Speaking googledygook

Have you ever tried to talk someone through a computer problem down the phone? Always, without fail, there is some difference between your machine and theirs. You're on Explorer 8 they're on 6, you're on Vista, they're on XP; not huge differences but just enough to cause the novice computer user some extra difficulty.

The language is difficult too, phrases like click on, push the orangey coloured button, go to the little icon in the top left hand corner just above the navigation bar etc. make perfect sense as they leave your mouth but totally confuse the recipient.

I've just had one of those conversations; forty minutes of one of those conversations, with a Sapnish friend who is trying to use a blog I set up for her. On top of the differences in machines and the description of things there was the rather larger language void between English and Spanish. I was hunting for word after word  - to push a button isn't the same as to push a door and in the confusion of a difficult description and a difficult process I got more and more angry with my language failings.

Never mind - we bought a bottle of mixed Margarita yesterday which I have been spicing up with some tequila that was languishing in our drinks cabinet. Solace at the bottom of a cocktail glass.

Some corner of a foreign field

There were hats and hooters and little flags all with the St. George cross. A big screen telly, lots of appropriate decoration and even a temporary bar in the TV room. El Cortijo, one of the local British run places, made a really good job of turning the England v USA game into an event. Pity the team couldn't do the same.

There's an interesting discussion on one of the expat computer forums about who people will be rooting for. The majority seem to be for England first with Spain as a backup position.

Just sign on the line

Every so often in Culebrón a robot voice phones us offering better and cheaper telephone services. Yesterday evening, in a fit of something, I pressed the button for more information and found myself talking to a woman with a very thick South American accent.

The sales spiel was all about faster Internet, free National calls, a couple of other useful/useless services and lower prices for the whole lot. As we pay too much and only have a 3Mgb connection I was interested but also cautious. We had a hell of a job getting connected last year because the only company willing or able to put in the line was the old state monopoly company. I think that, by law, they have to pick up on providing the lines that don't make commercial sense. A bit like the Post Office delivering to some remote Highland cottage for the same price as it does to central London. In order to make it worth their while we'd agreed to stay with them for at least 18 months.

When it looked like I was going to buy I was passed to a man but when it got to the bit where he asked me for my bank details I said no, not till you've emailed me the conditions. He explained why it was essential that he had access to my money as soon as possible. I explained why it was essential that he was denied access to my money till I was absolutely certain. He asked again, I said no again. There were two or more rounds of essentially the same conversation. I believe the technique, learned in all those Assertiveness courses all those years ago is called the broken record technique, same reply over and over.

The written offer wasn't really much more than a large print sales pitch but there were certain clues to the pitfalls. In fact even one of the headline offers had been massaged down a bit, instead of offering faster Internet we now had exactly the same speed as we have at the moment. It turned out too that we would have to pay a penalty fee to our present telephone company for breaking the contract, that there would be an undefined period when we might only have dial up Internet access and that we would have to deal with all the paperwork with the old phone company ourselves.

I suggested to Adriane, we'd been on first name terms for a while now, that he should phone back when our original contract expired. You may have heard him slamming the phone down about half seven yesterday afternoon.

A theory

Someone described the Spanish Education system as being different to the English one in that the Spanish is inflexible in curriculum but flexible in terms of behaviour. In England it's the opposite.

Maggie likes to eat out. I'm more interested in getting fed. Dining against eating. We haven't eaten out for a while so today we were in a nice restaurant; nice that is till the bill came when we found we'd paid 30€ for seven prawns!

We were watching the food being delivered to the communion party upstairs and the birthday party downstairs - pelotas, gazpacho manchego, ham and cheese, plates of sliced sausage, rabbit paella, prawns, deep fried cheese - all the local staples and all very nice. It reminded me of a conversation I've had with several of my Spanish students learning English about food in the UK. It's an almost unshakeable Spanish belief that Brit food is poor food. I tell them about the popularity of eating and cooking food in the UK and about the availablity of food from all over the World. My theory though, a very generalised theory with lots of exceptions formed whilst watching all that food go by, is that in the UK there is an incredible choice of food but lots of it is pretty ordinary whilst in Spain choice is severely limited and very regional but quality is often high. Or, thinking on the hundreds of chop and chips meals I've eaten here, maybe not.

Dungarees, coffee and a shaggy dog

We've been painting. That's maybe a bit posh. More accurately we've been slarting paint, cheap white paint, onto the exterior walls that we have around the house.

It always starts well intentioned enough, we clean the surfaces down a bit but, in the end, it's loading up the brush and slapping the stuff on. It feels quite Spanish splashing the paint onto the walls even though I did the same with distemper and whitewash as a youth in the UK.

It made me think about those adverts on the telly. That one for a yogurt that reduces bloating and keeps your bowel movements regular. Or the ones for white goods like dishwashers and washing machines. The houses those people live in don't have exterior walls where the emulsion needs replacing every year. Those houses don't have the kitchen work surfaces heaving under the paraphernalia of everyday life. Pah!, I say, to those adverts where two young people transform their home with a pot of paint and loads of smiles. Don't they get paint in their hair, doesn't it make their bones ache?

Gardening

It's the weekend so, of course, we've been gardening. I washed the car too. You see the excitement, the manifold differences, of living away from one's homeland is almost boundless.

It did cross my mind, as I grovelled on my hands and knees, following the lines of the irrigation pipes to check for leaks and to unblock the little outlets, that it wouldn't be the same sort of gardening as that going on in Harrogate or Dunstable.

Prior to ackling up the irrigation system I'd been up a step ladder sawing fronds from the palm tree because they'd got so low that they were scraping the rooves of the cars as we manoeuvred around the patio.

Maggie has painted the interior of the irrigation tank with that bright turquoise coloured paint to make it look like a pool and I'd been knocking down the weeds that were waist height again. It happens in Spring, the seeds of those naughty little weeds wait in the ground for the rain and warmer days and grow quicker than our gardener seems able to knock them down.

Exciting no but Spanish yes.

Denied

A friend has been handling the process of getting us the Habitation Licence that we need to finally complete the bureaucratic steps associated with our new roof.

Our pal just rang to say that the licence has been denied because, according to the planning people at the Council, we are missing a personal ID document - the Foreigners Identification Number. We have the paperwork and in fact I'm sure that I provided the documents in the first place but, as it stands, we've been turned down.

What fun.

Self promotion

Dont forget the other active blog Life in Cartagena

A Long Weekend

May 1st is May Day in Spain. None of this nearest Monday malarkey. Maggie's school though chose to extend her weekend by giving her Friday off.

We went to Alicante on Friday, it was sunny and warm. I was still after juice but the idea was to make a bit of a day out of it. Go and stare at the sand and waves and maybe find a museum. It didn't go well; in Spain, in most city centres it's a toss up as to whether there are more bars, chemist shops or banks and we were looking for a bank, the Banesto, to activate a bank card. We didn't find one before closing time. There was no juice either. The worst thing though was that we went, first to a sandwich bar and then to a tapas bar to get some sort of snack at lunchtime and we bailed out of both. "Too busy - nowhere to sit" and "Good Lord, could the service be any slower?" but really it was because it wasn't straightforward and it would have been difficult and embarrasing Spanish so we fled. Actually we went in a Chinese restaurant in the end which was much better value and tasty stuff but the easy surrender upset me all day.

Saturday was fine, both weatherwise, at least till early evening, and in the "How are you?" sense. We saw a pal newly returned from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam etc. with tales of tuk tuk bandits and the price of beer in Vientiane. Otherwise we did very little. We talked about going to the Moors and Christians in Abanilla or maybe dancing (as if!) at La Perdiz but it began to rain and somehow the opportunity just drifted away. The windows rattled with the thunder though as I watched TV and drank brandy.

Sunday, Mother's day here, Sunny start but my most exciting plan was to exchange a gas bottle and maybe buy a Sunday paper offering a deal on a slow cooker. Books, phone calls and computer tinkering swallowed the bulk of the day. We set off for Cartagena much earlier than usual leaving the cat to the care of Gail our near neighbour and finally we made it to Abanilla for the Ofrenda de Flores, the flower offering, as part of the local celebrations. Some distinctly odd costumes. Back in time to see Doctor Mateo on the telly.

You see, and you thought living in Spain was like one long sunny week in Benidorm or Torremolinos!

News and the ability to travel

This morning we were in Pinoso and we bumped into our pals Paul and Dee as we bought rice crackers. We talked of fused spurs, model making lathes and beauty products. The inconsequential chatter between friends.

Paul and Dee live in Culebrón and, last weekend, they were surprised to find a workgang outside their house planting trees. The local TV was there. A regular little party. Paul and Dee tried to get in touch with us so we could join in the fun.

Tonight, at the village hall, with the neighbours, I'm hanging around, feeling lost, inspecting the toes of my trainers as I wait for the meeting to start. There are four or five women behind the coffee bar and they're talking about los pinos, the pines - pines and trees are synonomous here; if it's a tree it's a pine.

The matter was raised in the full meeting. Apparently nobody had said anything about planting trees before. It just happened. The farmer who can no longer get his tractor past the pines to work his land is a little peeved. The meeting formulated optional action plans.

It made me think. A stray comment in the superrmarket and, just for once, I was in the loop. Now I can go back to Paul and Dee and add something to their story.

No wonder the Archers, an everyday story of country folk, has run for so long!

Barking at the moon

I've done it before. I don't quite know why. Inma, the "Mayor" of our little village sends me an email - "There's a meeting tomorrow in the Village Hall to talk about the summer fiesta, it would be good to have you there." Like a fathead I go. Maggie has more sense.

I knew what it would be like. Twenty or so people. Plastic chairs. The sound echoing off the tiles and bare walls of the village hall. The side conversations, when things get heated, usually in Valenciano and always shrill and loud. Me, wanting to say something, having something to say but not tonight. Tonight, I had to be content with formulating the ideas in my mind, unsure of how to express, in Spanish, what I wanted to say.

They managed without me though.

The problem is money. The village fiesta, an event in honour of our Patron Saint has always been sponsored by the local Town Hall. Last year the Town Hall, strapped for cash could only find 2,500€ to support the village Neighbourhood Assocaition. This year it's down to 900€ and that amount is still a budget figure rather than cash in the bank. The town's quarry, the largest in Europe in terms of the tons of stone dug out, just isn't providing the revenue it has for ever so many years. Pinoso is grinding to a halt. A Town Council, used only to spending, doesn't know what to do.

Back at the village hall we decided to ask each house in the village to support the fiesta to the tune of just 10€. Add that to the 500€ plus in the accounts and the vermouth evening, the gachamigas cooking, the football games, the band for Saturday evening, the childrens games, the chocolate party and the church parade (including flowers and live music) should be safe. Reducing the brochure to an A4 sheet was the work of seconds. Not so the evening meal. We went back and forth, we talked about the large families being excluded by the price. We talked about cheaper menus, about cutting out the booze, the coffee, the pudding - but good sense won out. We're going to have a proper sit down meal with all the trimmings - waiters and everything.

Looks as though there won't be any poor people at the meal then.