rear windscreen for us to sort out.  In situations like these, you need a friend and luckily we had one in Juan (my guardian angel the previous evening) who really was a great help.  He went to the guardia civil (civil police) with Ian where they reported the damage and an official statement was taken.  He also let us use his garage until the damage had been repaired, so the car was out of harm´s way and safe in case of a downpour (rare here but with our recent track record of bad luck a sensible safety precaution).  The entire village was quite shocked that something like that could happen in quaint and friendly little Bérchules.  We did start to wonder if somebody somewhere was trying to tell us something.  (“This is a local square  for local people……  .”)  Various rumours as to the identity of the culprit started circulating and everybody we spoke to was pretty convinced it was a certain dumper truck driver who apparently had a history of carelessly ploughing into any vehicle standing in his way.  “Oh yes, this has happened before.  You should never park THERE.”  (It would have been helpful if we´d been warned about this maniac before he made a mess of our car.)  Of course we couldn´t prove anything; there were no witnesses, so we didn´t really have a leg to stand on – in my case, not for the first time.

A local insurance broker recommended a bodyshop near Granada which we duly contacted for an estimate.  The paperwork was sent off to the insurance company in Germany (where the car had been bought and insured) and they authorised us to go ahead with the repairs.  As paint codes seem to be non-existent  in this part of Spain and as we did not really want to find our car with a non-matching tailgate (you can just see it happening though, can´t you?), we had no choice but to embark on a 90-minute drive to the bodyshop (inhaling diesel fumes through the open space where the rear windscreen had once been), simply so they could ascertain the exact shade of paint that was required to spray the new door. And then, home again.  A funny thing happened on our way to the bodyshop though.  We´d left the motorway making our way to our destination even though we weren´t 100% sure where exactly we were going, when we noticed a man in the car behind, wildly gesticulating at us for no apparent reason.  (Surely he wasn´t trying to draw our attention to the fact that our rear windscreen had fallen out?)  We decided it was probably safer to pull up at the side of the road and let this obviously deranged person get past.  He subsequently overtook us, but still waving his arms about as if to say “Follow me.”  A thought occurred to me: “Might it be somebody from the bodyshop who is trying to show us the way?”  My husband looked at me as if I were as mad as the man in the car but nevertheless decided to follow him and, lo and behold, the ´maniac´ led us promptly to where we needed to go.  It turned out that he really was from the bodyshop.  Even though Granada is a big place, I suppose that at any given moment there aren´t that many German-reg. silver Nissan X-Trails driving about with a smashed rear end, so he had guessed where we were heading.

We were car-less for several weeks and started feeling a tad trapped in the village to say the least.  Having to walk everywhere really brought to light yet another problem we were faced with – Ian and the extreme altitude simply didn´t get on. (Bérchules claims to be the third highest village in Spain, situated at some 1300m above sea level.)  As a consequence, we started thinking more and more that we might just have to relocate to another, lower, area within Andalucía.  Eventually, after about two weeks of waiting, we were told we could take the car to the bodyshop where the repairs would take about five days (originally we had been told that they could do it while we waited but - surprise, surprise - this wasn´t possible after all).  We combined the drive to Granada with a trip (in a hire car) to explore the western Granada province which was an absolute disaster; that tale will be told some other time.

On the whole, señor dumper caused us a lot of hassle in terms of wasted time and money.  The insurance company deducted a hefty excess fee and didn´t even pay for the hire car.  Needless to say, our lesson learned, we have since been very careful where we park our car.  Spaces are at a premium in this small village and if you don´t want your car to be damaged by a dumper truck nor used as a public toilet by the local pigeons, the options are somewhat limited.  We´ve managed to discover a safer spot in the upper village square with very little passing traffic, which we now refer to as position A. If I told you that we are sometimes reluctant to go anywhere by car for fear of losing our favourite parking place, would you shake your head in disbelief and mumble ´Sad people!´?  Right, I´d better not tell you then.

Hasta pronto. 

Our car after its encounter with a dumper truck

Spain - nil points

On Saturday evening, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering husband, I watched a show on TVE1 intriguingly entitled ´Salvemos Eurovisión´ (Let´s save the Eurovision  Song Contest).  The programme was scheduled to begin at 10:30 PM and in true Spanish fashion, started about fifteen minutes late.  Well, what a show – I am only just getting over what I saw and heard.  Even if you have no interest in the Eurovision song contest whatsoever, please do read on.  I am sure you won´t regret it.

The show´s aim was to select, from 10 hopefuls, the winner to represent Spain at this year´s Eurovision Song Contest which will be staged in Belgrade this May.  An ageing bottle-blonde Italian singer was given the dubious honour of compèring the programme.  After just a few minutes into the show, she remarked on how quiet the live audience was, only to reveal throughout the programme that she simply could not cope with any audience participation, shushing the crowd as soon as they made any sound.  Very strange.  She wasn´t too familiar with the script of the show either, as she had already said bye bye to the first artiste  (a very pretty girl with a very ugly voice), when she seemed to remember that she was supposed to chat to the singer after the performance and ask the expert jury for their comments.  So pretty girl was dragged back on stage.  Now then, the ´expert´ jury!  This was a mixed bunch of alleged professionals from the music industry which consisted of the following: an extremely camp chap who kept referring to his husband, an 8 foot singer/actress with very big hands, an even bigger mouth and a deep voice (looked like Pete Burns before the 23^rd cosmetic surgery operation), a singer who had obviously had an accident with her bottle of body glitter as she was absolutely caked in the stuff and … hhmmm, don´t remember the others, so they must have been pretty unspectacular.  Unlike ´say-it-like-it-is´ Simon Cowell (“This was probably the worst song I have ever heard in my entire life.”) this jury was invariably flattering and even if there wasn´t anything positive to be said about the song, they would comment on how wonderful people´s outfits were – how civilised. 

Most performances were pretty diabolical really and left me sniggering, staring at the television screen with my mouth wide open, shaking my head in disbelief and bursting into tears - of laughter.  If these were indeed the 10 best songs, I´d hate to hear the ones which didn´t make it to the final.  Most of the so-called singers  performed their songs in a mish mash of Spanish and English.  The problem was, though, that I could not understand very much at all of the so-called English lyrics.  Surely if somebody is singing: “Do you wanna garden?  Do you wanna chair?  Do you wanna table?”, I must be hearing something wrong, no?  Maybe not.  Halfway through the performances, a skinny chap with a beard, wearing big fake glasses and an Elvis wig came onto the stage, a toy guitar dangling from his neck.  He was flanked by two very strange-looking women.  I got up to put the kettle on, as I thought it was a little comedy break but  - alas, no -  specky Elvis was one of the performers.  The song was called ´Baila el chiki chiki´ (Dance the chiki chiki) and included a rather strange little dance routine, including amongst others el Breikindance (breakdance) and el Maiquelyason which, believe it or not, actually means ´the Michael Jackson´ and obviously refers to his moon dance.  The audience went mad and I had a strange presentiment as to what was going to happen. 

My personal favourite was sung by a guy, by the name of Guille Milkyway (?!), who appeared on stage wearing what looked like a huge astronaut´s helmet with a dark visor which he kept on (visor down) throughout the performance.  When he joined the presenter and jury to chew the fat, he took the helmet off – big mistake.  The only other song I liked was performed by a 20-year old youth who I suppose was quite cute if you´re into that ´spiky, greasy hair and pierced facial bits´ look.  His song was a catchy little number called ´Un Olé´, possibly not the most profound song lyrics ever written but it had me humming along to the melody after only a few seconds (I´m easily pleased.). 

The last performer was a classically voice-trained beauty who sang as if she had a hot potato stuck in her throat which she was desperately trying to dislodge by belting out her song.  The presenter, obviously at a loss for something kind to say afterwards, reassured her that she was certain she had a great career ahead of her (yeah, as a town crier, maybe).

After all ten songs were endured, our presenter treated the audience to a little song and dance of her own during which she made very strange jerky head movements (looked painful) which at the end of the performance left her with a very messy head of tangled blond locks. 

Only in Spain can a programme like this be dragged out for over three hours – madre mía.  The moment of truth finally arrived and the presenter (by now sporting a nicely straightened blond mane yet again) read the results and hey, guess what … the guy with the Elvis wig, who calls himself Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, won.  This has caused quite a stir within the country, apparently, as many people say that, having voted for this song, Spain proves to have a sense of humour but others think it´ll make Spain look ridiculous in the eyes of Europe.  I have had lengthy discussions with some of my neighbours, with the guy who runs one of the local supermarkets and even with our elderly landlady about this song.  (I guess there isn´t that much to do at night time in sleepy Bérchules; everybody seems to have watched the programme and nobody had a problem admitting it.)  It tickled me when our landlady went on about how Rodolfo wasn´t even a singer but a comedian and, not originating from Spain, how he couldn´t really speak Spanish properly.  Ian actually had to translate her rantings for me because I really struggle to understand her strong Alpujarran accent.  (The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind here.)  I don´t know what to think.  I find the whole thing embarrassing more than anything and not really that funny.  The song is tedious and plain daft but judge for yourself, why don´t you?; and watch the video.  (You´ll find it on You Tube or myspace.com for example).  I think it´s only fair if I send an email to Sir Terry Wogan warning him of the things that´ll be coming his way soon.  He´ll need a fair amount of strong hooch to sit through the chiki chiki song without asking himself what the buffalo he´s doing still bothering with the Eurovision. 

There is one good thing about the song though – it only lasts 1 minute and 20 seconds.

What with a fake Elvis singing for Spain and a turkey (how appropriate) performing for Ireland, it looks as if we´re in for an interesting Eurovision Song Contest this year.  I think I might be busy washing my hair that evening.

¡Hasta pronto!

Rodolfo Chikilicuatre

House-hunting

When we first arrived in the Alpujarras for our Easter break last year, we went out and about with a couple of estate agents who showed us a range of houses, some more in need of modernisation than others (the others actually needed pulling down and rebuilding).  We gave them a brief, so they would have a clear idea of what exactly we were after, i.e. a detached property with a sizeable piece of land in the countryside and ideally on the outskirts of a village.  Consequently, when the first house we were taken to was a tall and narrow village house, hemmed in on all sides by other houses and when we asked why the current owners were selling, the estate agent duly replied: ”Oh, Jenny wants a garden.”  …………Ah!  I suppose we should have turned around there and then but our English politeness (plus the fact we were dependent on the estate agent for transport) made us go along with the viewing and for the next hour and a half we were entertained by Jenny who, rather than simply showing us the house as it was then, couldn´t resist recalling just how ghastly it had been before they refurbished it.  “See that there? Well, afore we sorted it out,  it … were…. crap!”  Desperate to find anything complimentary to say, we remarked on how beautiful one of the terraces was, only to be told that it didn´t actually belong to the house but to the next door neighbour.  (“But she never uses it, so it´s all right.”) The experience wasn´t without its funny side, however: you could almost see the estate agent´s toes curling under in mortification. Vendor from hell?

Another time, we were packed into the BMW of a Spanish estate agent´s daughter´s boyfriend (are you following?) and the daughter, a very pleasant young girl, fresh out of college, whisked us off to see some properties she was sure we would looooooove. Whizzing through the drab and dusty outskirts of an industrial town, we passed a big building.  “What does matadero mean?”  I asked innocently.  Reluctantly, my husband told me that it meant slaughter house but the estate agent´s daughter was keen to reassure me that it was no longer used as such (surprisingly, she didn´t try to flog it to us).  Having finally arrived at what looked like the local tip, EAD (estate agent´s daughter) parked the Beamer and led us up a narrow, unmade track.  “Of course, you´d have to put in a road”, she chirped.  “If you get together with the neighbours, they might share the cost.” Yeah – right. The house, more or less a  ruin, and ridiculously expensive to boot, was - to use Jenny´s words  … crap. Wedged against the bottom of a high cliff which prevented it from enjoying any daylight, let alone sunshine, it was horrible and we should have just legged it but – of course – we didn´t.  Ian made a sardonic remark about the fact that the cliff had been prettily decorated with the name of one Manolo.  Far from voicing any criticism, EAD proudly announced that the perpetrator was, in fact, a friend of hers. Hmm!  She was doing her utmost to sell the house to us nevertheless: “It could be great.  See this bit of land over there, leading past the house?  Well,  they are building a new major road through here soon, so the access, if you´re thinking of a hospitality business, would be superb.  And see that great big building over there, on the hill?  That´s going to be the new slaughter house.”  Enough already.

They say you have to kiss many frogs before your prince comes along and I think the same applies to houses.  Eventually, the day before we were due to fly back to the UK - it was a rainy day and we had nearly cancelled our appointment with the estate agent because we were sick to death of looking at hovels where you felt like wiping your feet on the way out - we were introduced to ´our prince´.  There it was: the perfect house for us and it just felt right from the minute we walked through the door.  Now, if you have read my first blog ´The story so far´ you will know that this is not, in fact, leading to the ending ´… and they lived happily ever after.´  Far from it.  Even though we had our offer accepted and indeed once back in England informed our respective employers of our intentions to leave, someone somewhere obviously thought that we hadn´t had our fair share of frogs and the news that the vendors had changed their mind about selling came like a bolt from the blue. The sensible ones amongst you might say that we were stupid to act so rashly in the first place and yes, maybe you´re right, but sometimes the spontaneous act is irresistible – you only live once (unless you´re a cat of course).  If we have learned anything from this episode (and I´m pleased to say that we have), it is that we would never again commit ourselves to buying a house in an unfamiliar area until we´ve lived there for a significant period of time to get a taste of what day-to-day life is like. This is probably the best piece of advice we could ever give to anyone thinking of emigrating: find yourself a place to rent first and if you still like living in the area after several months, then and only then look for a property to buy.  It´s amazing what a difference there is between actually living somewhere permanently and merely visiting for a short holiday.  If the house purchase hadn´t fallen through, we would now be stuck with a property to sell, as it only took us a few months to discover that for various reasons, the area simply wasn´t for us (the main reason being my husband struggling to cope with the extreme altitude).  I really do believe that things happen for a reason and it now seems that we had a lucky escape.

We returned to the Alpujarras in May (originally we had booked this trip to sign the contract for the house purchase), having decided to keep on house-hunting even though we had no great hopes of stumbling across a second dream house.  This time we found ourselves in the clutches of yet another estate agent who was car-less at the time of our visit and asked us if we´d mind using our hire car to view a house which was tucked away high up in the mountains.  We had no major objections as such but did express our concern as to the suitability of a Ford Focus to negotiate the inevitably steep and bumpy track leading up to the house.  This to us seemed a justified query especially as the property details, the agent had already printed out for us, contained her own recommendation that a 4 x 4 vehicle would be required to tackle the track.  “Oh yes - but only in the winter months, really.  At this time of the year it´s no problem to get up there in a normal car.”  We believed her – foolishly as it turned out.  The arrangement was to meet up just outside the El Cercado holiday complex where we were staying for the second time.  She had told us she would happily walk down from her office but at the arranged time was nowhere to be seen.  We drove up the road, fully expecting to meet her at some point but - still no sign of her.  It was only when we finally arrived at her office that we spotted her, locking up and on the brink of leaving.  She would have been at least 20 minutes late, so you can imagine that we weren´t too impressed from the start.  We were even less impressed when she opened the car door and asked if we´d mind if her dog joined us too.  Er …… it was a hire car after all and we were quite keen to return it without muddy footprints and hairs on the upholstery.  She assured us he was a very well-behaved dog and so the four of us set off on a little adventure we would not forget for quite some time. 

When we left the main road to wind our way up the mountain track, we soon wished we´d never agreed to this ridiculous venture.  The track was narrow, steep and large potholes made it very bumpy indeed.  Ian is undeniably a confident driver and he is quite patient (with other people – not with me) but he went really quiet and I could see steam coming out of his ears – he was furious.  The rough grass and weeds growing in the middle of the track did their utmost to scratch the underside whilst overhanging bushes and trees did their bit to scrape the sides of the car.  The track was so steep that the engine howled for mercy and even though I was slightly distracted as the dog kept looking over, and dribbling on, my right shoulder, I undid my seatbelt and placed my hand on the door in readiness to jump out.  The drive was turning into a nightmare and our by now very sombre mood wasn´t exactly improved when the estate agent reminded us that it was only a hire car after all.  The track seemed endless and when we finally got to the house, Ian was muttering imprecations through clenched teeth and I had a serious chat with my knees instructing them to stop shaking.  Our companion jumped out of the car with the words: “Oh dear.  Bad start.  Clients not happy.”  Well, she was right there.  The house wasn´t bad and enjoyed gorgeous views; the English lady who owned it was delightful but the place just wasn´t for us for a whole host of reasons apart from the horrendous access.  The drive down seemed a bit easier but Ian took it very, very steadily and nearly wore out the brakes.  You won´t be surprised to hear that this was the last time we spent any significant time in this estate agent´s company. Or her dog´s.

When we came out to Andalucía for good in September last year, we knew we had to find ourselves a bigger place to rent within the space of a month (the cats were due to arrive at Granada airport in mid October). This, thankfully, turned out to be a lot easier than our previous efforts to find a home.  Even though we viewed a few places with estate agents, the house we found, where we are still living at the moment, was advertised by the owner on signs stuck here and there throughout the village of Bérchules.  On an outing to the village with our friend Laura from El Cercado who had taken us under her wing when we first arrived, seeing herself as our ´agent´ trying to fix us up with accommodation, jobs etc, we stumbled across one of the signs.  We were directed to ask for more information at the local tobacconist (which is in fact the Aladdin´s cave I referred to in my first blog) and it turned out that the lady serving behind the counter was herself the owner of the house.  She showed us around the place chatting constantly and repeating “Aquí hay de todo.”  (“You´ve got everything here.“) over and over again whilst proudly showing us microwave, ironing board and iron, washing machine, crockery, cutlery, bedding and much, much more.  We asked if she minded cats (which luckily she didn´t), agreed to rent this 3-bedroom flat which is the recently refurbished ground floor of a substantial village house and has a little vegetable garden at the back (perfect for our moggies, so we thought), set a date for the move, asked if our landlady wanted a deposit (she didn´t) and were pleasantly surprised when she told us what the monthly rental would be.  When we finally move out in April to rent a country house in the Málaga province, we will have been here nearly six months.  Our stay has been highly enjoyable, more often than not, and I´ll tell you more about it in my next blogs.

Me voy.

A walk cut short

The first few weeks of our new life in Spain felt very much like a holiday, especially the first month during our stay in our little casita in the El Cercado holiday complex.  There was a lovely big pool but even though the weather was still very hot and summery in mid September, the pool itself was freezing cold.   Ian was very brave and went for one, albeit very brief, swim whilst I contented myself with dipping my feet into the kiddies´ paddling pool until my toes went completely numb after about five minutes or so. 

Two weeks into our stay we had a particularly fraught morning which was taken up with numerous phonecalls to banks back in the UK, trying to get them to transfer some money into our newly opened local Spanish bank account.  Even though the flash Sales Manager who had visited us in our home in England shortly before we left the country had assured us that  he would only ever be a ´phone call away and transactions would be simplicity itself, we found the reality was somewhat different. What a nightmare.

To wind down, we decided to go for a country walk above the village of Bérchules which took us along the acequias (narrow man-made channels which are constructed for irrigation purposes) right into the mountains.  Ian, as per usual, was leading the way when suddenly he got his foot caught under a tree root and tripped.  Frantically trying (and failing) to regain his balance, he held out both arms to cushion the impact as he fell into the mercifully dry acequia bordered by – alas – some very sharp-edged slabs of slate.  Seeing him fall from a safe distance and not being able to do anything to help was frustrating and scary at the same time; normally, if somebody topples over, it´s me.  I rushed to the scene of the accident and it soon became evident that Ian would live (thankfully he hadn´t landed on his head). However, he had suffered several injuries, some more serious than others.  Now, I´ll have you know that I am a fairly recently fully-fledged first aider (a 4 day course – don´t remind me of the ´blood day´) and so theoretically I should have had no problem in mastering the situation.  I duly surveyed the damage and decided that my husband´s injuries to his hand and knee looked sore but did not need immediate attention, unlike the injury to his lower arm … oh my God.  The piece of slate had neatly cut through several layers of skin, leaving a sizeable gaping wound and … oh yes … there was lots of blood.  I found a tissue with which I covered the cut and instructed him to hold his arm up (well remembered or what?).  We eventually controlled the bleeding and, despite being in some discomfort, Ian bravely headed the return journey back to civilisation and the nearest open medical centre.  The way back took us quite some time as you may expect.  This, however, was nothing to do with Ian´s painful injuries but with the first aider´s inability to cope with the sight of blood.  I had to crouch down every few seconds to do some heavy breathing and stop myself from fainting.  It was touch and go for a while whether I would make it but I finally managed to pull myself together and eventually we got back to the car. 

I drove us back to El Cercado where I sprinted down to the casita to get Ian´s EHIC card, his passport, some antiseptic wipes, more tissues, a bottle of water and a clean pair of shorts to replace the ones covered in blood from the gashed knee.  We drove to the nearest village with a 24-hour clinic catering for emergencies.  When we arrived the place looked closed but luckily it wasn´t and we soon found ourselves face to face with a grumpy-looking guy who demanded to see Ian´s EHIC card.  Whilst he made a note of the card number and our current, albeit temporary, address, Ian (who continued to be a brave little soldier) spotted a poster on the wall which made him go slightly weak in his badly grazed knees.  The poster helpfully gave detailed advice on “How to prepare yourself for an amputation”. Good job I hadn´t spotted it as I would have probably fainted.  After only a few minutes Ian was introduced to a very pleasant male nurse who took him into a treatment room whilst I was left pacing the corridor outside.  I wasn´t really expecting to hear Ian sobbing or screaming but I was in fact bracing myself for maybe a few muffled ouches or at least some mumbled swearwords – but nothing.  All I could hear was that the two men were having a fairly animated conversation which couldn´t have been about any serious matters as their chat was interspersed with the occasional laughter.  It didn´t take long for Ian to resurface with a neat bandage around his lower arm and a cleaned up knee and palm.  He informed me that he had had four stitches all of which had been inserted without anaesthetic (I had to sit down).  Apparently he was given the choice to have his arm numbed but was advised that, due to having to wait for the anaesthetic to take effect, it would be a lot easier to simply go for it fully ´sober´. 

On the whole, we were in and out of the clinic within less than half an hour.  Somehow you can´t see the same happening at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, can you?  We were very impressed, not only with the emergency treatment Ian received on the day of the accident but also with the after-care.  He was asked to appear to at least two or three more check ups and was even given a syringe (with needle) which contained a fluid to disinfect the wound, so he wouldn´t have to go to the pharmacy and buy an entire bottle of it.  “Just don´t inject the liquid”, warned the nurse kindly when handing over the syringe. 

Hasta pronto and mind how you go when out for a walk!

 Acequia along the Junta de los ríos walk near Bérchules

The things we miss

Yesterday we took our friend Clive, who had been over from England to visit us for the past week, to Granada airport to catch his plane home. We had had a lovely time together; the weather had been mostly glorious and we introduced Clive to the area by going on lots of wonderful mountain walks. (Even though I wondered at times just how much of his surroundings our friend managed to take in as he tended to race ahead, sprinting up the steep tracks as if he were competing in some sort of race.)  Having such a good mate to stay with us for a while really brought it home to us just how much we miss the friends we left behind when we moved to Spain last year. 

It is true to say, nevertheless, that we actually miss precious little else from our former life. Thanks to modern technology and the equivalent of Broadband (something we didn´t have in Norfolk due to the weak signal in the area where we lived), we can listen to Terry Wogan and Ken Bruce whilst we have our tea and toast in the morning.  A friend, who lives in a nearby village which is big enough to have a newsagent selling English papers, buys the Observer for us on Sundays on her way to open the bar La Posada in one of the village squares. We read it over coffee, sitting outside in the hot sunshine (it´s hell – believe me).

I mentioned tea earlier.  Now, this is something we would miss (Spanish tea is nothing to write home about and unless you are happy to limit yourself to drinking herbal tea, you´ll probably switch to drinking the excellent Spanish coffee instead) were it not for the various supermarkets catering for the Brits who inhabit Spain in large numbers. There are shops called Arkwrights, Britbits and Talk of the Town which stock everything ranging from Ambrosia custard to Zip firelighters.  I´m not entirely sure whether this is a good thing or not although I must confess that a few days ago I got rather excited about a jar of Branston pickle which I rescued from the supermarket shelf where it was gathering dust.

So as you can see, there is hardly anything we have to go without.  However, we do not have access to English television at the moment, although this will change when we move into ´our´ new house in April, as there is a satellite dish installed there.  I have to confess that I do miss English TV - especially Coronation Street.  (I know that it´s possible to watch previous episodes via the internet but unfortunately, this service is not available to internet users outside the UK yet, due to some baffling rights issue.)  I miss it not just because Spanish TV is dire (so is English television if we´re honest.)  Truth to be told, Spaniards are very much into their soaps, reality TV, quiz and talkshows, DIY programmes - and so are not that different from English viewers.  It has to be said, though, that Spanish telly is a lot wackier.  I have yet to see an English quizmaster make contestants do press-ups after a series of correctly answered questions or shave off their hair as part of the prize for having won the competition. (Fringe benefits?) The main reason I miss English telly is because I can understand it much more easily. It´s very frustrating for me to see an entire studio audience in stitches whilst I´m frantically looking up unknown vocabulary in the dictionary.

So, if anything, it´s the ease of communicating I miss. I hate it if I can´t follow a conversation between two local women sitting in the hairdresser´s and I feel more than inadequate if all I can master is a general comment about the weather when ´chatting´ to our landlady.  In my defence I have to say that I do speak Spanish (I often wonder why some people move to a foreign country without first learning at least the basics of the language) but the accent in this remote part of the country is so strong that even my husband, who is fluent in Spanish, finds it a challenge to understand the locals.

On the whole, what I genuinely miss are not really things at all – it´s family and friends. People in whose company you feel so at ease that you berate them if they either put too much or too little ice in your g&t, people with whom you can be yourself, who share your sense of humour and who know you almost better than you know yourself. 

Here´s to friends and family.

¡Hasta la próxima!  :)