Power struggles

Anyone who has followed this blog for any time will know that we have a piddling electrical supply of just 2.2 kW or some 10 amps. Not technically sufficient to run the kettle and the iron at the same time. Nonetheless because of the tolerances of the system we get by.

Things change though and we recently got a letter to say that our power supplier, Iberdrola, is on the verge of fitting a smart meter with a built in cut-out. We decided that we couldn't be sure that more modern kit would be as elastic as our ancient equipment so I started an email correspondence with Iberdrola to see if we could up the power.

The last time I asked I was told that 3.45kW was as high as we could go. This time, because Iberdrola replaced the supply cables a little while ago, we were told that we could have up to 15kW. There was a snag though. The boletín, the thing that shows that we have wiring to such and such a standard, would only allow us to have 3.45kW unless we got an electrician to test and certificate the system for more.

There's a lot of fuss in Spain about the price of electricity and one way to reduce costs is to reduce the power contracted. That's because the standing charges are a big component of the bill. Consequently there are lots of ready reckoner type websites to tell you how to calculate how much power you need to contract. I tried one and it said we needed 3.75kW, another two gave very similar results. I don't think it's true myself but people who know better than me say it's enough. Maybe it's to do with the tolerance of the system. So I checked with Iberdrola, If we went to 3.45kW and it wasn't enough could we still go up to more kilowatts if we got the appropriate certificates. The answer was yes.

We're now on about email number six or seven by the time I finally say yes to go ahead. This time Iberdrola, and the emails have become much more chatty by now, come back and point out that we will lose the Social Bonus. This is an automatic 25% reduction on the total bill because we contract so little power. I know, I tell them, go ahead anyway. It hurt to send that email I can tell you.

And today, probably now on email number 10 or 11 Iberdrola come back and say that even to go to 3.45kW we'll need to get a new boletín. I've reminded them that they said we were OK with that at the start of the process.

A couple of days later and Iberdrola say whoops! Yes we can have 3.45kW without any paper formalities.

And, just to finish it off on the 5th July, about a week after I wrote the bulk of this, I got a call out of the blue from the Iberdrola man who was five minutes away. He fitted one of the new intelligent meters, checked that the fuses were OK and left us with the increased power supply. So far the circuit breakers haven't popped.

Translating and interpreting

On the after lunch news Rajoy was chatting to Theresa May. I don't think our President speaks English and I'm pretty sure that May doesn't speak Spanish. Just behind them was a chap with grey curly hair and one of those "access all area" passes. I presume he was their interpreter.

On the Wordreference.com forum pages I sometimes have a go at helping people to translate things. I tend to go the Spanish English way rather than write in Spanish as I am very aware of the manifold slips that I make when writing in Spanish. Wordreference is a wonderful dictionary cum language resource if you don't know it.

For quite a while now I've listened to the Spanish podcasts by Alex occasionally assisted by Vanesa on the cunningly named Spanishpodcast.net. A while ago they started to push their YouTube channel as well but it took me a while to getting around to having a look.

On the videos Alex didn't look at all like I expected from having heard his voice on the podcasts. The videos though are really simple and they look very professional to me. Alex speaks in Spanish and, one day, the video ran automatically with Spanish subtitles. Trying to turn them off I found that there is a tool on the site for adding in subtitles to videos in other languages. I've made a couple of donations to the Spanishpodcast.net site in the past but, generally, I've got most of the stuff for free so I thought it might be a nice gesture to add the subs in English.

I understand the dialogues 100% or maybe 99% some weeks. Nonetheless putting in the subtitles proved to be more challenging than I expected. The way that it's done on YouTube is that there are the subs in Spanish and a box to type in your attempt in whatever language underneath. The little boxes in Spanish finish on a particular word and I try to end on the same word in English but it's not always possible simply because of differences in word order. Then there are the expressions that make sense in Spanish but aren't good English. I have been very undecided whether to go for a good English style just taking the sense from the Spanish, whether to go for the most literal translation that maintains a semblance of sense or to mix a bit of both. I have not been happy with any of the translations so far but, eventually, I'm sure I'll settle on an appropriate style.

In the meantime hats off to that translator bloke making it possible for Rajoy and May to maintain a conversation at a normal speed.

Routine

There was nothing on at the cinema. We often go on Wednesday, its the cheap day, just 4.20€. I'd have gone to see a Spanish film but Maggie wasn't keen so I had a beer, some double hopped Mahou, and settled in for the evening,

Nothing much on the telly either. Not on the Spanish telly anyway. So we were watching Lewis, dependable sort of telly. The adverts came on and I disappeared to find something to eat in the kitchen. I was surprised by how quickly the adverts were over. Shorter and more often on British TV. Seven minutes and we'll be back is standard on Spanish.

There's been a fair bit of UK election coverage on Spanish radio and TV. Britain has featured a lot with the people killed at Borough Market and the Spanish skateboarder not identified for days. On the 3.0 clock news there were shots of the various party leaders making their vote - UKIP, The Greens, LibDems - I didn't know any of them.

I'm working hard hardly working at the moment. I decided I had time to replace my contact lenses. The last set are probably a bit long in the tooth now. I think I got them in Cartagena, in 2012. It must be the fourth or fifth time I've gone through the process of an eye test - mejor, peor, parecido - better, worse, similiar.

I was in Consum, the supermarket, I planned my route through the aisles - bread, tea, cat food, meat, gazpacho, ham, veg, checkout. Not a wrong turn. Critical path analysis.

When I decided on a light lunch and was buying the stuff I bought some of that nice sheep's milk cheese, the cured ham of course, a carton of gazpacho, some olives and oil roasted peanuts in their skins - plenty of other stuff too - I cheaped out on the cold cuts - el Pozo.

Emails back and forth to Iberdrola about our power supply. They're going to put in a smart meter so I need to regularise our position a bit. All of the online calculators tell me I can get away with a miserable 3.75Kw supply which I don't quite believe but, if we can, then it saves getting a new boletín - a certificate to say that our wiring is up to a larger load.

Quiet afternoon. I felt I really should start planning the intensive course for July. Speaking exercises, grammar, a bit of pronunciation, was I going to use a text book? - the PET exams from the 2016 download. I tap, tap tapped it onto my lesson planning form. I've planned a lot of B1 courses.

Watering the garden from the aljibe, the big rainwater tank that we have in the back patio. The submerged electric pump that we inherited with the house is still going strong. I said hello to the neighbour as he threw some stuff into the communal bin just beyond our fence. I took our recyclable stuff to the bins in the village this morning.

The sky has been blue all day and the sun has shone. Just before I typed this we were sitting at the back of the house watching the sun go down. 9.30 ish and it's twilight. Not much traffic on the CV83, very tranquil. Nice view over towards the Sierra de Salinas. The cats were keeping us company.

All very routine, all very ordinary. Very much home.

Faster than Amazon

I work in a school. Well, actually, as my contract ended on the last day of May I don't. But I expect to again.

Sometime last year my boss told me that I should get a document equivalent to what I still think of as a Police Check or if I'm being just a little more modern a CRB check. Apparently it's now called a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check in the UK. The certificate that says the authorities are not aware of any reason someone should not work with children.

I applied for the Spanish equivalent in April last year. I tried to do it online but failed. Eventually I found the appropriate form on the Internet, downloaded it, filled it in, paid the small fee in a bank and took the appropriately stamped form to the Justice Ministry Office in Murcia. I was in the office fewer than ten minutes before emerging with a piece of A4 paper that said I had no criminal record. A reasonably complicated and time consuming process but hardly overwhelming.

Nobody has ever asked me for a copy of the form.

Some time ago somebody on one of the expat information forums asked about getting a Spanish police check. I'd forgotten some of the detail of my own application so I Googled the information to remind myself of the process before putting in my two penn'orth. I found that the system had changed. Instead of being a simple check on a person's criminal record it was now more specific, about sexual offences, and, presumably, the check itself was more wide ranging.

I made a note to myself to get hold of the newer form whilst I wasn't working.

In front of the telly tonight I've ben punishing my liver with whisky. Just before going to bed I was doing a bit of browsing and it entered my head to see how difficult the process was for the new sexual offences check. It was so easy that within ten minutes of starting I'd completed the process - free too.

Nice job someone at the Justice Ministry.

A swift half

I saw some article or advert about a micro brewery in Novelda a while ago.

We don't work on Wednesday afternoon; either of us. "Do you fancy a beer?" I asked Maggie. She said yes. We found the place OK. It looked decidedly closed but there was a bar next door and it seemed logical that the bar would have the local beer.

We went in. It wasn't a flash bar. It could probably do with a bit of a refit though the regulars probably like it as it is. There were lots of men, my age, playing dominoes or just sitting there nursing a beer. Fluorescent lights. There was a woman behind the bar and one female customer. We were a bit out of place. The beer, Exulans, was on display, a couple of third of a litre bottles on the bar.

"Hello, can we have a couple of bottles of the beer from next door, please."
"No. We don't have any." Moment of indecision. "Hang on though, I'll check in the back." The woman wanders off for a while. "No, we don't have any."
"Just a couple of whatever you have then, please."

We settled in, well we sort of perched on the stools at the bar, a bit uncomfortably. After a while the woman behind the bar engaged us in conversation. The problem it turned out was that the brewery was usually closed. The workers only turn up from time to time so the bar had not been able to replace their stock. Whilst she was speaking to us a man came to the bar to order another drink. As the woman continued to talk to us the man tapped a coin noisily and impatiently on the bar. The woman wasn't having that sort of behaviour and she told him so but it was obviously time for us to go. So we did.

¡Uff, que calor!

I wandered in to do my session with 4A, the fourth year is the last year of obligatory secondary school. It was my last lesson with them before my contract ends at the end of May. They're a nice bunch but it's a big class and they tend towards noisy, no let's be honest, loud. I said hello and started whatever it was I was going to do but they weren't paying much attention - their energies were being taken up by an awful lot of fanning and expelling sufficient breath for top lips to oscillate. It's too hot, it's suffocating, we're going to die. The class teacher who makes sure that the noise doesn't turn into a riot, looked up from her computer. A brief conversation and she set the air conditioner going. My guess is that there are guidelines as to the temperature setting for the air-con and the youngsters wanted it lower. With a big grin on my face I set into one of those "When I was a lad air conditioners didn't exist, what a bunch of whiners you are etc".

It made me laugh, outside it was probably around 30ºC, not exactly roasting. It was warm but I was perfectly comfortable in my habitual boots, jeans and T shirt. Most of the pupils were in shorts.

in the staff room, after the ritual greeting, the first and main topic of conversation between any two or more teachers was the temperature. I was asked several times what I thought about the heat; unbearable eh? It must be worse for me coming from a country where polar bears and penguins roam. Lots of Spanish people aren't that hot on geography.

There's no doubt that it's warmed up in the last fortnight or so. It's still a long way from being hot but the summer sounds have begun. The spring flowers and green plants have taken on their summer shades of yellows and beige. The cigarras are singing in the garden but wood and metal aren't yet creaking as they expand or contract. The flies are out in annoying numbers. Everything is covered in a fine patina of dust and cars have a rugged he-man sort of dirty look. We haven't used any heating for ages, getting out of bed in the morning involves no more discomfort than creaking bones and heaving lungs. I've turned down the gas flame and upped the water flow on the water heater.

I've been asked three or four times whether I've been to the seaside - this is presumably because my arms, but only to the sleeve line, have got a bit of colour. It's because of the weeding I say. It has even been suggested to me that I may like to abandon long trousers for shorts.

It always amuses me. We Britons often complain about the weather - too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too windy, too still. Spaniards do exactly the same.

Invasive manoeuvres

You will remember we had trouble with a white cat that invaded our garden. The cat was nice enough but it didn't get on with our two. They hid inside, afraid to wander the garden. We were glad when the white cat disappeared.

There are colonies of wild and semi wild cats in Culebrón. Some probably get occasional food from humans but others live off what they hunt or can scavenge from the big communal bins. A young female tabby realised that the open door to our kitchen, at times, offered access to free food left over by our satiated cats. She was a persistent little cat, despite the water pistol, despite the occasional hosepipe assault, despite the shouts and clapping hands, she kept coming back. Our cats had no real problem with her, an occasional hissing but nothing profound. We are softies. We gave her food, always away from our house, but we did feed her. An easy if unreliable and sometimes contradictory feeding station. She was also human friendly, happy to be stroked.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take her in. She would have to go to the vet and be checked. If she had something infectious then she was on her own but so long as she was basically fit the sofa and TV awaited alongside three square a day. Uncannily the cat failed to appear mewing on our window sill on the days when I was free to take her to the vet. Until this morning.

"What's her name?," they asked at the reception desk. "I didn't choose this," I replied quickly, "Gertrudis". A couple of animal keepers in the waiting room agreed that it was a nice name. When Cristina, the vet, beckoned us in to the surgery she called the cat by name with a smile on her lips. "Basically fit as a fiddle, obviously she's got worms and fleas but she's a sturdy little cat - nice temperament too". I arranged an appointment for the sterilization next week, paid the very reasonable flu jab and deparastiation (is that a word) charge and we came back home.

So we now look after three tabby cats difficult to tell apart at a glance - Beatriz, Teodoro and Gertrudis.