Life in Culebrón

I'm going to tell you some things that I think Spaniards think about the British. You may notice the teensy weensy little flaw here. Actually though, when I say what Spanish people think I should change that to what several Spaniards have said to me, over the years, about Britain and the British. So my Englishness is not, really, a handicap. When I say Britain and the British, I actually mean England and the English. Occasionally the Scots get a mention, because of the supposed similarity to the Catalans and because Mel Gibson, like all Scottish men, wore a skirt. No Spaniard I've met has ever voiced their opinion about the Welsh or the Northern Irish.  Lots of Spaniards think that we are the only country in the world that drives on the other side of the road. This belief is usually mixed with an undertone that suggests we English are a bit full of ourselves. After all, don't we use different measures for length and weight too? I know, as do you, that there are about 70 or ...

Driving in Spain is like driving anywhere. Well no, it's not like driving in Mumbai or Sana'a, but it is like driving in places that have reasonably organised traffic. Most people keep to most of the rules most of the time. By that I mean it's like driving in Dublin or Munich or Mirfield. The cities are busy, towns are busy but Spain has lots of space for not many people and hundreds of Spanish roads are dead quiet. Where we live the roads are very quiet. It's a joy. Last Wednesday were in Elche and I left an obvious space so a car, joining from a slip road, could pop into the main traffic flow. The driver waved in acknowledgement. I was surprised; I wondered if he were foreign, like me. Spaniards do not, generally, acknowledge any assistance on the road. Flash someone in for instance and there is, usually, no answering flash, no quick flip of the hazard lights nor any little wave. Actually, if, as a pedestrian, you hold the door for someone entering or leaving a buildi...

I've just been back to the UK. Here are a few things I noticed. Beer. I went in a pub and bought a pint of bitter. I had no idea what to ask for from all the strangely named brews but whatever I bought tasted like proper British beer. I have nothing against the beer I can get in any bar in Spain but the stuff I was buying in England was much more interesting. I had to be sure though so I visited a fair number of pubs. Heat. It's hot in the UK. It was sometimes a tad cold outside but inside it was roasting. I haven't walked around in shirt sleeves inside in Spain for months. It was horribly dark though. Grey. Streetfood. From time to time people eat in the street in Spain but, generally, only where there is some sort of event - like a Mediaeval Fair or fiesta. In the UK people were walking down the street eating all sorts of take away food. In Cambridge the woman on the bench next to me polished off a whole tray of sushi using chopsticks whilst the wind blew and the sk...

Now that I work in Cieza my route to work has changed. It's about about 60 kms each way and the journey time - that is the time from when, with seat belt fastened and radio playing I accelerate away from our front gate to the moment I park up outside my workplace - is about 45 minutes. Even with my primitive arithmetical skills I can work out that means I average just 80kph or 50mph. On the way to Cieza from Culebrón the left from our track onto the main CV83 would be an illegal manoeuvre involving crossing a solid white line and hatched areas. Should the car around the corner be Guardia Civil that would be a 300€ fine and goodness knows how many points off the spotless 15 of my licence. Would I do that or would I be more likely to make the legal right turn, cross into the village, turn around in front of Eduardo's and rejoin the CV83 heading out towards Pinoso? The choice, as that voice on Blind Date used to say, is yours. Towards Pinoso then, at the roundabout ju...

I work in Fortuna. I live in Culebrón - you my have worked that out from the blog title. It's a drive of only 37km and it's not that interesting. But blogs need feeding no matter how mundane the subject matter. When I leave work, just after eight, it's dark. This will surprise no-one living in the Northern Hemisphere. Fortuna has Christmas lights. Not bad for such a small place on a tight, building bubble hit, budget. The traffic in Fortuna is pretty mad for a village of just under 10,000 population. Cars and vans, or at least their drivers, behave in erratic and unfathomable ways. I'm always relieved when the car and I clear the last set of traffic lights and drive out of the built up area still in one piece. Sometimes, just by the lights, the Barinas bus, which comes up from Murcia, is pulling out as I get to the stop. We are going to share the route for a few kilometres. Why there is a bus from Murcia to Barinas (population 946) escapes me. Baños de Fortuna i...

Driving licences are a regular bar conversation topic amongst expats in Spain. One line runs something like "We're European citizens, we have a European driving licence, we're entitled to drive." At the other end of the spectrum there's the "We're resident here so we have to change our licences for Spanish ones." Actually it's somewhere in between. Once you're resident there's a time limit on using the UK licence unless you register it with the Spanish authorities. It's easier and a bit cheaper to simply exchange. No need for another test or anything and for the first licence at least you don't have to do the medical. At the beginning of July I took my licence to the local driving school, filled in a bundle of forms and handed over 75€ so that the chap from the driving school would do all the legwork for me. I could have popped down to Alicante, stood in a couple of long queues and done it myself but I chose the lazier, ...