A trip to the cinema.

There are only a few things I miss now we live in the wilds of Spain, but I have to admit, when I see some of the adverts for new films being released, I do get a twinge of sadness that I can not go to the cinema here and understand a film.

Well, that has been remedied. We have joined a new film club that has started on the Rambla de Oria, which is about 45 minutes away from us. Last week we went to watch Sherlock Holmes and tomorrow night we are going to see Avatar.

Obviously the films are being shown as they are released on DVD, and we could buy them ourselves and watch them at home but it was a really great night out and only €2 each.

We knew roughly where the Rambla was as we had been to see a few houses there ourselves, when we were house hunting. Our instructions were to look for a house with a cream boulder next to a green bin, then turn right up the track to a large cortijo on the hill with a huge, tall pine tree at one corner. This is how it has to be when there are no road names (because there are no roads) and houses dotted about the hills. At least we have the benefit of a km marker on the tarmac road to work from.

They have converted a windowless room in their house into a bar area and have put in a large screen and good sound system. The room has a lovely wood fire in one corner and can hold about 20 people, so it's a really good sociable place.

We had a comfort break halfway through the film which gave us a chance to chat with some of the others there and it was a really good night, helped by the fact the Neil and I really enjoyed the film.

So, tomorrow we finally get to see Avatar on a large screen and with full sound effects, but not in 3D.

And I can have a glass of red wine while I'm watching it - can't be bad!

Satellite Panic.

Very often Neil phone's me when he reaches the golf course before he starts to play so last Wednesday I thought it rather odd that I hadn't heard from him. I picked the phone up to dial him, and found out why - we had no phone! I did the usual unplugging and re-plugging that normally works if the signal has dropped but nothing. I checked the internet and that wouldn't connect either. The skies were blue and cloud free so I couldn't believe it was weather related and so began a day of stress.

All the lights on the 2 modems were showing that connections were there but I couldn't get anything to work. I was due at my Spanish class at 10am so had to leave it all and hoped that it would be working OK when I got back.

When I reached the tarmac road my mobile beeped to say I has a message and it was Neil to say he had tried to ring the house and couldn't get through!

A couple of hours later I was back infront of the computer trying to work out what to do when I suddenly got a page open informing me that the company we had the internet through had had their licence to provide the service terminated! By now I had lost the light on the modem that told me I had a phone connection.

Great!

When I has been researching what was available to us for the internet and phone I had the choice of 2 companies that used the Astra satellite, that I wanted to use. One of these was better at responding to queries than the other and there was little difference in price so I went with Net2. Wrong choice.

The message was telling me that I could transfer my contract to the other company and they would have us up and running within 24 hours. With visions of being back to travelling to the tarmac road 2 or 3 times a day to pick up phone messages I decided that I would go for he transfer and hope for the best.

I popped up to our neighbours to ask if I could use their computer to sort it all out only to find I needed some code numbers off the back of our modems. After a quick trip back to the house I had all the information I needed and completed the transfer. All I coould do then was wait.

We were scheduled to go out that night and when we got back about 11.30pm I looked into the study just to see what lights were lit, when I realised the telephone light was back on. I pressed the handsfree button on the phone and sure enough, we had a dial tone again. A quick check on the computer confirmed we also had the internet link back.

12 hours from completing the transfer and we were operational again.

What a relief.

One more room, done.

It started as 4 white walls and a tiled floor.

It became a storage room for all the flat pack furniture for the kitchen and the bedrooms for a few weeks until we had built it all.

It became a storage room for all the golf gear and tool boxes for a few months until we had finished transforming the garage into a utility and store room.

Finally it has become the room it was always intended to be.

The Study.

I have a wonderful room with all my books around me. A room where I can listen to my music. A room where I can work on my Spanish homework. A room where I can spend time on the internet. I no longer have to sit amongst tool boxes, storage boxes or any other kind of boxes.

I have space.

There is a space chair so that if Neil wants to come and look at things on the internet with me, he can. More often than not there is one of the dogs on the spare chair, not Neil. Brandy loves to come and sit with me as I type away on the computer.

I look out of the window over the hot tub and down the valley. With the window open I can hear the various birds calling to each other.

It is a dream of a room in which to work.

It is another room - done.

It’s official. We are now residents of Spain.

The trip to Almeria went much smoother than I had anticipated. We arrived at the shopping centre to meet Charlotte who was going to be our interpreter for the day, and after a cup of coffee we headed for the bank to pay our €10 each for the paperwork to be receipted prior to going to the Office for Foreigners, ‘La Oficina de Extranjeros’ .

We had been to the office once before when we were applying for our NIE numbers, which is a number attached to you as an individual in the same way as the National Insurance numbers are in the UK. Normally anything we want to do, buy or transfer in Spain needs our NIE number which identifies us individually.

Our appointment was for 1.30pm and we duly arrived at the office at 1.20pm, paperwork receipted and completed in our hands.

Having gone through the security screening we moved to stand in line to get our allocation number because, even though we had an appointment, we still needed allocating to a specific desk. There are 2 desks to deal with the allocation and we were fortunate that there were only a couple of people ahead of us. As we were waiting we became aware that a couple at one of the desks were English and didn’t speak much Spanish but hadn’t taken anyone who could help them. They were wanting the paperwork so that they could buy a car. Car hire has got very expensive here in Spain, as indeed it has in the UK which we found out on our recent trip and so many Brits that travel to Spain often are now buying cars to use while they are here. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the right paperwork with them but they didn’t understand what the lady behind the desk was telling them. Charlotte tried to help while we were waiting our turn, and was still helping them when we got to the desk and received our number. By now a long queue was starting to form and we needed to go through to the next waiting room so we left them still trying to work out how to get the paperwork they needed. I was glad we had taken someone with us who was fluent in both English and Spanish just incase there were any problems.

Over recent years there has been an influx of Brits to Spain but during the recent recession and the poor exchange rate for the pound there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK. A massive indication of this was the number of Brits in the waiting room – there was only us. There must have been at least 100 people waiting and they all looked to be from North Africa. This was a big change from when we were there 3 years to get our NIE’s, how things have changed.

Right on time, our numbers appeared on the screen to go through to our desk. There were a couple of problems that needed explanation but Charlotte handled these easily for us and 10 minutes later we exited the building clutching our new green resident forms.

So, it’s official. We can legally stay in Spain. Job done!

Residencia

A big day tomorrow, we finally are going for our appointment in Almería for our residencia. We will formally be residents of Spain and not just long term visitors.

Technically we should have applied for this when we had been here for 6 months, but with such delays in getting addresses changed on things I wanted to wait until we had bought somewhere. Finally, we started the process 6 weeks ago by asking a local lady to make an appointment for us at the Office of Foreigners in Almería. The appointment can take anything from a week to 6 weeks to come through and ours has taken the full 6 weeks. I thought it would be quicker because I understood a lot of people were leaving Spain but apparently there must still be plenty coming in to Spain as well.

Having waited 6 weeks for an appointment to come through we were then only given 48 hours notice. The lady that was helping us e-mailed some details through and said she would ring to arrange to fill in the forms. Having waited for her call and not getting it, I rang her this morning only to find that her computer had crashed and she had lost all the data including our telephone numbers so she had been hoping I would call her.

So tomorrow morning, passports, NIE and Padrons in hand we are off to Almería for our appointment. We're hoping to change our Driver's Licences for Spanish ones as well tomorrow. The plastic card looks exactly the same except it is in Spanish instead of English.

Tomorrow could be a long day, doing most official things in Spain tends to take time. So,we have arranged for the dogs to be looked after as I doubt they would be able to cross their little legs long enough to wait for us to get back.

A weekly update

It always surprises me how quickly a week can pass when we don't actually seem to do much.

The sun has gone for now and we are living in a perpetual cloud. Damp and grey and not nice to work outside so the fence is not progressing much. Last night we lost satellite reception for the phone and internet until sometime in the early hours this morning so, the feeling of isolation was total. The clouds filled the valleys all around us and our only sense there were others out there were the distant barks of the dogs on the far hills, calling out to see if others were around. Even the birds and the frogs were quiet. Today is a little better, at least we can see 2 or 3 hills down the valley and the internet and phone are back.

But when we cannot work outside we can get on with inside jobs. I am now the proud owner of IKEA bookcases along one wall of the study and all the books, CD's and DVD's are finally out of the boxes they were packed in almost 2 years ago. This was triggered by the arrival of the Pratchett books from the UK. 56 in total, although there were several duplicates. I had to have somewhere to display these properly so it prompted a trip up to IKEA in Murcia.

Having built the bookcases and put them in place my first task was to sort all the Pratchetts into order - so that when I start to read them I don't skip any. That then led me on to arranging all my paperbacks into alphabetical order. I never know whether it is better to sort them by size or by author but the logical side of my brain says by author as that way, when I am looking for something I can find it easily. Plus, sometimes I like the random pattern this makes.

For the first time in many years I have room for all the old photo albums and it wasn't surprising that a task that should take about an hour ran into a couple of days because it was impossible for me not to start flicking through the old photos. Over the last few years all my photos have been downloaded on to the computer and not printed out and I do think in years to come I am going to miss sitting down among the albums and looking back at these recent years.

Maybe I should put an annual album together, just as a keepsake!

There are no flies on us!

On the long list we made of things to do to the house when we first saw it, fly screens were a must.

Neil will not tolerate flies in the house and gets very annoyed with them outside. In Terreros we also had problems with the Mossies twice a year, although we are led to understand it is less of a problem here. Although we are not close to any of the pig farms and don’t suffer from the smell, there are still plenty of flies to annoy us if we are outside and this can spoil a laze in the hot tub or a meal in the sun. So, as well as screens at the windows, we decided we would screen in the front porch.

Neil can see how things will look in his minds eye but I can’t and so I just thought it would be like sitting in a cage – but at least it would be a fly-free cage.

The screens were fitted to the windows before Christmas as these were a standard item but we have been waiting for the porch screens to be specially made and last week, they finally arrived to fit them. It was another of the ‘mujer de Nil’ phone calls.

They took a couple of days to fit them but within the first hour I could tell they were actually going to look a whole lot better than I thought. The window man & Neil had done a good job in the design and they look as if they should be there.

Of course it did leave us with a problem as far as the dogs were concerned, as normally we just left the door open for them during the day and hoped the door curtain would keep most of the flies out but we have taken the door curtain down as the screens will do a better job, but not if we leave the door open.

SO, we have had a dog flap put in, at the left side, and now we have the Old Dog, New Tricks scenario. Trust me, although this photo makes it look as if the doggie door isn't big enough for them to get through, it is and they can.

It would probably be easier to train one dog than two. At the moment, as soon as one of the dogs has gone through it (with me holding it open a little to give them a start) the other tries to follow immediately behind and instead of getting through without a problem, finds the flap swinging back into their face – so it puts them off trying again. One step forward, two backwards.

A lot of Choccie buttons and we are almost there with Brinkley. Brandy is going to take a little longer, I think he has just twigged that the longer it takes to learn how to do it himself, the more doggie chocs he gets!

26 holes dug, still a lot to do!

We haven’t been down to any more of the parades this weekend as we have been getting on with digging our holes and filling them in again, with cement. Unfortunately, after a day digging holes or lugging wheel barrows of cement down an incredibly steep slope we are too tired to get dressed for a night out.

This week we have managed to get both gates cemented in place and to get all the corner posts set with the supports. We have dug 26 holes, mixed several batches of cement and walked up and down the slopes more times than I care to remember. All I can say is my calf muscles are screaming at me and my bum should look good this summer!

This is the slope down to the double gate on the bottom level

And this gives you some idea how far below the level of the house, and the cement mixer, the gate is – but no, this isn’t the slope we carried it down, there is a longer but easier way down – honest. However, we are putting a 6 foot fence all the way down this slope to the gate – now, that should be REAL fun! A rope and a bucket of cement – now that conjures up the perfect scenario for something to go wrong. Needless to say, we are leaving that to the end of the fencing job.

This is the paddock area we are fencing in to keep the dogs safe, this is one level below the house and up at the far end is where the vegetable patch will be.

As we are working it’s difficult not to notice the lovely wild flowers that are starting to come through in the warm Spring sunshine. These are just a few photos I took while I was out walking the dogs around our land yesterday. I don’t know what any of them are, but they are really pretty.

It was getting late in the afternoon, about 7ish, when we walked and we seemed to be in Bunny rush hour as we walked through our Dingley Dell. Every step seemed to send another bunny scurrying from the undergrowth to its home.

I’m sure this is one of the Bunny entrances

Down here in Dingley Dell,

And here is one of the occupants, still on its way home but staying very still so as not to attract the attention of the dogs.

Oh, how love my dog walks!

Semana Santa

You would be forgiven for thinking this was yet another late Christmas post, but Santa in the case is not Santa Claus but is Spanish for Saint. This is Saint's week - Easter!

Easter is an important time in Spain and there are many processions over the whole weekend. During the last couple of weeks we noticed lots of balconies had hung fabric banners out – many of them were purple but there were a few green ones. Then I noticed that the lady on the cake shop had a small doll broach on which was also dressed in purple. We tried asking what the colours were all about and from what we could understand it’s seems to be about family ties.

So, we went down to watch the procession on Thursday night, hoping that it would be a little more impressive than the 3 Kings we went down for in January.

And we were not disappointed.

There were banners,

Marching bands,

There were grown ups

and children

And then there were huge floats that only just fitted down the narrow streets.

There were the cross carriers, some walking in bare feet over the cobbled streets and that big cross looked incredibly heavy as he lifted onto his shoulder.

This float was carried on the shoulders of about 50 men, who after carrying it out of the church

They then lifted it above their heads to rapturous applause of everyone watching.

They held it for about 30 seconds before lowering it back onto their shoulders.

The parade continued with the ladies dressed in their black finery with lace decked peinetas.

The whole parade took over an hour to pass and went all around the town. There were so many people there watching it and many who live in the town were out on their balconies. I wasn't sure whether this was to appreciate the parade or to make sure that the floats went past without takingthe balcony railings with them. It was absolutely fabulous to watch. It was wonderful to see whole families involved.

Afterwards we went into one of the local bars for a drink and some tapas and the whole place was buzzing, it’s the first time we have really seen the town alive after the winter has kept everyone in.

And for anyone wondering, the pointy hats that some were wearing date back to before the KKK started wearing them but I need to do some more research to find out their significance.

Saturday is the Burying of the Sardine, which I thought was always at the start of Lent but apparently can be at either end of Lent (see last years post) and on Sunday the is the procession for the Resurrection.

Photo Catch-up.

Our recent trip to the UK was about family and friends and these are a few photos that I shall treasure.

Normally, I am behind the camera so this is a rare photo of Neil & I together.

We enjoyed a lovely meal with our dear friends, whose birthdays both fell on the weekend we visited.

This is me with a very good friend who I first met at college in Nottingham when we both enrolled on the same course after leaving school. (Liz, I think Neil was being kind by using a bit of soft-focus!)

This is a photo I shall treasure – my and my brother.

And the whole group after a lovely meal in Staines.