Life in Culebrón

Recently I have had a bit of a spate of sending Mr Angry letters - well emails - to various organisations in Spain. Generally they have been specific complaints. Problems with the operation of a bank website or some problem with bill payments for instance I think Barclays, for their Spanish Barclaycard, have an almost foolproof system. I sent an email to ask a general question about the functioning of their redesigned website. They sent me a guffy response telling me that they were unable to respond to an open email for reasons of security and that I should phone customer services. By return I composed a long and snotty email telling them what I thought about their customer service via email. I got exactly the same response as to my initial message. Hmm, I thought. I sent another email wishing them a pleasant day. They told me that they were unable to respond to an open email for reasons of security and that I should phone customer services. That's a great trick. Give the imp...

It's not a complex idea. When I was a lad braziers were the natural complement to those little striped tents that workmen used to set up over what were then called manhole covers. In Spain they put them under round tables. Braziers or braseros are, at their most basic, simple bowls which fit into a circular support underneath a round table. There are electric ones nowadays of course but the one we were presented with today, when we went for a birthday meal, was more like a wrought iron version of a parrot's cage. Glowing embers are put inside the bowl, the bowl is popped under the table and a heavy tablecloth draped over the table and your knees. The heat captured under the table warms the lower half of your body. A very personal sort of heater. The modern thermostaically controlled electric heaters do the same job and have the advantage over the old fashioned, real fire type. They don't either set fire to their users or poison them with carbon monoxide.

I've been to some cold places in my life. England in January isn't that warm; the Isle of Lewis and Stockholm are often colder but they are not uncomfortable places. Culebrón on the other hand is uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Outside it's about 7ºC and it's midday. The house isn't set up for it. Wind whistles under the doors, through the windows. Marble and tiled surfaces don't help. Built for summer, not for winter. The only warm place in the house is under the shower. Outside, the sky is blue, the sun is shining. Wrapped up, with gloves it's warm enough. But inside the chill soaks through your bones. Down in La Unión I haven't yet started to close the windows at night or use a heater but here. Brrr! Our local petrol station has no petrol, no diesel and no gas bottles. Everyone says that the owner can't pay his bills so the oil company won't deliver except for cash payments. The next nearest petrol stations are at least 10kms away. The ...

I thought he wasn't going to come. He didn't send me the message he'd promised yesterday and he didn't answer my text messages. When I finally plucked up the courage to phone he said he'd be here by 12.30. I raced from La Unión to be here on time. An hour after the appointed time he still hadn't arrived and I sent another message. After lunch was the reply, around four. He arrived about half past but I must say when he did start the work was impressive. He had something like a billhook cum machete as his only real tool. He sharpened it to start and kept stopping to sharpen it. I think he said it was called a márcola but I may be wrong. He set about the plam tree with a verve slicing off the outer layer with a mixture of brute strength and the sharpened blade. Our ladder would only reach to a certain height so for the top of the tree he strapped himself into a harness, braced himself against the tree and continued to slice off the dead covering and lots of ...

Probably the main reason that we have a house in Culebrón is because when we first came here Maggie had a job in Elche. One of Elche's claims to fame is that it has the largest palm forest in Europe. Looking for a house we could afford we moved up the Vinalopo valley and away from Elche. The first time I saw our house in Culebrón it was the little drive, framed by trees, that impressed. Then there was the palm tree. There are other trees in the garden, there are some nice trees, but it was the palm tree that drew my attention. The outside space in Culebrón has always been its biggest plus. All those years ago the palm trees in Elche were menaced by a little red beetle. The other day our village mayoress WhatsApped me a pamphlet to say that the Town Hall here was concerned about the spread of that same beetle and that there was a census under way of palm trees. Infected trees would have to be culled for the greater good. The thought crossed my mind that we were going to lose ...

I'm back in Culebrón for the weekend. Before I left La Unión I checked the State Weather Service to see whether I would need a wooly or not. After all Culebrón is at nearly 600 metres. I was a bit undecided - daytime temperatures have been fine, sunny and clear with maximums of around 27º/28ºC most of the week. Minimums though were a little scary. It got as low as 10ºC on Wednesday and it rained. I decided against a jumper though, I have some in Culebrón anyway, and I stuck to packing T shirts. Mind you, around 7pm this evening I decided it was a bit chilly and I dug out an old cardigan and closed the doors. It's on the cards. The clocks go back this weekend. It'll be dark around 7pm and we can look forward to a gradual worsening until the depths of December when it will be dark by 6pm. As I was driving to work the other morning I realised that trees were shedding their leaves and as I sat outside a bar the other morning around 9am I wished I'd chosen a long sleev...

Usually coming home to Culebrón for the weekend is something to look forward to. Not this time. No, coming back to Culebrón today was a horrid journey for a horrid purpose. I was bringing Eddie the cat home to bury him. On Monday evening he left the flat in La Unión to enjoy a bit of freedom outdoors. He'd done the same thing several evenings on the trot usually whilst I had an after work cup of tea and a sit down. I went to bring him in, maybe an hour and a half later, at around one in the morning. I found him lying on the ground, unmarked, but quite obviously dead. Most likely it was a car, which seems incredible given the quietness of the streets, but dead he was. Eduardo had been with us since July 2005 when he was tiny. He could be funny, he was always clever and at times he could be a right pain in the backside. Now he's buried besides the nispero tree in the garden in Culebrón. My life will be substantially poorer without him.

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I'm sometimes a little scathing about our attitude to Spain and our failure to integrate. We British are a pretty big immigrant group in Spain but unlike the other groups who generally have to use Spanish to survive we don't. English is so all pervasive that we can get by. It's possible to keep well away from the mainstream of Spanish life by reading a British newspaper, watching British TV and living a British life surrounded by Spain. We're also generally pretty rich. I don't mean that everyone lives the life of Reilly but, unlike the majority of Ecuadorians or Moroccans, many of us have sufficient money to live a reasonably comfortable life without having to work. Plenty of us do work and plenty of us are strapped for cash at times but generally, and generalisations are generally untrue, our wealth keeps us out of the labour market and so away from the integration that comes with working life. Where there are largish British populations other Britons set up...

Unless I suddenly flee the country or unless I have a violent argument with my new landlady I expect to become a resident of La Unión next week. Yesterday I handed over the fee to the estate agent for introducing me to my new flat and next Tuesday I will meet my new landlady and hand over a month's rent and the breakage deposit. When the agent told me that the landlady wanted to see my wage slips I said that I would like to see her wage slips too and asked that he pass on that message to her. It's obvious enough why she wants to see my wage slips. I'm a risk for her. She lets me into her house and, like all tenants, once I'm in I'm difficult to get out. She doesn't know if I'm the sort of person who will pay my bills or not. She doesn't know if I will smash up her furniture or play loud reggae music at 3am to amuse the neighbours. Wage slips don't actually prove anything of course. Richer people than me like reggae and don't pay bills. Past...

I keep a diary. I have ever since I was 14. At the bottom of each page I note the weather for the day. In most of July and August it has been a pretty monotonous entry. It reads - sunny and warm - high 35ºC low 19ºC - well more or less, sometimes a bit warmer sometimes a bit cooler. I don't write sunny and hot till it gets over 40ºC and it hasn't done that in Culebrón all summer. These last few days though all that has changed - cloudy, overcast and at times torrential rain. Maximum around 28/29ºC. The reason of course is that August is nearly over and there is a remarkable concurrence between the calendar and the weather here in Spain that I simply don't remember experiencing when I lived in the UK. Summer is over in other ways too. Maggie is off to Qatar tomorrow so I will be left all alone in Spain for at least the year of her initial contract. I was due to start work again on Monday but there has been a bit of a cock up with my holiday pay so I'm not going to ...