Life in Culebrón

I went to see the doctor this morning. Like all the doctors I've ever encountered, doctors in Spain make you wait. This is obviously because a doctor's time is much more valuable than mine or, indeed, yours. In truth, nowadays, nearly everyone's time is more valuable than mine in a financial sense but, as usual, I seem to be straying up a branch line. I've been to the doctor a few times over the years in Pinoso but not to the point that it's second nature to me. I was quite decided to be decisive today. The last time I was there there was a little printed list stuck up with sellotape outside the doctors door. The appointments were arranged in 15 minute blocks. Inside the fifteen minute block there would be three names; three people had the same appointment time. I couldn't remember whether the system was first come first served or whether the list order gave the order. My decisiveness amounted to no more than asking rather than muddling through. I was stym...

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. To be honest I don't think it compares to, for instance, living in Aleppo in 2015/16 but I appreciate the general idea. So moving countries must be extra hard. You still have to deal with estate agents and solicitors and utility suppliers but, on top, you have to learn a whole new bunch of procedures. As a new migrant everything comes in one big, strange, deluge and it needs doing now. Whether that's getting your identity documents, buying and taxing the car or working out which of those cleaning products in the supermarket is bleach it has to be sorted out straight away. It's ages since we had to cope with the hundreds of things to be done on first moving here. The pain of it all is long forgotten. I might still have to renew our PO box or get the car checked for road worthiness every now and then but it's nearly fifteen years now since we were juggling piles of paperwork every day. In f...

I still look at various expat forums every now and then. On one of the forums, the administrators try to rouse the troops a little with something they consider to be potential conversation starters. One of the questions that's cropped up a couple of times is about cultural differences. I maintain, and I still maintain that the differences between Spain and the UK are minimal. I don't mean that the two countries are the same but the basic premises on which they run are very similar and lead to similar ways of doing things. In Spain traffic is organised and regulated, doctors wait, stethoscope poised, in health centres, dustbin lorries come with monotonous frequency, I can take photos of more or less what I want, I don't have to join a particular political party to prosper, health and safety laws are strong, you are unlikely to be slaughtered in a gunfight, slavery and human trafficking are not tolerated, the state doesn't kill people, there are laws to protect animal...