We've received our first Christmas cards from the UK.

The weeks are just passing so quickly at the moment that Christmas is likely to arrive and we’ll have no idea where December went.

The utility room is on its final stages – having the floor tiles laid. The washing machine is moving around the room at the moment, not because the spin cycle is too aggressive but because we need to tile underneath it and so we have to keep moving it from an area that needs doing to an area that’s been done. It’s not the lightest of objects to move but it does seem to be co-operating.

After waiting a few more days for the internet people to contact us, I finally spoke to someone at Head Office who informed me they we waiting for me to pay the Pro-Forma invoice. What Pro-Forma invoice?

Apparently when I completed the application form on-line it SHOULD have automatically sent me one to pay – but it hadn’t so Andrea, who speaks pretty good English e-mailed another one which I received late Friday. This needed paying at the bank and as soon as they had received the monies they would send out the equipment.

Only one problem that led to further delays – it had to be the Bank of Santander and they weren’t open on Saturday morning and then we have had 2 Bank Holidays together – Mon & Tues. So, I went in to pay it this morning.

Now, the Bank of Santander is not a small provincial bank, infact from bits I have reading the papers and seen on the TV news it’s actually faired quite well through the recession and is one of the more successful banks so imagine my surprise when I passed over the ‘factura’ for payment along with my debit card, only to be told I can’t use my debit card as they don’t have a swipe machine! I would need to take the cash out of the cash point and the go back into the bank to pay it.

Now, I may be a little sceptical on this BUT the cash points at the Santander Bank are one of the few that charge me for withdrawing cash – mmmmm!?

So, I walked around the corner to us another bank’s cash machine who don’t charge me, withdrew the money and then went back to pay the invoice.

I then phoned the internet people to let them know I had paid the bill so that they can send the equipment to the installer and maybe, just maybe we can get connected up next week! Oh, I do hope so!

Last week I went for my first Spanish class here. There were 3 of us in the class but I think I may be more advanced than the others and so does the teacher, so I’m going to keep to this class until Christmas and see how it goes and if necessary I’ll swap in the New Year. I also found out that each Friday night there is a conversation class in one of the bars on town, which is run by someone from the local Language School. Both Spanish and English people attend and they match an English bod with a Spanish bod and you speak English for half an hour and then Spanish for half an hour. Some times they may put you in groups of 4, 2 English and 2 Spanish – so that is definitely one for me to go to. The classes are free – you just buy a drink!

I couldn’t go last week – I just couldn’t miss the final of I’m a Celebrity, but I have no such excuse this week so I may summon up the courage and make an appearance.

I’m not going to make any comment this week about writing my next post from home as I do not wish to tempt fate!

While I was in town this morning I checked for post at the Post Office and we have received our first 2 Christmas cards with letters in them and it was really nice to get them. For my relatives who aren’t on the internet I always do a long catch up of what’s happened during the year and include a few photos because they can’t keep reading about things on my blog and it’s always lovely to receive letters back. I really like going to get my post rather than it dropping through the post box, I can pick it up and then go and get a coffee while I read what’s arrived – it’s a lovely way to pass half an hour.