Mileuristas

Mil means 1,000 in Spanish, euristas is derived from Euro, the currency, and, to finish the word off it is personalised with that ending istas. So Mileuristas are those people who earn around 1,000€ (£870) per month.

I aspire to be a mileurista, I've never been paid as much as 1,000€ per month either before or after tax whilst I've been in Spain. Fortunately Maggie breaks the barrier easily enough.

There was a report yesterday that said that 63% of the Spanish workforce earned less than 1,100€ per month - that's less than 13,200€ gross per year. The average wage here is 18,087€ gross (before tax etc.) If we were doing this in sterling we'd be talking £15,727 per year. In the UK it's around £24,000.

Now we all know that averages are rubbish, I'm almost certain for instance that you have more than the average number of feet! Nonetheless it feels true that Spanish people earn derisory amounts of cash by European standards. I heard one of those "dolebuster" features on the radio where a boss was obviously proud that he was offering a salary of 18,000€ for a trained and experienced chemical engineer. The woman in the dole office agreed with me that it wasn't too ridiculously greedy to ask for a salary of 1,500€ per month if I would have to move house to take up a new job.

Earnings of course mean nothing without being able to judge outgoings too. The 2 bed flat we've just rented in Cartagena seemed averagely priced at 550€ per month. A litre of milk costs around 70 cents and it's about 6€ to go to the pictures. We thought we were onto a good deal for a phone/broadband and basic TV package at around 65€ per month. A litre of ordinary diesel is 85 cents and 95 octane petrol 94 cents. A bread stick might be discounted but expect to pay around 50 cents and an English style loaf can cost as much as 2.50€. It's a long time since I've been in the UK but I suspect that some of those prices sound good and others sound high. Not drastically different though. And not enough to make that 63% of the population comfortable.

Razor sharp

When I was in Ciudad Rodrigo I read a book that described life in the villages of Salamanca province in the first thirty or forty of the last century. One of the stories was about the knife grinder cum bucket mender who turned up from season to season. Days long gone.

We were in Pinoso today. This chap was plying his trade

He loved Big Brother

I signed up for the Spanish eBay today and I had a bit of a struggle entering my NIE - the 9 character code that identifies we resident foreigners - it annoyed me a lot.

Everyone in Spain has to carry ID. The most usual way for Spanish nationals to do this is to carry their DNI, an identity card.

Youngsters don't have to hold a card until they are over 14 but it is usual to apply for a DNI for a child as soon as their birth is registered. If a family decides not to apply for a DNI for their child "at birth" then the details of the minor have to be entered in the "family book." Foreigners have to carry ID too, usually a passport.

Foreigners who are resident in Spain have to apply for an ID number as does anyone who wishes to carry out any financial transactions here whether they are resident or not.

The identity "number" for Spanish Nationals, the DNI, has 8 figures and just one control letter whilst the one for foreigners, the NIE, has a letter at both the beginning and the end with seven numbers in the middle. Spaniards are always surprised, nay shocked, to find that UK passport numbers change from issue to issue. Their Spanish ID numbers follow them through life appearing on passports, driving licences etc.

The Spanish ID card carries simple details like a photo, name, date of birth, place of birth, address, names of parents etc. Until recently it also carried a finger print but the newest cards carry the characteristics of that print in electronic form on a chip and also provide a digital signature for electronic transactions. So every Spaniard is fingerprinted - something currently reserved for criminals or suspected criminals (oh and motorists) in the UK.

Everyone, but everyone, thinks they have the right to see your ID. I needed it for eBay, I needed it to register my mobile phone, to sign on the dole, to rent a flat, to register in a hotel, to hire a car, to get a credit card, to pay by credit card, to open a bank account, to register for health care, to get gas bottles and even to join a classic car club.

You don't need to know you account number at the bank or your social security number at the tax office so long as you have your DNI/NIE. Everything, but everything, is connected to your ID number. Lots of official Spanish databases are linked and I suspect that it would be very easy for someone to access lots and lots of information about anyone living in Spain.

The Spanish ID card was introduced by Franco, a dictator. He got card number 1 and he left the numbers up to 100 for his family and for the Royals. Our King has number 10.

Horny!

The bloke in this video is a mobile mechanic, a Brit, who works around here. Someone told us that he'd had a bad time with the cows during the Pinoso Fiesta but I only got around to looking today. Nice eh?

He got away with bruises and what not. Nothing broken, no long term physical damage.

Was Barti wrong?

When we first moved to the countryside Maggie was still working at Newton College and she asked the gardener there, a bloke called Bartolomé, how to care for palm trees (we have one in the garden.) "Do nothing, just enjoy it," he said, "Palms, olives, pines and figs don't need any help, they belong here, they can cope."

We've been back in Culebrón from the beginning of July and, so far as I know, we've had two rain showers, one lasted a couple of hours and the other just a few minutes. It's been warm too, mid 30s for weeks and weeks. Splendid weather.

We just noticed that the small fig tree, the one that gives the green figs, was looking a bit sad. Maybe it's hosepipe time.

Miracles go hand in hand

So we were reconnected. We were back in touch but the speed was running at less than 1mb. Slow. Youtube videos stalling, 10 minutes to download the Archers podcast (I know, I know but some people can't let go of pork pies) and longer to upload snaps to Picassa.

The thing is we were on the Internet here before and we had 3mb. When the engineers put in the line they were optimistic about the speed we may be able to achieve. So I phoned Telefonica. The line to customer services was as crackly as that cowboy who wore a brown paper waistcoat, brown paper shirt and brown paper trousers - the one who was arrested for rustling. Nonetheless the South American customer services person didn't give up on me. "Can we have something faster?" I asked. "You can have 3mb" she finally answered after a very creditable 14 minutes on the phone. "It will take about 8 days" she said and we left each other as firm friends.

We have 3mb today. Incredible really. We asked for 6mb, we were offered 1mb which we took (no option) but all the time there was an option of 3mb. Splendid service.

A miracle

"Hello, this is Telefonica, we're down by the bar in Culebrón, can you come and fetch us?"

So finally, after nearly seven weeks of waiting we have the phone and Internet back.

We had all the cables and what not still in place so we'd expected nothing more than someone tapping something into a computer at the exchange but the engineers spent ages up and down ladders on some nearby properties and then had to restring a cable from the telegraph pole. But who cares? We're back in touch.

Border hopping

I find borders and border towns strange places. Between Portugal and Spain any physical barriers have gone but it's a diffrent time and a different language. Between Spain and Morocco there seemed to be a World of difference just like passing from the US to Mexico.

Not content with one border in one day we travelled back from Ceuta to the mainland and then drove to La Linea where we parked the car and walked across the frontier to the UK.

I suppose Gibraltar is keen to prove its Britishness. There seemed to be more pillar boxes on Main Street than in the whole of Huntingdon. Red phone boxes were still in use, fish and chips are on sale every ten yards (none of that funny metres stuff by Gad) whilst the Bobbies wear pointed hats and not a trace of that Bat Utility Belt/Flack Jacket type stuff. Aah, the good old days!

It was a pleasant interlude though. I thought Maggie might weep for joy as she raced around M&S grasping clothes that she knew would fit. We were able to marvel at the funny bank notes we got from a hole in the wall machine using a UK card, we bought burritos in a boozer where they sold bitter, I got a pack of Hamlet cigars and we bought some of those Celebration chocolates as a gift for someone back in Alicante. Oh, and we had absolutely no language difficulties anywhere we went - everyone we met spoke English.

But Gib's not much like the UK really. It's hot for one thing, the cars are left hand drive and petrol and fags were definitely cheap. I suspect there are quite a lot of much more profound differences for those who stay for longer than a couple of hours. I did ask what time it was, by the way, just in case it was different to Spain - it wasn't.

A glimpse of another place

The taxi driver wasn't keen to slow down, let alone stop. The district was called El Principe, The Prince, "Muy peligroso, very dangerous," he said. It looked dodgy. Long lines of Moroccans crossing over the border into Ceuta and Spain and milling around the buildings that made up the sorry looking industrial estate on the Spanish side. There were lots of blokes camping out on the flat rooves of the factories. It looked as though they lived there at least for the moment. Who knows why. Apparently they cross the border to sell things "clothes and shampoo," said the driver.

We had asked to be taken to the fence that separates Spain from Morocco. The rich from the poor. It's a high, double line of barbed wire topped fencing with open moats around it. From time to time groups of would be immigrants storm the fence with scaling ladders built of twigs.The Guardia Civil and Moroccan Army beat them back - "defending" the southern border of Europe. Sometimes people die in the attempt.

There was a Guardia Civil post and a no entry sign as we got to the fence. The taxi driver asked if he could turn around in the restricted zone explaining he had English tourists on board. I jumped out and took a couple of photos. The Guardia told me no photos and I said okey dokey and we were away again.

I don't really understand why people have to storm the fence if they can get through the frontier legally - couldn't they get by the fence without too much hassle and then set about the difficult task of getting onto the mainland? I suppose, though, that lots of people who get to that fence won't be Moroccans but will be Africans who have walked across lots of borders ill,egally, heading hopefully for the euro zone. It didn't look like a hopeful place.

Golden Days

There wasn't much choice of accommodation in Ceuta. One of the options was the Parador but they are usually quite expensive. Then we noticed their Días Dorados offer - a 30% discount for older people.

And I qualified. My first ever old age related benefit.

Murphy, stronger than gravity

I'm sitting in the Parador in Ceuta. I have views over the Strait of Gibraltar. We are about 650kms from home. We have been waiting for Telefonica to install a phone line since late June and the engineer rang about ten minutes ago to say he was on his way. I didn't tell him we weren't there. I rang our neighbour to see if he could let the engineer in. He wasn't keen, I could tell, but sterling chap that he is he said he would. Who knows we may have a phone line by the time we get back to Europe.