Today!

Today has been a long day.

Today we got an address for our post.

Today we got a key for our post box.

Today we tried to sign on the padron but they cannot find our house on the plans so we have to go back tomorrow to try again.

Today we went to get the rest of our kitchen - but they still didn't have it all in stock.

Today we went for our first McDonald's since moving to Spain.

Today we ended up in a bar for a drink with friends.

Today we achieved not a lot.

But.....

Today was a good day.

Ok, now seriously!

Because we will live in the middle of the countryside we decided it would be better to have a postbox at the Post Office so we drove to Velez Rubio to start our quest for the day. Sort out the post and register on the Padron (like signing on to the electoral register).

Velez is a beautiful town, has a massive church and lovely streets so we parked up and I stopped a woman who was cleaning her shop windows and asked for directions to the Post Office. The walk took us through the main square infront of the church, where the Town Hall is and so we knew where we needed to come back to when we started our Padron Quest.

The Post Office was quiet which made it so much simpler and within 10 minutes we had our key to our postbox and more importantly - a postal address!

First stage of our quest was achieved, onto part 2.

Registering on the Padron is important in Spain for a number of reasons. The local council obtains funding based on the numbers registered and you need your certificate for a variety of transactions, including buying a car - which is a story for another day.

The woman in the Town Hall took us through to her office and we sat down, armed with a folder full of paperwork. I put my handbag down on the floor at the side of me - and immediately she told me to pick it up, it is bad luck to put money on the floor! Ooops! Not a superstition I have heard of, need to Google it later.

I told her we had recently got the keys to our house and wanted to register on the Padron and handed her over the documents which detailed the location of the house and she tapped away on her computer, waited a moment and then shook her head - no property!

She asked us to follow her down the corridor deeper into the council offices and stopped at a range of large drawers from which she started to pull old, nay, ancient, fragile, sellotaped-together, frayed-at-the-edges plans of the area - looking for the one where our house should be shown.

Another lady joined us and after much searching we found the right plan, and after more searching seemed to identify our house.

Smiles on faces, we trotted back to the first office and she duly tapped away at the computer, waited ..... and shook her head. Whatever was on the plan wasn't in the computer.

By now a queue of several people had appeared and she asked if we would mind waiting while she made a few phone calls and dealt with some of the waiting people - we said not.

Several phone calls followed in which her priority question was 'Where is Juan?' No-one seemed to know.

As she dealt with the last couple in the queue she made another phone call, this time it started with, 'I have a problem with an English family, we can't find their house .....' and after a few minutes conversation suddenly passed the phone to me. Doh!

Without any idea who I would be talking to I took the phone, only to find someone on the other end who spoke English. She worked for the Tourist Office and explained that the first lady wanted to apologise for taking so long, to explain that they couldn't find the property on the computer and could we get a copy of a water bill and take it in tomorrow when Juan (the elusive) would be in. Juan reads the water meters and may be able to find the property based on that.

And did we have any neighbours who may be on the Padron,if we knew their name they may be able to find our property.

Thanking her, I said we could get a copy bill and return early tomorrow - and we left.

We called at our neighbours to ask if they had signed on the Padron, as they were having trouble finding our house. She said they had, but they had been unable to find their property too and eventually, the council officials just made something up, which wasn't right but got them their certificates.

I have a copy, but whether it will help is debatable.

We'll find out tomorrow when we meet Juan!