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.

What a Saga!

It should have been a good day, a day of celebration! Finally, the gas tank had arrived!

But that was only the start of the problems!

We had been told we needed to construct a cage for the tank to be housed in, for safety reasons. This was built at the back of the house by us back in November to the size we had in a diagram drawn by the installer. Guess what - HE GAVE US THE WRONG SIZE!!!!!

On one side, he's written down the size of the tank - not the size the cage needed to be. OK, it's only 30cms to short (about 12 inches for those of you that still work in 'old money') but it means more concreting, we have to take down the side of the cage with the door in, extend both sides, which means more posts with more fencing. So frustrating. It turns out that he had given us 2 diagrams. When he first spoke to Neil he drew one on the back of the promotional leaflet with the right dimensions. Then when we went into the shop to say we would go ahead, he drew us another diagram for us to take to the fencing place to order the posts, door, fencing etc - and that one had the wrong measuerment on - but that's the one we worked to.

So, OK - we can sort that. The next problem was actually getting the tank into the cage (it will fit, there's just supposed to be more room around it (30cms more!). We had been told to construct the cage, and the tank would be lifted in from the top. Only,the wagon with the crane is too big to bring down our dirt track and so it couldn't go in over the top. Step 2 - remove one side of the cage - well, it saves us some work when we have to rebuild it next week. We nearly put double doors in and were told it wasn't necessary - in future we'll go with our own instincts.

Finally, the tank was in place and they began piping it up. In the meantime Manolo wanted to check the cooker as he is doing all the paperwork for our gas installation. Again he had been at the house before we fitted anything and told Neil what was needed. Now, it needed doing differently. The gas pipe came through the utility wall to the back of the cooker, but here we need a regulator that can be turned off accessible in the kitchen so, they had to re-pipe along the back of the house, bring the pipe in through the wall and run it through the back of a cupboard. Actually, they have done a really good job, because they fitted it inside the cupboard that has drawers, and the drawers still work perfectly but the not so pretty regulator is out of sight, yet still very accessible.

At this point they left for lunch leaving us with no heating and no hot water and hoping they would be returning later. We felt it was a strong probability as they had left quite a bit of their gear here.

Sure enough, a couple of hours later they were back on site and carried on with installing the tank. Once installed, we have to wait for the paperwork to be completed (i.e. after the cage is corrected) and then it will take about 7 days to get the tank filled - presumably this is to allow Cespa time to request the money for filling from our bank before giving us €400 worth of gas, but at least we can see an end to the twice weekly trips to town to get our bottles changed.

Finally, they had finished the installation and just needed to reconnect the system to run off the bottles until the tank is filled. By now it was starting to cool down as the sun was rapidly disappearing over the hill. It would be dark in about half an hour.

All done, they checked we had gas to the cooker - and yes, the rings burst into flame instantly. But the cooker's gas supply doesn't come through the boiler, so when they ran the hot water tap - oh dear, absolutley cold, cold, cold!

That was the start of an hour of head scratching and re-checking. We knew it couldn't be the boiler as they hadn't actually done anything to the boiler and it worked wonderfully before they arrived. Eventually they tracked it down to a faulty regulator they had installed on one of the pipes in the utility. Did they have another? No, but they could get one from town. By now it was dark, cold and getting late. I told the engineer we would need to go home with him for the night as it would be too cold here. Now, I'm not sure whether he though 'this crazy english woman means it' but he told me he would go and fetch a replacement and return straight away, that he would not leave us without heating and hot water. And just to prove he was coming back - he left his mate here!

Half an hour later he was back and within 10 minutes the replacement regulator was in place - and still, no hot water, no heating. Now it was seriously testing everyone's patience. We got the manual out for the boiler and Neil started to look through what he could check on the boiler - the manual is all in english so the engineers couldn't really get any help from it. The gas pressure was tested, the flow was tested - all was fine.

Eventually one of the engineers phoned his boss and had a chat. I couldn't make out much of the conversation but I could tell he was really puzzled why it didn't work. After a few minutes he came off the phone and marched outside saying 'un momento, un momento'.

And sure enough, un momento later we had hot water and we had heating. It turns out the regulator on the tank has to be a single, but because we have 2 pipes coming into the house they had put 2 on and it was restricting the flow of gas through the boiler to an extent that there wasn't enough to light it. It had been a long day for them but they had made sure they didn't leave us without heating and hot water.

So, finally we have a tank. This weekend we will re-do the cage and hopefully before too long we will have a full tank of gas which should last us several months, and that will be another job to tick off the long list of things'To-Do!'

Introducing Bryan!

Bryan is my run-around pet-taxi. We got him yesterday and he is for when Neil is at golf all day and I want to run the pups somewhere, or just nip down into town for a bit of shopping or a coffee and a chat. We needed a little 'jalopy' and we called him Bryan to fit in with Brinkley and Brandy's names, beginning with BR.....

We found him on one of the local forums and it's taken a while to get all the relevant paperwork together. After the problems registering on the padron at our new place, I just renewed our padron locally. It appears that if you are already registered on the padron, renewal is not a problem BUT if you are registering for the first time, you now need your residencia certificate. We are due to apply for ours once we have moved into the new house, but fortunately didn't have a problem in getting a renewed certificate.

I then needed to get certified copies of my passport, NIE certificate and padron in order to get the paperwork transferred over at traffico, and also a copy of the car documents. Now, it would make more sense for the seller to get the certified copies of the car documents to hand over at the time of exchange and then it would be all sorted, but no, it's the buyers responsibility - so having been to the Notary once for the first load of papers, we now have to go again to get the car docs done and then drop those into the office, in order to have all the paperwork sent to traffico in Almeria and for the car to be officially transferred into our name. In the meantime we have a copy of the all the relevant documents, including the receipted invoice from the seller showing that we have paid for the car, incase we are stopped by the 'policia'.

So, we have had a bit of running around but we finally brought Bryan home last night!

More official bits.

Back up to Pulpí this morning to pick up our renewed Padron certificates. It seems we were right on our summation about Market Day because today the office was busy. I had to stand in a type of queue for over 40 minutes until it was my turn. Let me explain what I mean by a 'type of queue'. Here in Spain they don't form a queue as we know it, i.e. one person standing behind another and you just join the end. Oh no, that's too easy to work out. Here, they walk through the door, ask who is the last person and then wander off and stand anywhere. It's OK once you know how it works, but terribly confusing if you don't.

So, having left with my 2 new certificates I headed off for Aguilas to get certified copies of my Passport and Drivers Licence, another requirement when you are buying a car (well, it is here in Almeria, it could be different elsewhere - so if you're thinking of buying a 2nd hand car in Spain, ask what documents you need, I've been told by someone else that they needed their residencia!).

I called at our solicitor's office to pick up a copy of the Schedule of Works licence for the reformation of our house, which we are now being asked for in order for the office at Velez to (hopefully) find our house on their computer and sort out our Padron up there. I asked her where I needed to go to get the certified copies and she told me the Notary Office. There are 2 in Aguilas so I toottled off to the nearest one which she said would be the quickest to sort it and when I got there they told me the Notary was on holiday this week. So, I about turned and went to the other one where I was told they only do them on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays - not Fridays!

Guess where I'm going on Monday!

Official Bits.

Having been unable to register on the padron at our new place, I went up to Pulpí today to renew our exisiting padron. Neil is buying me a little run around car and we need a current certificate to be able to have the car documents transferred to us. It would have been easier to have it registered to our new place but it's taking too long to sort and I don't want to lose the car.

It's a little, white Citroen Saxo - and I had a little Saxo for the last few months I lived in Sheffield.

Anyway, back on topic.

When we were on our way to Pulpí I remembered it was market day so this would mean one of two things. Either the Town Hall would be busy because everyone had come into town for the market and would sort their official bits out at the same time OR it would be quiet because everyone would assume it would be busy because it was market day.

Fortunately for me, it was the latter. There was no-one at the renewals desk so I was seen straight away, 2 minutes later I was done and I collect the new certificates on Friday, having paid my €1.20 per copy.

Then I needed to renew our road tax. In Spain road tax is not such a strict matter as in the UK. When we bought our car in June last year the road tax ran until end of December, the calendar year. Our Town Hall only issue renewals in April, payable within a fixed number of days at a bank. They stamp the renewal form to prove payment is made and you carry this with you in the car. So effectively you drive around with an out of date road tax and if you get stopped, it's not a problem.

Well, when you buy a new car it can take over 12 months to get into the system and so we missed getting the normal renewal notice in April. It's been waiting for me to go to Pulpí to sort it out and today was the first time I had a need to go so we have effectively been driving with no road tax for 10 months - but it's not a problem - well, I tell you, it was a problem for me everytime we drove past the police stopping cars for a paperwork check - mild panic was certainly present. Fortunately we have not been stopped to test the theory.

I found the office in the Town Hall that deals with Road Tax renewals and explained we didn't get a reminder. He asked for the registration document which I had, and he typed the details into his computer and a couple of minutes later I had my renewal notice. It has a list of the banks you can pay it at and there are 2 immediately opposite the Town Hall and so I went straight across and paid it - €84 for our Kia Sportage - a lot cheaper than in the UK.

I was really pleased how easy it had been, normally such things can take hours, but not today. We had time to call for some paint so that I could start decorating our bedroom.

Just need to remember to go back on Friday - and you watch, I'll be waiting in a long queue just to pick up the papers!

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!

Buying a house in Spain, the process.

Paperwork is massively important when buying (or selling) a property in Spain, but there are 2 crucial documents.

Firstly, there is the 'Escritura' which details the property that is for sale and secondly, the 'Nota Simple' which shows who owns the land/property and whether there are any charges against it. It is advisable to get a copy of the Nota Simple as close to the purchase being concluded as possible to avoid any late charges being added.

Normally, when an agent takes a property on the market for sale they ask for a copy of the 'Escritura' to be able to describe the property they are marketing correctly, so they are able to send this copy to the purchasers solicitor, once an offer has been accepted by the seller.

So, what happens next. You've found a house you like and your offers been accepted.

Normally, once an offer has been accepted a deposit of €3,000 is paid by the purchaser to their solicitor. This takes the property off the market. The solicitor will hold the payment until all the paperwork is checked and deemed ok and then the deposit is passed on the the seller. It is at this stage that any extra items to be included in the contract should be added. If, at this stage the owner decided to sell to someone else, they would need to refund you twice the holding deposit. This tends to avoid any problems of gazumping. If the purchaser was to pull out at this stage they would forfeit their deposit, unless something was wrong with the paperwork.

This seems like a pretty good system to make sure both sides don't mess the other about.

So, we are currently at the stage that we have paid our deposit to our solicitor and he is now checking through the paperwork and hopefully, in a couple of days, we will get a call from him to say everything is ok, at which stage we will know that we are definitely buying a house and we can start planning the next stage of our adventure in Spain.

Exciting and scary at the same time.

More soon.

Ryanair Baggage Allowance & Cabin Allowances.

Everyday I get several visitors looking for information on Ryanair Baggage allowances. The information is not easy to find on their website as it's in the T&C section - not that easy to find, even if you know that's where you want to be.

So, for all those searching for allowances and charges - this is where you need to look:

http://ryanair.com/site/EN/conditions.php

You need to scroll down to Cabin baggage and Checked baggage.

Be aware that Ryanair are very keen on charging for excess weight and for checking in and charging for hand luggage that is over weight/size. Also, everything has to be in that one piece of hand luggage, your handbag, camera, any purchases made in duty free - only 1 bag is allowed - and they are very keen on enforcing it - I've even seen them make someone force a sandwich they had bought for the flight into the hand luggage case and I dread to think what condition it was in when they came to eat it.

The staff at Spanish airports seem to be just as keen on charging for excess weight/size as UK airports.

It's Friday and I should be on the golf course.

One of the main reasons for choosing to live in the warmest, driest place in Spain was so that we could play golf all year round. Well, this week has been a challenge. We play at a new course just outside Terreros called Aguilon. It's a fabulous course set in the foothills of the mountains, with views over the sea. They have retained all the natural ravines and it's a really challenging course for a high handicapper like myself, I play off 28. My husband manages better but then he is a better golfer. (I'm sorry, I don't like to admit it - but he is! Yes, I know - I've had a hole in one and he hasn't - but I can't live on one shot for the rest of my golfing life, can I? Well, maybe I can, oh, ok - he's not better at golf he just hits the ball further, chips onto the green better and putts more consistently!)

Anyway, Monday was a good day for golf, we had a group of 14 guys over from Rother Valley, our last club when we were in the UK (they weren't all staying with us I hasten to add) and we were really looking forward to showing them how wonderful our course was. The sun was out and the sky was blue - perfect!

Only, the mosquitos had other ideas! There are a few lakes on the course, but through the summer they have been quite low, they haven't put any fish in them and the mossies seem to have had the perfect breeding ground for the 'super mossie'. Needless to say, we were all bitten alive. It spoiled the game a little but we still had a good day with the guys from Sheffield who all came back to our villa for a BBQ afterwards.

I don't play on Wednesdays, but my hubby does and so before he went out we covered him in mossie sprays, patches and creams - all to no avail, he came back with bites all over his arms, face & back - super mossie had even managed to get him through his shirt. The only saving grace was that I had suggested he wear long trousers and his legs had not got any more bites on them, there were just the ones from Monday.


The cluster on Neil's left shoulder is made up of about 30 bites and by the time I had finished putting calomine lotion on them we had just about done a join the dots picture of.........? Yep, you've guessed - a super mossie!







Then, Wednesday evening it started to rain, and rain, and thunder and rain - until about 9pm last night. That'll keep the mossies down for golf.

Well, today has dawned and there is no rain, there is no sun and there are no mossies! Why? Because we have a howling gale! So, I decided to stay in bed and give golf a miss. Instead I have taken the pups for a really long walk to make up for the fact that they got only the smallest of outings yesterday due to the weather.

Hopefully we can end the week on a high note - we're off to try a new Italian restaurant in Aguilas tonight - but we'll sit indoors, just incase! (Yes, OK, so my life really does consist of golf, our dogs and eating out - is that really such a bad thing?)

Today, we played in our 1st golf tournament

We have been playing at our golf course for about 3 months now and so we decided it was time we started to take part in some competitions - so, today was our 1st.

Normally I would tell you how we had got on but the truth is as yet, we don't know how we got on...........but we may do tomorrow.

It was a pairs competition and we were told it was the best score on each hole - so that's how we marked it.. I normally play off 28, my UK handicap, but with the difficulty of this course (Mundo del Aguilon) I have been given a handicap of 32. However, there was a cap of 26 - so it was going to be a challenge for me to score better than my other half.

As it happens, I had a stonking round and the other half didn't and having scored better on 11 holes out of the 18 - we came in with a net 68.

And that is where the fun (or confusion) started, some had scored stableford, some had scored stroke play and no-one seemed to know what we were really playing. The manager of the club apparently only wanted gross scores and they would apply the handicap and score the cards. Not the normal way of scoring but hey ho, it seems that's the way they want it because so many people don't score correctly (meaning in essence the spanish)

We have noticed the spaniards we play with have a different scoring system along with the need to pick up stray items - such as wayward golf balls (that may still be in play) ball markers on a green (that are definitely still in play - I say this from personal experience as recently I was looking for my marker to place my ball on the 8th green - and couldn't find it anywhere only to find that one of the spaniards we were playing with had picked it up as he crossed the green - just because it was there! Doh!) and not scorung air shots and shots that don't really go anywhere.

So, we'll go up to the club house tomorrow to see how we did - I don't think it will be our name on the trophy but we had a good game, played with 2 new guys who were good company and we enjoyed our 4 hours on the golf course, followed by a beer and tapas - which is what it is all about.

Next tournament - Friday!

A word on Spanish Road Tax

As in the UK, cars have to be taxed every year - but that's where the similarity ends. You don't display an sign of your road tax in the window of your car, you just have to carry the certificate that proves you have paid it in the car with you. And this is where it gets really odd.

The car is taxed to the end of the calendar year - I believe this applies to all cars in Spain. Wow, last week in December is going to be busy with renewals if the whole of Spain are trying to renew their road tax! Not so, as I've mentioned in a previous post, the car tax is issued by the local council office not central government and each council have 1 month each year where you can renew your road tax. We understand ours in Pulpi issues road taxes in June - and only June. So when we get to January 2009 our road tax will be out of date, but we cannot renew it until June 2009 - and this is not a problem if you get stopped by the police over here.

Apparently, and understandably, this freaks out a lot of the newly resident English people in Spain, but is just another example of the manana mentality we are learnig to accept over here.

Just need to confirm with one of our new friends what month Pulpi definitely issue road taxes and then make a diary entry for 2009.

At last, we have our new car!

It has been a long wait, the car has been sitting in the showroom with a large notice across it saying VENDE (sold) for 4 weeks but at last we have been able to collect the keys and drive it out of the garage.

This final week has been a week of maybe's. Monday we finally got our correct certificates through to the garage to enable them to tax the car. Tuesday - well, everywhere was closed in Vera, it was a local holiday day. Wednesday, we might, just might have the tax back and be able to collect the car.......er, no the tax wasn't ready. Here, it's not like in the uk, you don't go to a post office and walk away with your tax disc. The paperwork goes in to traffica to register your car and you collect it a day or 2 or..... later.

Thursday, it should be ready today - and it was.....but too late for the insurance to be sorted. We had sorted a quote but obviously until the car was issued with a registration number by traffica the policy couldn't be issued. By the time the registration was known, it was too late to get the policy re-issued to the underwriters to allow us to have the insurance for driving the car away Thursday.

And so to Friday 13th - now surely things couldn't go smoothly today? Well, apparently they can. We had the phone call to say insurance was in place and we could collect our car. We arranged to go through at 5.00pm.

Now, in the middle of all this Spain is in the grip of a 4 day strike by lorry drivers. We had already been victims of the french protests when our furniture got stuck in the docks and now we were about to collect a new car with an empty tank with petrol stations around us running out of diesel. Stuart at the Kia garage had managed to get us €30 worth from his local filling station, who were now rationing supplies but we needed a full tank as in a few days we are due to drive up to San Javier airport to collect some friends. Was this going to be another problem for us or was our luck with the car about to change.

Well, in short, yes - we collected the car and had a small lesson on what we needed to keep with the car - paperwork wise in case we get stopped by the police. Stuart explained if we were nervous about keeping the originals in the car we could have official copies signed & stamped by the local notary which would suffice, and then received directions to the nearest filling station that would probably still have some diesel - and it did.

New car duly full of diesel, Neil set off for the drive home (about 30 mins) with me in the wreck (sorry Peugeot) and before any of you start shouting that he should have let me drive the new air conditioned car with stereo - it was my choice that Neil should be the first to drive it. He had waited so long for the car, it only felt right to let him drive it - boys and toys etc.

But just as we thought we had got away with anything going wrong on Friday 13th, I got a phone call to say that we had driven away - and left all the insurance documents on the desk at the garage - so, a quick detour back (fuel shortages? No problem, lets just drive twice the distance we need to!) and we were again on our way home.

Now, what shall we tackle next? Registering with the local doctor may be a good idea, so, how do we do that?...........................

Aguilon Golf - What a beautiful (but difficult) course

This is our new golf course, drop me a comment with your e-mail address (which will not appear on this blog as all comments are edited before posting) if you want a full portfolio of photos of all 18 holes.




We have wonderful mountain back drops










We have beautiful fairways and lots & lots of bunkers with really soft clean sand.








We have deep ravines and sea views.










And we have lots and lots of palm trees.







When you are out in the sunshine, with new friends on a golf course like this - believe me, life is good.

I have to pinch myself to believe this is my life now - I just wish my golf was better - a course like this deserves to be played well. Just have to get more practice!

http://www.aguilongolf.com/
Tel: +34 608 54 98 69

Certificado de Empadronamiento

This is what all the messing about going back and forth to Pulpi has been for - we now have our certificates to show we are registered on the Padron! It's official - we exist in Spain.

All being well at 'traffica' we'll have our car by Friday - we're hoping the garage will fill the tank for us today as Spanish lorry drivers have joined the fuel protests and there are rumours that fuel will be in short supply in areas of Spain by the end of the week!

Pulpi - Again!

In anticipation of a discussion over our certificates, I thought it wise to prepare what I needed to say in writing. The official behind the counter at the Town Hall does not speak any english and also insists on speaking Spanish to me at incredible speed - even though he knows I hardly speak any Spanish. He's not the easiest of chaps to deal with, but I have no choice.

Anyway, Thursday last week saw us once again in Pulpi Town Hall. As they issue these certificates all the time, we expected them to tell us there was nothing wrong with them. However, we were surprised on 2 counts - one, the was no sign of the usual gentleman but a nice young lady who actually smiled at us. And secondly, when we explained in our prepared Spanish what our problem was, we saw a light bulb moment across her face - she understood - and they were wrong!

She sat down at the computer, typed something into it and then passed us back the wrong certificates and asked us to comeback on Monday to collect the corrected certificates - fingers crossed - trip 5 may see us with the correct paperwork, maybe we'll have the car by the end of the week.

Link to Pulpi Council website http://www.pulpi.es/

Off to Pulpi - 3rd time

Wednesday, we found out, is market day in Pulpi, so parking was a nightmare, but it did mean when we had finished at the Town Hall we could have our first visit to a Spanish market. Neil was at golf so I had gone through with Jody & Cadey.

Once again, on arriving at the Town Hall we were lucky to find there was no queue. I asked for our empadriamento's - passed over our passports so they could check our names and the council official brought out this huge file of certificates - all I can imagine is that there are a lot of people that don't bother going in for them - they obviously don't have a car waiting for them to pick up.

After slowly flicking through the pile of certificates, he closed his file and got up - they weren't in there. While we waited I was listening to the radio that was on in the office and then the irony struck me - we were in an official Spanish building, with people working there who don't speak english - and they were listening to an english speaking radio channel - bizarre!

After about 10 minutes, he came back with 2 certificates in hand - success. I paid my money (€24.80 I think) and we left with a big smile on our faces.

I'll talk about markets in a later post, for this one we were on our way to the garage to give them copies of the certificates and they could then get the car taxed.

A couple of hours later I received a phone call from the garage with bad news, the certificates had not been accepted by the traffica - they were wrong, there was no date on them saying when we were first registered on the padron - we would need at least 1 more trip to Pulpi to sort it out.

Are we ever going to get this car?

Link to Pulpi Council website http://www.pulpi.es/

Pulpi Town Hall - Part 2

So, having got the additional statement including NIE numbers we were back at Pulpi Town Hall. And once again, we handed over our paperwork and in our very limited Spanish said we were there to get our empadriamento. Back came a long sentence in Spanish which we didn't understand. On 2nd repetition we picked up on the word registrar and realised they were asking if we'd registered.

Then the penny dropped. We needed to register on the Padron and we would then be given our certificates of registration - the empadriamente were the certificates.

So we told them we had not registered and we were given 2 forms to complete, which one of the council employees explained what we needed to put where. The one thing that really threw me was that they wanted our education level - why? Would it have an impact on whether we got accepted on the padron or not? Did they only accept people of a certain academic level? Whatever, we duly completed all the sections, passed over copies of our documents which we had done before we got there and confirmed that was everything.

Yes, we were told, that's all - come back on Wednesday (we were on Monday).

So, today is Wednesday. Neil was due on the golf course with his son so I went through to Pulpi with Jody & Cadey.

Would today be any easier?

Link to Pulpi Council website http://www.pulpi.es/

Pulpi Town Hall

Throughout the last 9 months of planning, I have regularly used the Eye on Spain website and forum. There is a wealth of information and help available and of all the forums I have used, this has been the one I have found most user friendly (http://www.eyeonspain.com/).

One thing that has come across time after time is that whenever you need to sort anything in Spain, it will not be straight forward and it will not be quick, but with perseverance you'll get there. That dealing with town hall's will require knowledge of the language and a lot of form filling and probably a lot of queuing.

We were about to find out first hand.

The salesman at the Kia garage had told us that Spanish cars are registered at the local town hall where you live, in our case Pulpi. In order to get the car registered there we have to have our 'Certificado de Empadronamiento'.OK, we can do that. A quick session with the Nintendo DS and I have some phrases to help me and off we go to Pulpi.

Pulpi is not far from us and there is one main street to drive down but we couldn't find the town hall, so we parked up near signs for what we thought was the library to ask for directions. I don't know what the sign stood for but we certainly weren't in a library, more like a coffee morning for the homeless and needy - a hasty exit followed.

Across the road was the main post office so we went in there to ask and I managed enough Spanish to explain what we were looking for and then understood enough Spanish to get the directions - and we were close, just around the corner and we would see it, and she was right.

So, full of expectation of queues we entered the building and looked around for anything that resembled a reception desk or similar. The first office we saw was for registration so in we went. We only had a wait of 10 minutes before it was our turn. I explained we were english, spoke little Spanish, had just moved here and needed our Certificado de Empadronamiento in order to buy a car, all in well rehearsed Spanish and we showed him our documents.

The reply completely threw me. I understood the bit about him not speaking English but the rest, at speed, straight over our heads. We struggled on for a little and then he called a colleague who spoke a little english. It turned out our rental agreement didn't meet their requirements as it had passport numbers in and we needed the NIE numbers, ours and the owners. The official kindly took the time to explain as well as he could that we needed to get a further statement done that effectively quoted all NIE numbers and gave permission from the owner for us to live in the villa.

We thanked him and left in order to arrange this. I had read that town hall officials rarely give help like this but are more likely to just send you away, so I was grateful that we at least knew what was wrong and how to put it right. We immediately set the wheels in motion to get the correct statement, and prepared for the return visit.

Link to Pulpi Council website: http://www.pulpi.es/

Checking out our Old Age Pension:

Although we are effectively going to Spain as very early retirees, there are a number of years before we can start to receive our State Pension and now is the time to make sure we have paid enough NI contributions so that we get our full basic pension. New rules mean you qualify for the full basic state pension once you have 30 qualifying years of payment.

I was fairly sure this last tax year was my 30th year, as I have worked right from leaving college without a break, but I telephoned the Pension Service helpline on 0845 300 168 to make sure. I was therefore totally surprised to find out I actually have 33 qualifying years – from 1974, but hang on, I didn’t start working until 1977, never had a Saturday job whilst at school, so how can that be? Well, it turns out that because I stayed on to do ‘A’ levels at school and then did a full year at college I get credited for those 3 years, so all I have to do is keep the Revenue office up to date with my address and I will start to get my state pension when I reach the great age of 65.

Of course, not paying NI contributions from now on will mean any entitlement to other benefits will be affected but as I’ve never claimed any, I can’t see that as a problem.

Just need to get Neil’s qualifying years confirmed and that’s another item off the check list, of course they won’t tell me, he has to ring them personally.