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! :)