DONNA GEE is still counting the cost of the night she accidentally locked herself out of her Guardamar home...

It still counts as just about my most embarrassing moment in Spain. I'd been in my villa near Guardamar just a few months when I managed to lock myself out. OK, most of us have done it - but in light of what developed afterwards I am beginning to wonder if there was something a little, shall we say, unusual about the way I had to pay through the nose for the privilege of getting through my own front door.

My daughter and son in law and their three kids were staying with me at the time and everything seemed d wonderful when we arrived home late on a balmy summer's night. Until I attempted to open the front door, that is. Like most of the houses around me, when one closes the door from the outside, the lock triggers and you need a key to get back in. Anyway, when this particular fool went out, surrounded  by her babbling family entourage, she failed to realise that her house key was not in her handbag - but dangling on the inside of the front door.

One locked door and seemingly no way back in. And one stupid woman who, not realising that the key needed to be turned  three times in the lock to fully operate the security mechanism, went out for the evening leaving her home wide open to burglars. Thankfully, those flimsy defences were not penetrated while we were out but when my entourage and I returned in the early hours of the morning, mass panic quickly broke out in the deserted neighbourhood. I needed a locksmith - but where on earth would I find one at 1.30am? I knew there was one living on the urbanisation, but where on earth would I start looking for him among 500 or more houses?

I got into my car and - more in hope than expectation - began to drive panic-striken around the estate.Then, glory be, a glimmer of hope - I saw the lights of a Guardia Civil jeep heading towards me. I immediately stopped the car, got out and flagged down the Guillermo Viejo (well, how else do you say Old Bill in Spanish?!). With my limited Spanish and some mega-talking with my hands, I managed to explain to the two Guardia officers in the jeep that I had locked myself out. They duly followed me back to my house, negotiated the entourage of family members hovering on the patio, and proceeded to twiddle with the front door lock.

''Necesita un cerrajero,'' they advised me, introducing me to a word I have never forgotten - the Spanish for locksmith. Cue more Anglo-Spanish pidgin talk and sign language and an offer to call out a locksmith for me.but it would not be cheap.
What could I do? Half an hour later, a locksmith arrived from Torrevieja, took one look at the door, pulled out what seemed to be a credit card, slid it down the frame of the door and CLICK, we were in.

Total time to get into the house - four seconds. Quicker than using a key. The cost? Precisely 100 euros.enough to make even John Terry consider changing his £175,000-a-week profession. (Not that I'd ever let him within 100 miles of my house, of course - and particularly my daughter!).

I made a costly mistake and I deservedly had to pay for it. Since then, I've learnt how to do the credit card trick myself and would strongly advise anyone else with a self-locking front door to make sure they ALWAYS ensure the security mechanism is fully operative when they go out.

But I often ask myself one little question.. Were those two Guardia Civil officers so naive as not to know the 'credit card' trick themselves? And if they did, why was it necessary for them to call out a cerrajero at all? Anyway, Guillermo Viejo and his friends are welcome to give me a call if they'd like some basic lessons in housebreaking!

 

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