Life in Culebrón

The last time we had a Partido Popular (conservative) Mayor in Pinoso, some 14 years ago now, on the hustings, at a public meeting in a bar called the Hub, he lied to me directly in the question and answer session. He promised that the mains drains, about to be laid in El Culebrón, would extend as far as our house. As I said, he lied; we still have a cesspit, a black hole, though we've been paying the drainage charges to Pinoso Town Hall these fourteen years. I'm told that simple cesspits are no longer legal and, should we ever sell the house, we would need to install a septic tank system or — and this seems much better — dig that trench and put in the pipework to connect us to that tantalisingly close main drain. From time to time we order up a lorry to come and suck the gunge (nearly slipped up there) out of the bottom of the pit. Last time, the lorry driver suggested I should start pumping out the liquid part myself, to save money, and to add a bit of texture to the soil of ...

Do you remember that Guinness advert with a bloke on the surfboard? He waits. I can do that, not the surfing thing but the waiting. I don’t start to get cross or feel I need to check that someone knows I’m there. I just settle back and wait. I always say it’s because I’m a trusting sort of chap. I rely on the kindness of strangers. I expect people to get to me in the end. If I were on a tube train that ground to a halt in the darkness, I wouldn’t be one that decided to get off and walk. I’d expect someone to come and get me—sooner or later. If it were a lift, I’d prop myself up in the corner and wait rather than getting all Bruce Willis. It helps that I expect to be kept waiting. I always take something to do as I wait - usually a book. I’ve covered quite a lot of pages in waiting rooms recently. Health appointments are a bit like rabbits—every one breeds several more. In order to speak to some sort of specialist, there are any number of steps to be taken beforehand. From time immemori...

If news headlines are anything to go by, it seems the UK is battling a real knife crime problem, with over 53,000 incidents last year. Spain isn’t entirely in the clear, there are knife attacks here too, and in some cities, particularly Barcelona, there has been a big jump in stabbings this year. Nonetheless the problem is much less marked here than it is in the UK. It’s a case of one country dealing with a major crisis and the other keeping a cautious eye on a growing trend. I don't think of myself as having criminal tendencies. I might admit to the odd traffic infringement now and again and I probably pinched a few envelopes when I was working but I'm no Samuel Little. The other day though I found myself in a situation that hardly registered at the time but might actually have gone remarkably pear shaped. I went, with a pal, to the Foreigners Office in Alicante to help him with the renewal of his identity card. Before going through the security scanner to get into the buildin...