Probably the thing is that busy means one thing and another. When I visited the UK a few weeks ago I noticed the immediateness of everything. Buying a beer is a plish plash operation. Ask, get, pay, drink or sometimes ask, pay, get, drink. Table service, the Spanish norm, obviously slows things down anyway but even if I order at the bar before sitting it's a much more leisurely process. The format is based on trust not mistrust. Paying, getting someone to take your money, can actually be a problem at times and I often pay at the bar as I leave to speed things up a bit.
I reckon it's digital stuff that makes people want to go faster. To watch Hill Street Blues in my youth I waited for the episode each week. Now people watch whole box sets in an orgy of bought in pizza and underwear (or so I'm told). And if you don't like the conclusion to Game of Thrones then raising a petition to have it changed is only a few clicks away. Ordering something by mail order used to be seconded by a guarantee to deliver within 28 days. Amazon and Ali Express deliver tomorrow morning. Half the time you don't need to wait at all. No more going out to buy the new album just download it at one minute past midnight on release day or stream it on your Spotify account. Booking holidays, buying a bike, getting a train ticket or doing the supermarket run can all be done from your phone or laptop whenever and wherever you like.
It's true we flew out of a new and underused Spanish airport but we left the spacious calm of Corvera to arrive in the frenetic maelstrom of Stansted where we were goaded and guided forward in something akin to a giant cattle market. Even in rural Cambridgeshire that change of pace was very noticeable to me - heaven knows what it must be like in Brum or London. There was a traffic jam on the approach road to Stansted. Obviously we have slow traffic from time to time as we travel around Spain but that was the first real jam I'd been in since the last time I was in the UK.
People don't really eat on the street in Spain but buying food to go and eating it at the bus stop or as you send a message on the phone seemed to be very common in the UK. There appeared to be almost an imperative to use every moment effectively. From listening to people in Madrid and Barcelona I think there's a tendency to that there but I don't live in a big city. I live in Pinoso. And here we have a bit of time.
At the moment the stalls and stands and paraphernalia of the Fiestas are blocking up the streets of Pinoso. Streets are closed off, one way streets are suddenly two way. It's all a bit tricky. I saw someone try the normal right turn onto the Plaça el Molí to find her way blocked. The car stopped, the woman considered her options. The cars behind waited patiently. They didn't wait long really but 15 seconds delay in Huntingdon or Todmorden would have horns a go go. In Pinoso nobody tooted, they just waited. We do it all the time, wait patiently that is, as people stop their cars in the middle of the street to greet a friend or to drop off the not too nimble relative close to their door.
Slowing down can take some getting used to. I think it's worse if you, if one, is still British at heart, watching British TV and reading UK news and seeing things going quickly. I don't really. But if you compare the lightning fast selection of BoJo in comparison to the continuing, outrageous, non negotiations going on here about not forming any sort of government you have a case in point. That thing of an election one day and a new government the next isn't the Spanish way. I think it's the same with traffic reports. Here the police tell the DGT and the DGT tell the media so, by the time you hear the traffic report on the radio or Google maps knows to route you a different way, the tortured metal and smashed bodies have been dragged aside. Meanwhile in the UK someone phones the radio directly.
So, when someone behind a desk tells me it may take a few months for a pal to exchange their UK driving licence for a Spanish one I just say right and I'm surprised when my friend thinks it's a long time. When they told me the waiting time for a new car was three months I didn't think of it as being overly long till a couple of Britons expressed surprise.
No, I'm keeping very busy thanks.
