Villancicos

We went to a carol concert, un concierto de villancicos, this evening. Nothing special really; five or six of the local musical groups - a neighbourhood group, the church choir, the local brass band, the traditional dance group, etc. all going through two or three Christmas favourites.

We only recognised a few of the whole repertoire, nobody greeted us like long lost friends and, to be honest, the standard wasn't that great but it was a pretty enjoyable little event nonetheless. The whole thing was cosy; friends greeting friends, people waving from the stage to their pals. Small town life and Christmas spirit at its best.

Brushes with Systems

I sent an email to the customer services department of my bank.

Question: Can you tell me why you've charged me 10.85€ on an account I closed 6 months ago?

Answer: According to 16 article minister rule law ECO/734/2004 of march 11 about departament bank clients (B.O.E. 24/03/2004), we inform you that to attend your consult you need to have electronic signature according to the rules law 59/2003 of december 19, about electronic signature (B.O.E. 20/12/2003).

I think they mean no. The email back to them was quite terse.

Now that I'm in the Social Security system I thought I'd get myself a permanent health card. The man at the health centre was very helpful. He stared at his computer screen. He confirmed that I was "live" on the system and he stuck a little sticker on my temporary card. "Does this mean I'll get my permanent card soon?", I asked. "Probably not", he said, "I've phoned to ask the people who deal with it what to do but they're not answering and I've no idea what this message on the screen means". "What should I do then?" "I don't know, why not come back when it's someone different on the desk who might know?"

I went to the Consumer's Office in the Town Hall to see if they could help me with a bit of advice about my damaged car. The man was very nice. He told me I was stuffed. Best you can do is make a civil claim against the insurance company. He suggested I talk to the JP who works at the Town Hall every morning. Apparently there is a small claims procedure. The Consumer's office man promised to leave a note for the JP. I even saw him start to type it.

The JP starts at 8 in the morning according to the reception desk chap in the Town Hall. Unlike me, however, he didn't turn up today till 9.30. He had no note from the Consumer's Office. "Waste of time talking to me", he said, "You need a solicitor".

Ah ¡Viva España!"

It's a bit cold

It has remained pretty warm here until the last couple of days. We've been getting as low as 7ºC every now and then and the highs have been around the 17ºC mark but yesterday and the day before the night time temperatures fell to 1ºC and it got no better than 9ºC. There was a morning frost on the cars. Days are still generally sunny with bright blue skies though

When I was down on the coast yesterday it was noticeable that the temperature was signiicantly higher, over 20ºC. We tend to lose 4 or 5 degrees as we climb the 600 metres or so between the coastal areas and home.

Our SEAT 600 Club Annual Do

Each year the SEAT 600 club of which I'm a member has a Christmas do or Club day.

We start by meeting at a bar. With 100 plus cars parked outside and the occupants of the cars in the bar it gets quite noisy.

After a couple of hours in the bar we drive off. The idea is to parade around the streets making as much noise as possible, usually sweeping through red lights and stop signs courtesy of a police escort. I was quite taken with the horn of the Mercedes which went moooooo!! This year we could go to a mass in honour of our patron saint. I would probably have given that a miss but, as it was, I didn't get the chance because our cars got mixed up with the everyday traffic of Orihuela and I lost the car I'd been following. I don't know Orihuela town at all well so I searched around a bit and then headed off for the restaurant where I knew we were to have lunch. I think a lot of cars got lost.

Lunch was at 3pm, we were in a huge barn of a dining room but the service was good and there was stacks of food. We were treated to music from a Mariachi band. They appeared to be friends of one of the waiters. The table I was at was mainly Britons though three Spaniards had no option but to sit with us though they weren't vey talkative.



Over coffee we were given our Christmas gifts - a barbecue set and a Christmas hamper with three bottles of wine and five boxes of assorted cakes. Considering the meal cost nothing and I only paid 35€ for a years membership I reckon we made out like bandits. I didn't win anything in the raffle the star prize of which was a ham. Spaniards have big hams at Christmas which look like the hind quarters of pigs, which is exactly what they are of course.

More Holidays

Today is another holiday in Spain. I've heard it called both La Purisima and Inmaucalda Concepción both of which have pretty direct translations - The Purest One and Immaculate Conception. I never undestand all the different Spanish Virgins Mary but apparently Inmaculada Concepción is our Patron Saint.

Recently I heard some Britons talking about Red Letter Days. According to them these are the Spanish National Holidays when it is illegal to work. It didn't ring true to me but then I'm no expert on Spanish traditions and laws. Anyway I was certain the pictures would be open so I popped down to the local multiplex which is in Petrer about 25km from home. Nothing to describe there if you've been to any multiplex anywhere in the World - oh, except that the place that sells the overpriced popcorn and two litre buckets of coke doesn't sell coffee. I don't think the Spaniards can bring themelves to drink ready made coffee.

The cinema is part of a shopping centre that includes a Carrefour supermarket and I was surprised when that was open. I went to get some supplies. The place was heaving. I was shocked. People were shoving and pushing to get to the Christmas supplies, huge legs of ham, polvorones, turron and blow up Santas. One of the things I like about Spain is that Christmas doesn't really get under way till December 1st but it is certainly under way now.

Time and Place

Today is a National Holiday in Spain and there's another holiday on Friday. Lots of Spanish workers take the days between as holidays too; it's described as a bridge or puente. Maggie is taking advantage of the puente to pop over to the UK to see her sisters and attend to some family business.

Just after I'd dropped Maggie at the airport my sister phoned me on my mobile. Was I OK to talk, was I at work? I told her I was on my way to the pictures. It never struck me to explain why I wasn't at work. After all in the place where I live everyone knew it was a holiday today.

I suppose in the UK it's just a dreary Wednesday.

Language and entrepeneurs

From before we moved to Spain I've always thought that being able to speak Spanish would be the key to making a successful life here.

I often despair of my language skills but I keep plugging away and I do think that they're getting a bit better. There are good days and bad days, good conversations and bad conversations. Maggie cheered me up a great deal when she pointed out that, nowadays, I can generally say what I want to say even if the language does grate and squeal a bit along the way.

So I was reading the paper and there was an article about podcasts and it mentioned a website called notes in spanish. I haven't actually explored the pages as thoroughly as I should have, mainly I've just downloaded the bunch of mp3 conversations and started to listen to them. This English chap and his Spanish wife came up with the idea of nattering away in everyday Spanish, uploading it to the web and then selling the transcripts and other bits and pieces that cluster around the conversation. In one of the podcasts they were offering the "opportunity" to have a conversation with the Spanish side of the partnership over the phone using Skype which would, of course, make the calls possible from any corner of the globe. I was impressed. A nice, simple idea. Selling something that lots of people want but making the money from the fringe activity. Not being too greedy, exploiting the internet in a nice simple way and the conversations I've listened to so far have been interesting - they sound like a couple of nice people.

The Car II

The driver who bumped into my car says it wasn't his fault. It does't really concern his insurance company at the moment whose fault it was as he has comprehensive insurance. If, in the end, they have to pay out, because it was his fault, he'll lose his no claims bonus. If it turns out to be my fault they'll get their money back by making a claim against my insurance company. If that happens I'll lose my no claims bonus and I won't get my car fixed. But whoever's fault it was he will get his car fixed by his insurance company.

His insurance company won't worry about me. They'll expect my insurance company to look out for me and even to make a claim against them, on my behalf, for third party damage. Unfortunately my company won't be doing that for me because of the legal assistance problem explained below.

My insurance company only insures the "third party" i.e. the other car/driver. I can't make a claim to get my car fixed because my insurance doesn't insure my car - it only covers third parties - in this case the other car. So I have to wait for the other driver's insurance company to approach mine probably to ask for payment for the repairs they carried out on their client's car. They may only do that if he claims it was my fault and it may take months if not years. At that point my insurance company may contest the point to avoid having to make the payment. Or they may decide it's too much hassle and just pay up. I don't know how insurance companies behave and they probably won't tell me.

I am left in the middle with almost nowhere to turn to make anything happen. Normally this wouldn't come about because part of the insurance policy would be Legal Assistance. That is I'd have insured myself for someone to act on my behalf in a situation just like this one. But, when I took out the insurance, I said that I had breakdown cover from a car club. Breakdown cover is normally sold as an integral part of a Spanish insurance policy. What nobody told me at the time was that "breakdown cover" was shorthand for "breakdown cover and legal assistance" so when I turned down the breakdown I turned down legal assistance too.

Tricky isn't it? And boring. I bet you that most people who've got this far have lost the thread of the argument. Now imagine trying to do this in Spanish. Difficult technical language, complex concepts, lots of ifs and buts.

I've talked to lawyers at the car club, people at the brokers, the Guardia, the local police and now I suppose I'll have to go the consumer's office. They all think it's a shame. They all symapthise but none of them can suggest anything other than to sit it out and see what happens. In the meantime my car looks a mess, has dodgy lights and will almost certainly run out of "MOT" before anything gets settled. I'll probably just end up taking it off the road and scrapping it and accepting the loss. Quite bad news.

Being on the telly

I was interviewed by the local telly, TelePinos, at the car club do on Sunday. I didn't feel to do very well at the time but I saw myself on the local news. I thought I sounded OK, the Spanish was far from perfect but it was reasonably sensible and I certainly grinned a lot.

Hooray, now I can pay tax!

My boss waved a piece of paper under my nose as I was on the phone at work today. It was my contract of employment, signed and dated by someone official.

I am no longer an illegal, cash in hand worker. I pay taxes and I have rights through the Social Security system.

Not such a great success

Despite the car being a bit of a jalopy nowadays we're still members of an old car club. The SEAT 600 Club of Orihuela in fact. Theyd asked me if I could organise a little excursion and I said yes.

It was very simple to organise. I asked Roberto , the man who owns and runs the wine bodega and oil mill in Culebrón if he could do a guided tour. "No problem" he said "We do it all the time". I asked Eduardo a the local restaurant if he could do a meal for thirty to forty people. "No problem" he said "We do it all the time".

As the day got closer the numbers went up. I spoke to Roberto "I can deal with ay number". I spoke to Eduardo, he said his restaurant could hold lots of people but he was dithering a bit about the menu. I contacted the Spanish secretary of the car club and asked him to speak to Eduardo just to make sure everything was sorted. That conversation took place.

The cars were due in Pinoso at about 11 this morning. We got there at about 11 and the cars were waiting. We were late. Not such a good start. There were nearly 40 cars and about 90 people. More than expected.

We drove to the bodega. The Spaniards milled around. Roberto led them to the big shed that is the modern bodega. He gave away a few samples. He never spoke to the assembled crowd; no mention of the process, the history of the bodega, no visit to the old, oak panelled, vaulted ceiling bodega. Absolutely no mention of the olive oil they produce there. People bought stuff from his shop.

The President of the club and I went to speak to Eduardo in his restaurant two hours before kick off. No way I can deal with 80 people he said (the number who wanted to eat). He changed the menu, for the worse. I wondered if he had been drinking.

People disappeared because there was too long a gap between the bodega visit and the meal but at 2pm everyone was back to eat. The meal was very ordinary and the servings scanty. It was served in spurts of activity with long periods of waiting in between. I consoled myself with quite a lot of wine.

I had a bad day Spanish wise too. Generally my Spanish has been a lot more certain over the last couple of weeks so it was a bad day to find myself alternately tongue tied and babbling. If I'd been able to speak better I wouldn't have sounded so stupid when I spoke to the local TV cameras. I would have asked Roberto to speak to the masses. If I'd been able to speak to Eduardo I'd have played hell and told him to get his finger out. Well, more probably, I'd have asked "our" Spaniards to do it on my behalf. But as it was I just stood there, did nothing and watched it fall apart. Very disappointing especially as today was the day for the Neighbourhood Association meal. We missed that to go to this fiasco.