Saleing away

Let's presume you're in Spain and you want a t-shirt or a bikini or a pair of trainers or a new phone. Even with the upheavals in retailing there are still real physical shops where you can go. Most of them will have the majority of their stock on show for you to browse. Occasionally you might have to talk to someone, to get your size in shoes for instance, but most people can do most of their shopping in, Bershka or Carrefour or MediaMarkt and a whole lot more, without speaking. You might need to make some sort of grunting sounds at the till but that's all.

It was not always so. Not that long ago shopping in Spain required a conversation. There was a counter and behind it there was someone to ask for whatever you wanted. They showed you things that you may or may not want and may or may not like - it could all become quite complicated. Also shops were pretty specialised. When we first needed electric bulbs for our new house I went to an electrical shop but it turned out I needed an ironmonger. And where could I buy inner soles or shoelaces? Sometimes the answer was obvious, bread from a bread shop and drill bits from an ironmonger, but it wasn't always so simple. 

Nowadays if you don't know where to buy something you just go to a Chinese shop - they stock everything but, in the dim distant past the answer, if you were in a big town, was the department store Corte Inglés. That's where I bought those inner soles and that was where you could browse pullovers or swimming trunks without needing an extensive Spanish vocabulary. Corte Inglés was nearly magical. It had things that you needed and things you wanted. It welcomed the well off and the ordinary person and it was swish with smart and helpful salespeople. It was a Spanish institution. I'm not sure what sort of financial shape it's in now but a few years ago Corte Inglés closed lots of stores, axed lots of jobs and tried to catch up with Internet retailing and the modern world. Britons might see parallels with John Lewis.

In that same antediluvian period the sales, the time that shops sold off old stock at reduced prices, were a big event in Spain. The Winter sales started on 7 January, just after the King's holiday (think Boxing Day) and the Summer sales started at the end of June. There were always scenes on the telly of people camping outside the door of big shops, and by that I mean Corte Inglés, and making a mad dash for the washing machine being sold at the price of a transistor radio or the Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada frock at a knockdown price. There were sometimes squabbles over goods, there was always pushing and shoving and a race to be won to get that special bargain.

Even in our time here the sales were still something special. There was no Black Friday, Amazon didn't do Flash Offers, there weren't year round discounts and Outlet Shops were few and far between but there were the sales. I've spent many a frustrating hour in Corte Inglés sorting through the brand names like Gucci, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein,Tommy Hilfiger looking through the jeans or shirts for something that wasn't only left in sizes for someone with a tiny waist or a barrel chest. Every now and then I'd find something, a real bargain, and it all became worthwhile.

This year the January started last Sunday. Shops in most of Spain are still, generally, closed on a Sunday but last Sunday they were allowed to be open. Maggie had been doing her online homework and she wanted something from Corte Inglés so we went down to Elche where our nearest store is. As we passed L'Aljub shopping centre cars were queuing back down the surrounding dual carriageways presumably full of people setting out to find that sale time bargain. Corte Inglés was busy too. I had to go a car park level down to find a space. But the sales don't have that sense and purpose they once had. Instead of the jumble sale like racks of mixed clothing with bargains to be found for the persistent and determined it's now whole ranges marked down with a 40% off price tag. Sometimes they don't even give the sale price, there is a sign to say that the 30%, 40% or 70% will be knocked off at the checkout. Nobody has gone through items marking them down. Someone has given the stock control software a nudge and, when the sales are over, that change can be un-nudged. At least it gave one young lad the opportunity to impress his father with his mental arithmetic skills as he worked out the final prices. 

Corte Inglés has never been a cheap shop. 40% off a Calvin Klein pullover originally priced at 119€ isn't a bad discount but that 71.40€ price tag is still more than four and a bit times the cost of a similar cotton pullover at Primark. For me at least there's no adventure in that sort of pricing. I can probably do an Internet trawl to find something as cheap. The fun was in the hunt.

I really am beginning to sound like my Uncle Harry and his stories of fish and chips for a tanner or taking a girl out for a night on the town for half a crown. I suppose it comes to us all.

And keep the change for yourself

Spain is bespattered with Chinos, Chinese owned shops. There are two principal types. One is like the old British corner shop where the family work all the time. It opens late, it sells sweets, pop and stuff plus basic food and all sorts of things that seem a bit out of place - piles of flip flops in over brittle and discoloured plastic bags piled on top of the crisp boxes. Here in Pinoso we don't have one of those. Our 24 hour shop, or it may be shops, are Spanish run. 

We do have two Chinos though; ours are the sort that sell everything except food. There are tools, cleaning products, stationery, earphones, phone cases, reading glasses, clothing, cleaning products, photo frames, light bulbs, pet supplies and a trillion other things. We Brits love them. We can hunt around the shelves looking for whatever it is rather than having to mime and splutter to, for instance, the person behind the haberdashery shop counter, "Err, I don't know how to say knicker elastic in Spanish." The two Chinese shops in Pinoso are awash with Britons though they're popular with the locals too.

The Chinos were the first places to close when the pandemic hit. I think there was a fear amongst the Chinese community that there would be some sort of racist backlash - the sort of knee-jerk stupidity beloved of the incoherent Donny Trump. When we moved phase here, when the stranglehold of quarantine started to be relaxed, the shops started to re-open. One of the Chinese shops couldn't because it's bigger than 400 square metres and the regulations said "no" to big shops. The other could though. I couldn't avoid the temptation as I passed on the first day it re-opened and I came away grinning with my haul of paint brushes, hosepipe connectors, car shampoo and whatnot. I hear that the bigger Chinese shop has now re-opened but that it's on a sort of ask at the door process. I've scratched my own itch so I've not been in. I have been to a bookshop though, and an ironmongers and the cold meat and olive stalls in the market. Spreading my paltry wealth around.

It's been good to see the "non essential" shops opening up again. It seems to be much more a hopeful sign of the return to normality, of fewer people dying, of politicians calling each other terrorists and coup plotters, than being able to go for a stroll or do a bit of exercise close to home for a limited period in a delimited time. To tell the truth, with being able to travel in province again, we made an appointment and went down to Torrellano to look at second hand cars. Whilst we were there we went to a bar with a view over the Med. It wasn't the first bar we've been to since the confinement began to ease - the machine coffee and the ice cold beer were great but, even better, it felt just like any old day in Spain for a while.

In general things seem to be getting back on track. This morning I had to get up early to take Maggie to her hairdresser who works a little outside Pinoso. Maggie told me that the appointment queue for the haircutter had been a long one as people made up for weeks of folicular fecundity. I know that my mum, in the UK, is really anxious to get her first professional shampoo and set after weeks of staying at home.

Who knows we may still get a fiesta or a concert or something this year.

I still bought a pullover

A pal tells me that Ralph Lauren clothes are, generally, badly made and hugely overpriced. I don't care really. In my time I've liked, and bought, a fair few bits of Ralph but I don't think I've ever paid full price. Outlet Centres and Sales have provided all of them. I know I shouldn't be sucked in by the label thing but in the 80s I learned the habit and I've never altogether lost it. True nowadays I buy more clothing at Primark and Carrefour than I do from Ted Baker but I still like labels.

In Spain the January Sales used to be proper sales. I vividly remember sorting through the racks in Corte Inglés where Oprah sized high waist blue denim Calvin Klein's rubbed shoulders with hipster waisted black Armani's that would be a size challenge even for Evanna Lynch. Of course it was only then that I realised I was in the women's section but you get the idea. I still think back to a really nice pair of black Polo jeans that I got for 19€ when we lived in Cartagena.

It's ages since The Sales were deregulated in Spain. There are discounts all the time now, especially online, but old habits die hard and I usually head down to Corte Inglés (the still impressive chain of department stores) sometime after Christmas. We went yesterday. Maggie said something that I realised was absolutely true. It's got 50% off she said but it's still too expensive. Absolutely right - I liked a jacket but even at 140€ it was hardly cheap. At its original 280€ it was simply overpriced. Discounts everywhere in the shop but no real bargains.

Once upon a time sales were about getting rid of the ends of lines, the funny sizes, that colour that nobody wanted, the craze that was no longer fashionable. Nowadays, with the big retailers, everything just gets discounted for a period so the January Sales are no longer the upmarket jumble sale that they once were. Shame really.

The January Sales and shop hours in general

We went out to save some money today, more me than Maggie actually. You know how it works, the shops reduce the prices and you go out and buy lots of things you didn't intend to buy. The January Sales or as we say round these here parts Las Rebajas de Enero. I always like to go to Corte Inglés, one of the originators of the first Sales in Spain, to see if they have any designer label clothes for market stall prices. Fat chance. I spent money I didn't have though.

When we first arrived in Spain shopping times, were, pretty much, regulated. Shops, except maybe bakers and paper shops, didn't open on Sundays and The Sales only took place in July and after Kings in January. There were lots of rules about how long they had to last, how the discounts had to relate to the prices on goods which had been available in the shops for weeks beforehand and all sorts of other stuff. Nowadays shops can have Sales whenever they want. But custom and habit are culturally powerful and people still think of, and wait for, the Summer and January Sales

The rules were relaxed in 2013. As well as the changes to The Sales there were lots of changes to the opening hours of shops. For example, weekly opening hours were increased from 72 to 90 hours for shops over 300 square metres, which explains why none of the big supermarkets are open 24 hours, but why there is a boom in the smaller town centre supermarkets. Shops under 150 square metres can open when and as they please - on Sundays, on holidays, 24 hours a day. It's not easy to generalise about the legislation, and I may have some of this wrong because it is all ifs and buts because the Central Government rules can be varied by local rules from the Autonomous Communities. For instance before the changes shops could open 12 times a year on Sundays and holidays but the Regions could reduce that to eight times per year. Now the National limit is sixteen times (for the bigger shops) but the Regions can reduce that to as few as ten times per year if they wish. The National legislation also allowed big shops in important tourist destinations, determined by the figure for overnight stays or the number of cruise ship passengers, to open all year round. That's why, for instance, Cartagena has a lot of Sunday shopping but Murcia city doesn't.

In the area we live, in Valencia, local legislation sets the number of Sunday and holiday openings for big stores to eleven times per year but it also gives "special status" to some areas, the ones with most tourists, like Alborache, L'Alfàs del Pi, Finestrat, Torrevieja y la costa de Benissa, Orihuela y Pilar de la Horadada where the shops can (I think) also open the additional Sundays, and any holidays, between mid June and mid September. The big shops and shopping centres outside those areas - in Alicante and Valencia cities in particular - don't get that extra summer dispensation and the eleven possible days they can open do not include the traditional Sundays on which the Summer and January Sales start, two of the busiest days of the year. So those big shops and centres feel hard done by and have taken the Valencian Government to court to make it comply with Central Government legislation. Of course it takes years for some legal actions to get to court so, in the meantime, the local legislation holds good.

Even if you found that confusing it may explain why some of the "Chinese" shops seem to be open all the time, why big supermarkets aren't and why lots of shops are open on the run up to Christmas.

Starsky and Hutch and the like

Everybody knows that Italian men are cool. Everybody knows that Italian men don't wear socks. Before I came here I presumed that Spain was, probably, more or less like Italy - both have wine, olives, sun and the Mediterranean. So, just before I left the UK in 2004 I bought some Timberland loafers. All leather, no problems with sweaty feet. At least that was the hope.

I still have the Timberland shoes, I don't wear them often but they are still in excellent condition and they smell fine. I never have taken to going sockless. Spaniards wear flip flops in summer anyway. The cords that I bought from GAP, when it first opened in Cambridge, which is definitely a long, long time ago, are no longer a baggy fit but I still put them on from time to time. In fact there are lots of things I still wear that I brought from the UK in 2004 which makes them at least 13 years old. Some, like a big Marks ans Sparks Starsky and Hutch inspired cardigan, that I only now dare wear around the house, are much, much older. Some things, the inherited things, that we brought with us, tools for instance, are ancient.

When we were first setting up house in Culebrón we had to spend bucket loads of money. Obscene amounts of money.  Some things we'd brought with us but most of that was personal stuff, books and clothes, rather than household and we certainly didn't have settees, cookers, televisions or even drinks coasters. We had to buy beds too and although the sizes, in centimetres, were slightly different from their UK equivalents they were basically the same. Spanish pillows were usually long bolster type things but we managed to buy more normal, for us, individual pillows, locally. Over the years some of those things have been replaced but others soldier on. Pinned to the sofa by my laptop yesterday evening for a couple of hours I suddenly realised just how pain in the bottom uncomfortable our 12 year old couch has become. Even I am finally beginning to notice that lots of those original things are getting to be very long in the tooth.

The duvet we sleep under came from John Lewis in Peterborough. I bought it for the flat that I lived in there in the 1980s. It's a standard sized double bed duvet. Maybe six or seven years ago we were in IKEA in Murcia, when it first opened. I was quite taken with a duvet cover they had so I bought it, along with pillow cases. It didn't fit - far too big. They didn't fit - far too small. Obviously the Swedes have funny sized duvets and pillows. Primark sells ordinary size duvet covers - I've always thought the Irish were a sensible, level headed bunch -  and when they opened a shop, also in Murcia, we bought another cover. Once out of the packet it did not exude quality. It appeared to be made out of near transparent cloth and looked as though it cost exactly what we paid for it.

By now our original UK duvet covers were definitely showing their age - split seams, missing press studs, old fashioned designs and faded colours. Maggie thought so too and she went Internet shopping. When her purchase turned up neither of us cared for it much - photos are one thing but the actual product is another. There was nothing for it we were going to have to pay Inditex prices. I went to Zara Home and searched through the covers and cases in their funny drawer like shelves.  Quilts are not uncommon in Spain but they're not as common as they are in the UK. I looked at the prices - there were some covers for 40 or 50€ but there were lots more at 60, 70 and 80€. Pillow cases were sometimes 30€+. None of the bed-wear seemed to be close to the 190x190 cm size of our duvet and although I wasn't keen to engage with anyone working in the shop, for fear of being bounced into buying one of the expensive ones, I had no option. The person I spoke to was convinced that I was a stupid foreigner who couldn't speak Spanish properly or at least couldn't measure in centimetres  - 220x220 cm was, she assured me, the size for a double bed cover. It seems that whilst Spanish beds may be more or less the same size as British ones the Spaniards prefer their covers to be bigger - more wiggle room, fewer feet sticking out, which is probably better but we won't think about that just now!

Time plodded on with no new duvet cover. I was on Amazon Spain looking for camera batteries or similar but some strange algorithm showed me duvet covers, at the bottom of the page, as - relacionado con productos que has mirado - related to the products you've looked at. All I can surmise is that Amazon has me completely pegged - either that or they are spying on me in some more traditional way. The duvet covers were a reasonable price, they seemed to be the right sort of size, pillow cases were the right size and price too and everything was in plain colours so that the chance of the photo and the real thing being miles apart were slim. I was so overwhelmed that I even bought the matching colour fitted sheet. And guess what? It was all fine.

But it just goes to show. Things are similar here -no socks-  but different -flip flops not stylish loafers.