An Old Fool in Spain

Joe and I stared at the computer screen in disbelief. They’d done it again! Telefonica had seen fit to help themselves to the funds in our bank account for the THIRD time.

It first happened last year, in August, I think. I was routinely checking the balance in our account and couldn’t believe that our telephone bill had leaped from the usual 90 euros to 880 euros. So we dialled Telefonica, asked for the English speaking Helpdesk and lodged our complaint.

“There’s obviously been a mistake,” said Joe.

“No mistake,” said Telefonica. “You changed your Plan. You used to have the 24/7  Internet Plan, and you changed it. Now you are being charged by the minute every time you go online.” 

“But we haven’t changed anything! We didn’t change our Plan!”

Twenty minutes later, Joe and Telefonica were still arguing, and Joe was getting nowhere. 

“As an act of goodwill, I will refund you 100 euros,” said Telefonica magnanimously.

Joe gave up but I was furious. Seething, I phoned the Helpdesk again. I was livid, and Telefonica got both barrels. There was a long, long pause, and finally they agreed. We had been charged far too much. It was a mistake and we were refunded. 

Satisfied, we forgot all about it until December when yet again we stared at our bank balance in horror and disbelief. This time Telefonica had charged us a whopping 1,011 euros!

Joe, after calming down, dialed the Helpdesk.

“You’ve made another mistake,” he said.

“No mistake,” said Telefonica. “I can see from the computer what has happened. You changed your Plan. You used to have the 24/7  Internet Plan, and you changed it. Now you are being charged by the minute every time you go online.” 

“BUT WE HAVEN’T CHANGED ANYTHING! WE DIDN’T CHANGE OUR PLAN!”

It was déjà vu, but eventually we got it sorted. Telefonica refunded our money and issued the normal 90 euro bill. But now we watched our bank balance like neurotic hawks.

It was the third time that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In February, Telefonica took 530 euros out of our account. 

“But Mr Joe, nothing in this life is free,” said Telefonica. “You changed your Internet Plan.”

Joe turned purple and the vein in his forehead throbbed. 

We phoned our bank and got the direct debit stopped. We researched online and found another company, an alternative to Telefonica. (Amazingly, it was BT.) Many phonecalls later, Telefonica reluctantly agreed we’d been overcharged, refunded our money and issued the normal 90 euro bill. 

Long ago, we’d accepted that living up a remote Spanish mountain meant that broadband was an avenue of pleasure denied to us. But, hurrah! BT were offering us unlimited broadband, a free router and 400 minutes calling time to anywhere in Europe for LESS than Telefonica was charging us for dial-up before.

The changeover was painless and transformed Joe and me into happy bunnies. Happy that we finally had broadband, and happy that we’d successfully severed all links with Telefonica.  

Result!

PS I've just discovered that BT and Telefonica are the same company! So it seems we haven't exactly 'severed all links' after all... 

    

Cowboys in the Desert

Because of the rain, the village has been even quieter than usual, so it was lovely to have some old friends to come and stay for a few days. When they arrived, they looked a little shell-shocked. They’d read ‘Chickens’ but I don’t think they’d grasped quite how small, isolated and purely Spanish our village is. 

“No shops?” asked Anna. “And what happens if you need to see a doctor?”

We explained that delivery vans come daily with bread, fish and local produce, and that the doctor comes once a week and holds a surgery in one of the villager’s living rooms. She looked dubious.

Andy and Anna were keen to see the local sights.

“We’ll take you to see Europe’s only desert,” said Joe.

“You see how lush and green it is here?” I asked. “Well, you’ll be amazed at the desert - it’s utterly dry and barren.”

So off we went to Fort Bravo, near the town of Tabernas. Fort Bravo is a movie set where dozens of spaghetti westerns like ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ and ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ were filmed. The terrain is similar to the Colorado desert with rocky outcrops and prickly pear cacti. A complete Wild West town has been recreated there, where you can wander round, enjoy a drink in the saloon, watch filming and generally imagine you are in a cowboy town.

“I thought you said it was a desert?” said Andy, waving his arms round to take in the verdant scenery. To our surprise, the rain had ensured that instead of the usual dry, dusty crags, the whole area was green and dotted with wild flowers. Joe and I shrugged, and we went in. 

The place was empty. No filming was taking place, the town seemed deserted.

“We’re going to have a nice quiet time,” said Joe. “We’ve got the place to ourselves.” 

Wrong...

The staff at Fort Bravo always dress in authentic costumes, and on that day, were clearly bored. Obviously our little party was a welcome diversion, but poor Anna suffered the most. Two cowboys in particular amused themselves by frightening the living daylights out of her. As we strolled round, they repeatedly jumped on her from behind buildings and furniture, pistols drawn. At one point Anna was put in jail and we finished the visit with a couple of tours of the town riding in a mule cart rattling along at breakneck speed.

We had a good day, but with gunshots still ringing in our ears, it was nice to return to the quiet of our village...

Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools

Old Fool's Blog

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 Forgive me for talking about the weather, but I’m British so should be excused. 

A few days before Christmas - it started. Rain. Not just rain, but torrents, bucketing out of the sky, hour after hour, day after day. For ten solid weeks it poured. More rain fell in two months than Andalucia normally sees in four whole years.

Now, I know that the UK has really suffered this winter from heavy snow, but that's no consolation for the Spanish skies opening and pouring on us for such a long time. Spanish TV showed the floods that took lives, ruined people’s homes, the impassible roads, the mudslides.

Around our village, waterfalls that had never existed before began to spurt enthusiastically out of the mountains.  Our poor chickens waded around in thick mud, and I was seriously considering making chicken wellies. The sky turned black, the sun trying hard to penetrate but not succeeding. 

Water coursed down the roads and dry stream beds became lively rivers. A brand new river coursed through the village where there's only ever been a dry gully before. I took this photo standing on the little bridge leading into the village. Notice the trees midstream. 

Then we made an important discovery. Our roof leaks. Water ran down our dining room wall. Joe and I rescued the bookcase then rushed around collecting buckets, pots and pans to catch the water. This continued for days. 

When Paco, our next door neighbour came up for the weekend, we showed him. Paco shrugged. “All Spanish roofs leak,” he said, as though that was common knowledge. Do they? We didn’t know that. 

So we carried on mopping and emptying our saucepans. It’s strange how you become accustomed to things; after a few days, the ‘drip...drip’ became just a background sound. In fact the drips were often quite musical... 

When we finally emerged from our house to go shopping, we very nearly didn’t make it. The only road into the village has never been good, but the constant rain had ensured that it became much worse. Massive boulders had broken away from the rock face and rolled down, blocking the road.

Fortunately, someone had pushed them aside into a pile (perhaps Geronimo with Uncle Felix and his mule?) leaving just enough room for a car to pass. A little nerve-racking as there’s a sheer drop on the other side... But we made it safely down the mountain to the shops to get our groceries.

While we were out, a house in our street lost the fight against the deluge, and collapsed. Luckily it was derelict, but it served as a reminder of the power of the elements, and stopped us moaning about our leaky roof.

Victoria 

Why move to Spain? Why live in a tiny mountain village, with only six permanent residents, no shop and half an hour away from the nearest big town?

For my first blog post for EOS, I thought I'd shoot back in time, and explain how Joe and I ended up leaving England for the village of El Hoyo, tucked away in the Alpujarra mountains.

It was my fault, of course. Joe was about to retire and already dreaming of a tension-free life, lounging in his dressing-gown all day, writing his masterpiece and perhaps diverting himself with the odd mathematical problem.

But, no, I had other ideas. I had plenty of reasons, some vague, some more solid.

So one particularly cold, wet Bank Holiday, I broached the subject. I gabbled on about the weather, the cost of living being cheaper in Spain, the pace of life slower, etc, etc.

 “Why don’t you write one of your famous lists?” Joe suggested, only half joking.

 I'm well known for my lists and records, I can’t help myself. I make a note of the weather every day, the temperature, the first snowdrop, the day the ants fly, the exchange rate of the euro, everything. I make shopping lists, separate ones for each shop. I make To Do lists and ‘Joe, will you please’ lists. I even make lists of lists. My nickname at work used to be Schindler.

So I set to work and composed what I considered to be a killer pitch.

• Sunny weather

• Cheap houses

• Live in the country

• Miniscule council tax

• Friendly people

• Less crime

• No heating bills

• Cheap petrol

• Wonderful Spanish food

• Cheap wine and beer

• Could get satellite TV so you won’t miss English football

• Much more laid-back life style 

• Could afford house big enough for family and visitors to stay

• No TV licence

• Only short flight to UK

• Might live longer because Mediterranean diet is healthiest in the world

When I ran dry, I handed the list to Joe. He glanced at it and snorted.

“I’m going to make a coffee,” he said, but he took my list with him. He was in the kitchen a long time.

When he came out, I looked up at him expectantly. He ignored me, snatched a pen and scribbled on the bottom of the list. Satisfied, he threw it on the table and left the room. I grabbed it and read his additions. He’d pressed so hard with the pen that he’d nearly gone through the paper. 

Joe had written:-

• CAN’T SPEAK SPANISH!

• TOO MANY FLIES!

• MOVING HOUSE IS THE PITS!

Well, to cut a long story short, after weeks of nagging and grinding him down, Joe finally came up with a compromise. We'd move to Spain, but as a Five Year Plan. We wouldn't sell our English house, and we'd live in Spain and decide whether we'd make it permanent at the end of five years.

But it was Joe's fault we ended up in El Hoyo. We both wanted to live inland where the property was cheaper, but it was Joe who fell in love with our crumbling ruin of a house. And I'm very glad he did.

   Our overgrown garden                    The house walls - made of mud and stones

The house had no kitchen, no usable bathroom. The walls were a metre thick and disintegrating. Electric cables sprouted out of walls, unprotected and lethal. But Joe saw the potential, and I warmed to the idea.

No, we didn't have a proper shop in the village, but we could buy fresh produce, fish and bread from the vans that delivered daily. Yes, we had to learn Spanish very quickly. And the villagers welcomed us with open arms.

Of course, we didn't know then how hard it would all be. We didn't know about the snow in winter, or just how hot and fly-infested it would get in summer. We didn't know we'd become reluctant chicken farmers or get rescued by a mule. But that's all another story.

What we did know immediately, however, was that we'd made the right decision.