When things break.

We have been very fortunate that the majority of things we have bought while in Spain have not gone wrong but occasionally, it is necessary to return things or exchange things and this can be quite an effort.

We did have to take the cement mixer back to have a new motor fitted after only 3 months, which was a fairly easy transaction although it did mean 2 trips to Almeria which was 4 hours travelling in total.

At the beginning of the year, when we finally had a telephone line connected via the satellite, we decided we would treat ourselves to a new phone for the house. We had been using one we brought from the UK and the display didn't work properly and sometimes it was difficult to see who you were actually dialling.

We thought we'd get a really good one with an answer machine and a second cordless handset so that we could have one in the study and another in the lounge, 2 rooms at opposite ends of the house which would hopefully mean we would hear it ring no matter where we were. Also, the cordless one can be taken outside where we hope to spend a lot of our summer hours, if summer ever decides to start this year!

Within a month of buying the phone the cordless unit became faulty. At first we though it was a problem with the rechargeable batteries but after a few days it became obvious it was a little bit more than that. We were outside the 21 days return to store policy so I e-mailed the company to start the process of getting it changed.

This is where living in the middle of no-where becomes a bit of a problem. After a few conversations I finally got them to understand it was not just the batteries that needed changing, we had already tried a second set and had the same problem. They would send a courrier with a replacement cordless phone. I told them they would need to contact me in advance so that I could arrange to meet them and I waited for the call.

In Spain nothing happens immediately, so I waited...... generously, for 2 weeks.

Nothing.

I sent a quick e-mail to see what was happening only to find......

I had to start the whole process again.

To be fair, this time it has all happened much quicker and less than a week after giving them all the details again, I had a call from the courrier to say he had a parcel for me. I rang him back to arrange collection and this afternoon I have collected a complete new phone system, not just a replacement for the faulty bit. Maybe they thought this was easier than to find they had changed one bit and we still had a problem.

Once again, I am so pleased I chose to take time to learn the language to a level where I can sort things like this out by phone. I cannot imagine how people manage that cannot speak a bit of Spanish.

All I need to do now is try and remember how to program the phone numbers in and set the answer machine - after all, the manual is in Spanish - I'm getting very good at translation exercises.