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.