Spanish Practices

Transcript: Day 98 The End? Sunday and the Alarma is over, Lockdown is unlocked, 99 days, it started on Saturday March 14th, but actually I consider that weekend to be the two phoney days of Lockdown.   Saturday 14th March was a pretty normal day, the supermarket rammed with people taking everything off the shelves, including the toilet paper, something that the Spanish do not a use a lot of, most prefer to wash in the bidet than smear on the pan, as it were.   Sunday was equally as busy as people rushed around to be in the right place before the strict measures and fines started on Monday 16th March.  Our friends Jen and Dave making a run for it to their seaside flat, Jen told me “Well it will only be for fourteen days, so we grabbed a few things from the village flat and drove early to the coast.”   As it turned out it has been 99 days and Jen only had her flip flops to wear which after week three fell to pieces and had to patched up with sticking plaster.   For us that first day felt, well felt like this:

Full transcript: Day 97 Of mousy women and men Saturday the weather is calm, the sun is shining, I have been doing some extreme weeding on the mountainside and managed to not fall down, the one time I did I thought it was best to relax and just let my body slide to a bit where I could cling on.  Our garden in Essex did not have the same extreme challenges, unless you count the incredible numbers of snails that ate their way through most of our English garden.   I have been spending some time reflecting, yesterday about the reasons why we came to Spain, today a reflection of things past.  Sometimes it is not healthy to keep reliving the past, much better to look forward to the future.   But often the future is fashioned by the past, all my mental health problems during the 1990s definitely changed me long-term as a person. I am pleased to say now I am a much more ‘mellow’ individual, although I am still capable of falling off my perch as my dear colleague Richard Dallyn used to say.   Over the years we have wo

Full transcript: Day 96 Tim Tams   Friday and the I made a terrible mistake today, I try very hard now to avoid the TV news from the UK, we have enough to occupy ourselves here with events in Spain.   I caught a picture of Headmaster Boris holding a packet of Tim Tams up, from what I understand following a new trade deal with Australia you will get tuppence off this less than delicious biscuit from Australia and the trade deal will end up adding only a gnats thingy to the UK GDP.   Worse I then wandered into the news that the New Zealand trade deal could well have a negative effect on GDP, as things like delicious but cheap New Zealand lamb will lose its trade tariff that allows British farmers to sell their lamb at competitive prices.   I scooted away as quickly as I could, off to Facebook for some friend’s kittens being naughty in his apartment in Spain. Oh no! the next post concerned the much-heralded UK tracing APP.   The story that unfolded that Apple and Google make a free tracing App but the UK Governm

Transcript: Day 95 Bonfire night   Thursday and now just a few days before everything un locks, the end of the Alarma and the new normal will start on Monday, many Spanish can go back to work and get the working week off to.. er, well er, a two day start, because next Wednesday “we are having a Fiesta”   The Fiesta of San Juan to be precise, the beginning of summer and those long summer holidays, after all we have all been working so hard these last few weeks … erm!   San Juan is when hordes of Spanish all head to the beach for a party, it will last all night and bonfires are lit all along the coast on the beach, there will be a lot of food and drink, all in throwaway plastic containers, barbecues and plenty of booze, that will also come in plastic containers and tin cans.   The idea is that the bonfires of San Juan are said to purify and protect, and ward of evil spirits, also at midnight, Spanish time, you go to the water’s edge and wash your face in the sea water to bring you good luck and hope for the fut

Transcript: Day 94 Assassination  Wednesday and the excitement cannot be contained, I am going shopping with Chris, well to be honest he doesn’t want me in the first shop, - Mercadona, he tells me he has a routine now and that doesn’t include me putting unsuitable items in the shopping trolley.   Never mind I am going to the Post Office instead, to pick up a parcel, the Post Office is only open between 8.30am and 2.30pm, the local office is tiny and usually packed, as many Spanish still come and pay their bills and do very complicated administrative things.   I arrived to discover the entrance was hidden behind some railing and the pavement outside was in a complete mess.  I followed the arrows around to the back entrance, I am guessing the temporary entrance that will take you through the sorting room/office.   Just ahead of me is curly lady, she is our local Postal worker and delivers the mail to the Estate.   But as I reach the door the sign on the door says closed at 2pm.  Madre Mia I said to her waving m

Transcript uncorrected: Day 93 Anyone for tennis?   Tuesday and we are battening down the hatches, the wind is returning again with a vengeance, so far, the summer here has not really happened. Today it is overcast and sticky humid.   Our Gym has opened, and we went last night, OK so it is not the normal evening busy, but there were people and Chris’ class was about half the normal number.  What was encouraging was the queue to join the Gym, at one point ten people deep, well social distanced.   There were a lot of arrows and nowhere to sit, most of the members were totally ignoring the arrows, years of travelling on the tube and I can’t help following arrows on the stairs and corridors.   Alcohol cleaner dispensers were everywhere, the same ones they use in hospitals and we had to clean equipment before and after, but twice a day they have one of those fog cleaning machines you now see on trains and aircraft.   The changing rooms were open, but you are, currently encouraged not to use them.  And more importa

Transcript (uncorrected) Day 92 Dance off   Monday has come, I usually dread Monday as it always brings administration stuff which I really don’t care for.   By the way if you want to catch all 92 episodes with transcripts of Spanish Practices head over to THE secret spain dot com.   Today the administration was our Spanish Tax return, I say our, as we are married it has been done jointly, I get the classification of Woman, the form does not seem to have a code for Partner.    The Spanish Tax year runs from January to December, unlike the UK tax year that runs April to April, it means that, certainly for a Brit you have to get your shite together straight after a major holiday of feasting and excess.   The Spanish celebrate Christmas differently, it outwardly seems a much more serious affair, Midnight Mass at the Church is a rather dreary occasion, I have heard carol singing from the children in the main town. Carols are sung in Latin which makes them sound beautiful if a little inaccessible.   We still haven

Transcript (uncorrected) Day 91   Sunday and Uncle Pedro has been doing his weekly Zoom meeting, he likes to surprise the regional Governments, just to remind them all he is the one in charge.   So he has brought forward the date when Spain will open its borders to everyone except Portugal, so on Monday 22nd June the Lockdown will be over, for now and so will this Podcast, I still have the story to tell about one of the stupidest things I did some years ago. I will keep that for later in the week.   But you can’t have a Podcast about Spain without mentioning the Spanish Royal family and in particular the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos de Borbón.   It must be remembered that Juan Carlos although swore allegiance to Franco as soon as Franco had popped off, Carlos started the transition to democracy back in 1975, which, with one or two hiccups along the way, seems to have served Spain well, although there are some who would wish that Franco was still in charge.   My Aunty Isobel who had a large portrait of Fr

Transcript here: Day 90 holiday from hell Saturday your Sunday and the Spanish Government has started to talk about how they envisage foreign visitors coming to the country, the first lot will turn up on Monday, they are Germans coming to the Balearic Islands.   Interestingly about 35,000 people travelled to Spain in May, whilst not holidaymakers, they were mainly people returning back to Spain for work or back to their residency.   From all those who travelled, 104 people were detected to have Corona Virus.   But in a couple of weeks the onslaught will begin, instead of personnel there will be automatic heat detector cameras, inline health declarations, this will only apply to people arriving by sea and air.  If you drive into the country, there will be no health checks.   But as we know people lie on health declarations, they do it all the time with travel insurance, and how do you track and trace hundreds of thousands of visitors into the country?   I am not sure that will be possible. For us we are probab

Full Transcript: Day 89 Fag End Friday and we are off to the Administrator to sell our old car to Carmen, what could possibly go wrong, find out later in this episode.   If you want to catch up on previous episodes and full transcripts, go to the secret Spain dot com   Today I have been thinking about Satan’s smoke. A great many people in Spain seem to smoke, I remember we had to pick up a parcel from a UPS pick up point that turned out to be a rather sad looking Travel Agents, I guess even sadder now we are in the Covid19 world.   It was a pain to get to, Chris had to negotiate the one-way system of Motril and park the car in a tiny space in an equally tiny square.  We got out the car and looked around, finally seeing the little shop and a sad and very tiny sticker saying UPS pick up.   We went inside, a very disinterested lady was sat, chuffing on a ciggy above her was a large sign “No Fumar” to her right were some rusty carousels with actual travel brochures - Viaje inglés with your usual pictures of a ple

Thursday and the wind is blowing and driving us mad, a new Spanish law on plastic waste might change the way we use single use plastic and three good legs cat gets a scare, oh and something in Spain that has taken longer to build than the pyramids and still isn't finished. Find out more https://www.thesecretspain.com Listen on the radio in London, Surrey and Machester here: https://www.thepodcastradio.co.uk/ Day 88 Plastic not fantastic - uncorrected transcript Thursday and we spent the morning gathering the paperwork for the car sale, a mind-boggling pile of every single transaction and certificate, we are missing the MOT, as the MOT centre has only just re-opened and there is long complicated waiting list to get your car MOT’d.   The Government has given an extension to the end of the year to sort that out, but Covid19 rules currently mean that for a lot of the centres it is you that run through the car, checking the lights and brakes etc,the MOT engineer shouting instructions in Spanish through a walkie ta

Today the embarrassment of explaining Fawlty Towers to my Spanish friends, an internet outage, and the end of central Government control in Spain   Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 87 Fake Spanish Waiters uncorrected transcript    Wednesday and the Spanish Parliament has approved the Royal Decree for “new normality”. It starts in a very good place with central control being released and the regional Governments can go back to being in charge.   Well I say Wednesday, it is actually Thursday we had an Internet moment last night, every couple of months the internet falls over, we have a peculiar Internet system here, it uses a line of sight dish that sends and receives the internet from a transmitter and receiver site, last night it decided to be naughty and not work.   We found out after returning from our Covid19 shopping experience, now that we can both travel in the car we split the shopping so I get to enjoy the rubber glove, mask, steamed up glasses experience too.   Our client Ryan emaile

Today a story of a TV set and an inconvenient death, and speaking of inconvenience, how dare you ask to transfer money at a Spanish bank without an appointment. find out more at https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 86 Inconvenient Death uncorrected transcript   Tuesday and the wind has dropped for the moment so we spent a jolly hour or so cleaning up the mess.  We have learned to take a completely different approach to cleaning here.   In the UK washing down, spraying paths with the garden hose and brushing with a broom was our normal procedure for a tidy up.  Here it starts with a broom and dustpan and brush, the secret is to keep everything as dry as possible.  Most of the dirt here is like sand, fine and if you wash a terrace down it turns into a brown slurry, the best thing is to remove as much as possible.   After a broom and dustpan, we have a vacuum cleaner that is now used for outside, it is a fairly knackered Dyson held together by Sellotape, but it does a good job of sucking up the remaining dust from

Monday and we are off to buy our new car in the Covid19 world of car showrooms, no coffee, no handshake, just masks and security tape. Has the glamour of car buying come to an end?   find out more https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 85 Testing Times uncorrected transcript   Monday morning, normally I do the hateful administration work but this morning we are off to the car showroom to collect our new car.  Yesterday we did a test run, found the dealer and the car looking rather dusty sitting in the disabled parking space.   We arrived just before ten a few moments in front of our Bank Manager who accompanied us to translate the paperwork. Car showrooms in our part of Spain are exactly the same as anywhere else.   So Chris, Laura and I entered the showroom, the interior done out in Germanic grey tiles and fairly stark furniture, that was taped off, yellow and white tape marked out where we could stand and the cars all had a security tape on the doors, to stop you casually opening them without a salesman, welcom

It is Sunday and I have been driving our existing car for the first time, we are buying a new one tomorrow, as in Phase 3 we can go to a car showroom. Can I say that the gear box stick is in quite the wrong place and while we are at it, so is the steering wheel.  Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 84 Car Share   Sunday the start of a new week, Monday brings us phase 3, we have jumped a week, the Alarma itself finishes June 21st, the central Government hands over its central control to the Juntas – the Regional Government.  So only 14 more of these special Podcasts left and I am saving my best story to last, one clue, it was major misjudgement on my behalf that I will pay for the rest of my life.   First we should get a Royal Decree, a Bill that will detail everything that will happen after the Alarma, Lockdown ends, then that will be interpreted by the Regional Governments who in turn will make their own rules about the de-escalation of Lockdown.. complicated isn’t it.   And all the while the r

Bad news is good news for us find out why in this episode, also a reflection on the last few months as Andalusia moves into phase three of the Alarma. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 83 Hey Ya! (uncorrected transcript) Saturday, your Sunday and I thought I would take a few moments to reflect, the new normal is becoming normal and throughout the world the death toll from this virus continues to rise, but we are all getting used to it.   I wonder if it was like that during the world war.  To begin with everyone was in a state of hysteria worries about bombs dropping on their house, a few years in people become blasé about the whole situation.   “Ere our Tony did you hear that your Aunty Doreen copped it last night, ruddy great Doodlebug fell on her house.”   “Oh, our Ethel that’s terrible, now what’s for tea me love?”   I don’t like wearing a mask, but I am kinda getting used to it.  I know surgical masks are in short supply in the UK and the Government have asked you to make your own, rather

Today a story from the past about two crazy American guys called Ben and Jerry and their weird ice cream, a trip to Leroy Merlin a French owned Spanish run DIY chain. find out more here: https://www.thesecretspain.com Uncorrected transcript here: Day 82 Dough Boys   Friday and another week ahead in phase 2, but no, suddenly we are moving to phase three, some changes, restaurants can fill to 50 per cent capacity, shops too, but more importantly this should include inter province travel, living on the edge of two provinces this has caused quite a few people to miss out on friends and going to main towns where they can shop, have their hair done.   Everything gets written in details in the Boletín Oficial del Estado, the B.O.E. if you visit the website you will see just how many rules and regulations there are here in Spain.   The weather remains ‘iffy’ wind, sunshine and cloud with rain coming on Sunday, once we hit 25 degrees I declare ‘ice cream’ temperatures, which means we go and buy ‘Maxi Bon’ ice cream, a

Thursday and the bloomin wind is driving us potty, along with administration, WhatsApp spats about a community pool and we have a guide to consumer law here in Spain. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 81   Thursday and a bit of a low day, hard to put your finger on it, but the weather is not helping, once again the wind is blowing, the high pressure that makes summer calm and hot has gone north and giving the UK a really great few months.   A fitful night’s sleep as once again we are awash with paperwork that has to be done for our Spanish administrators, paying tax is a pain, but dealing with it in two countries along with running two businesses takes a lot of time away from actually running the businesses, add that to that the process of slowly putting our retirement into place, some days gets you a bit down.   Onward and forward, oh last night there was a WhatsApp spat with the neighbours over opening our Estate Pool, some want to open it within the Alarma, which means a complicated process

Day 80, a day of confusion when we were told our house didn't exist, also we talk a little bit about Spanish Income Tax, and explore some caves in Nerja. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 80 Caves and Confusion Wednesday and the day begins in Spanish confusion as the man that is coming to service Petra and Justin’s pool and will first collect the key from our house has rung to say our house number does not exist. I had one of those surreal conversations with him in my very average Spanish.  The trouble is those language courses do not actually prepare for the way and how the Spanish actually speak. We can probably all remember poor old Manuel the waiter from Fawlty Towers who you to say “I speak Engleesh, I learned it from a book.” The character spent much of his time confused by what everyone was saying. To prove that our house and house number do exist I have sent the pool man a WhatsApp with the GPS, this is usually the easiest way to solve the problem of not having a post code.  Well we do

Day 79 and slowly things are returning, restaurants are opening and the Government is giving away free money and claiming nobody died of Covid19.. although the regional Governments dispute this. Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com Day 79 Free Money Tuesday, and yesterday no deaths were reported due to the virus, but the regional Governments have disputed this. Our local hospital has only had a couple of cases last week and this week none.   The local beach has opened with a great many rules.  They believe that the beach will hold 19 thousand people.  Well even in the height of summer the local beach does not get that busy.   But the Spanish love to congregate together so now they are going to have to walk far from their favourite chiringuito bar to fulfil the rules of social distancing.   Speaking of social the local Socialist Mayor has been congratulating the Government on its plan for a minimum income for all citizens of Spain.  I am not sure how the money will be awarded, or on how they will mean