Life in Culebrón

I've never worked out tipping in Spain. Or rather, I have. Usually though I'm with Northern Europeans, and I wouldn't want them to think I learned my economics in the austerity-strapped and vindictive 80s of the last century. So I leave more. When I've asked Spaniards, they usually say you have to be mean, stingy. Don't pick up the shrapnel, that's all. For many Spaniards it's not even a question: why would you worry about tips? The people who serve you are already paid; why would they need your donation and a couple I asked about tipping last weekend said they thought it was dying out, because of credit card payments as much as anything. So, you get a couple of coffees and the bill comes to €3.40. You leave the 60 céntimos and you're a big tipper. If it were €3.80, then the 20 céntimos is more in the normal range. But pick up the change and nobody will bat an eyelid. They'll serve you the next time you're in. I tend to round up, but I sometimes ...

The other day, on the phone, an old friend, due to visit from the UK next month, asked if I wanted her to bring anything — she was thinking teabags, mint imperials, Horlicks, and the like. I did think of something, but my initial reaction was a simple "no." It’s not that we’ve become Spanish — we’ll always be immigrant Britons here; but choosing oil on toast over butter is hardly akin to burning my Union Flag boxers. It's just that so many things have become so normalised and routine that, ironically, it’s the British way that I now find a bit strange. Many still imagine Spain as somewhat "Third World." We notice when our guests try to haggle over the price of things on a market stall or doubt the drinkability of the tap water. It's true that water from a well, a storage tank, or irrigation water is not, necessarily, safe — but that's equally true in rural Cambridgeshire. The mains water in Spain, the stuff that flows from the taps in 98% of urban homes ...

I identify as male. This means that in a piece describing Spanish public toilets I face an obvious problem. I wouldn't usually consider entering about 50% of the facilities on offer. I have had to extrapolate. That said the other day, in a department store, I went into the toilets, said hello to the woman cleaner, and wondered about the absence of urinals. I did what I needed to do, and while washing my hands, the cleaner drew my attention to the door, well to the pictogram on the door. A tiny stick-figure woman, skirt barely discernible. It hadn't clicked, I'd got the wrong room. I apologised. My quips about kilts or zaraguelles - those traditional baggy culotte trousers - fell on deaf ears. Public conveniences in Spain are like oases in the desert. You see one in the distance from time to time but they're often a mirage. Generally public toilets are locked except for special events. There are also a few of those tardis like plastic cabins on street corners, the ones ...

We use quite a lot of bottled gas - specifically butane - and I think we're more or less legal. The original bottles came with a contract, rather than from some car boot sale, and we have the installation tested every five years. Were it all to explode—and an alarming number of collapsing buildings are attributed to gas explosions each year —the insurance companies might just pay out. That is, provided we didn't die in a hailstorm of shards of severed metal. When I think about it that's probably more likely than an insurance company actually paying out. I always hope that the reason there are so many explosions is not that bottled gas is inherently dangerous, but that people are a bit gung ho about it. They buy the bottles secondhand somewhere to avoid the regular checks, don’t worry about the “sell by” dates on the rubber hoses, never replace the valves or worry about their pressure ratings and even tape things together with duct tape. We use gas for the water heater and f...