Hubble Bubble

The modern world is leaving me behind. I've said before about paying for things with my phone. I keep meaning to but, well, I don't really see the point. It looks as though using an app to pay may be slower than taking a plastic card out of my wallet and waving it at the payment terminal. I know I'm not keeping up though. My outlook is wrong. Lots of things that are, apparently, essential, from gaming to only tucking in half of my t-shirt seem a bit pointless to me. It smacks of my dad complaining about my musical tastes. Tom Eliot put it so well in his poem Little Gidding "let me disclose the gifts reserved for age". 

It's not that I feel that dinosaur like. I know about Google lens. This morning the arty Spanish podcast I was listening to (on my noise cancelling bluetooth headphones may I add) talked about the 40th anniversary of Bob Marley's death (who I proudly admit to seeing, in concert, in London in 1976). The music that accompanied the piece was a Joe Strummer version of Redemption song. I mentioned that I'd liked the song to Maggie who often comments, one way or another, on my dotage. She suggested that a quick visit to Spotify or YouTube would soothe any unrequited musical hankerings. I knew that. The truth is though that I still tend to buy and download music rather than listening to some streaming service. I find the unreliability of mobile networks quite annoying. There's a duet version with Johnny Cash too.

Anyway. Yesterday I had a phone appointment with a doctor. She said she would write me a prescription for some medication. I asked about the process for picking up the scrip and she sounded nearly as patronising as Maggie when she answered. "I've put it on your card," she said.

Here in Valencia we have a SIP card. The initials stand for, Sistema de Información Poblacional, the Population Information System, which sounds very Big Brother to me. Although this health service card, well the phone app associated with it, can be used to make and check appointments the card is most used as identification within the health system; every time you see a doctor or a nurse, have a hospital appointment or pick up a prescription from a chemist you are asked to show the card. What I didn't know was that the doctor can tap the details of any prescription into her computer and that same information becomes available in the pharmacies. Produce the SIP card and the chemist can hand over the medicines. I don't use doctors often enough to be sure of this but I think it may be something that has been beefed up because physical appointments have become so much rarer in times of Covid. 

Just to finish off I have another old man confession. I had jobs to do in town. I had to fill the prescription but I also needed a butane bottle. Whilst I was getting the gas I bought a broom. A Macbeth type witch's broom. I hoped that it would be good for flicking the fallen mulberries to the side. You can't get much more traditional than that. I'm told it needs no recharging and works without any sort of internet connection.

How much?

My foot hurts. It's been a bit of a problem since I made the wrong choice of footwear for wandering around the Benicassim Festival site. The blisters were very big but that was ages ago now and, although the blisters are long gone, my heel still hurts. More worryingly it's getting worse rather than better.

I thought strapping it up or cushioning the heel may help. I went to the chemist and wandered around the displays. I found a couple of silicone heel cushions and, according to the box, they were just what I needed. Then I bought some lint, twenty individually wrapped pads, and a roll of sticking plaster. Total price 23.80€. Of that nearly 12€ was for the lint. Bit of a shock.

To be honest it wasn't a surprise. I just didn't like it. For years I've thought that the stuff they advertise on the telly that you have to buy from pharmacies (and lots of medical stuff can only be bought at pharmacies) is exorbitantly priced. You know the stuff; the spray for your aching knee which means you finish the marathon, the capsules that stop your nose running so you can be feted by your work colleagues for such a brilliant presentation or the haemorrhoid cream that allows you to throw away that blow up cushion. For all I know things may be equally expensive in the UK but I don't remember any angst the last time I bought lint or a roll of plaster in Huntingdon.

It's not the same for prescription medicine. My experience with prescribed medication is that it's affordable. The amount you have to pay depends on your financial and medical situation. Lots of people with chronic problems or work related injuries pay nothing whilst pensioners pay 10% or 60% depending on their income and they are also protected by monthly caps. Workers pay 40%, 50% or 60% of the actual cost of the medicine with no caps or limits.

Every now and again, I hear or read that the average Spanish salary is such and such an amount and it always makes me guffaw. At the moment they say it's just a bit short of 27,000€. I can only surmise that there must be a lot of very well paid Spaniards balancing out the miserly Spanish salaries I'm aware of.

Last week though I heard something that sounded much more realistic. It said that the most frequent salary (the sort of pay packet that most people get) in Spain is around 16,500€. When I went checking the most recent figure said that is now nearly 17,000€ year. Take off the tax and whatever and that translates to somewhere around 1,000€ per month take home pay.

You will be surprised to hear that I just happen to know the salary scales for teachers working in language academies. Non school teachers are unusual because their working week is shorter (34 hours) and they have longer holidays (10 weeks) in a country where a 40 hour week and 4 weeks holiday are still very common. Anyway the highest salary for that sort of teaching work is a bit under 15,000€. I never had an employer who paid the full rate but that's another story.

Your average Spaniard on that most frequent salary, or a language school teacher, paying rent or a mortgage might have to bind their injured foot with old rags so maybe I should think myself lucky!