A comment to my previous post about Salud Responde and the process of getting an appointment at the doctors http://www.morethansunandpaella.com/2008/02/26/salud-responde/

Well, it seems I was overly positive and optimistic. This new system has reached the health centre in our nearby larger town, but our very local and small get-up consisting of a nurse and a doctor are still caught in the dark ages.

Not the doctor and nurse literally, of course, but the system. For some reason it has not been updated yet, so you still have to get there at 8, wait for the doctor to arrive, get your number and try to figure out when it might be your turn and end up wasting most of your day…

It is just so inefficient in drives me nuts. And such a waste of time for everyone. I wonder how many millions of euros Spain looses every year in lost revenue due to employees having to take a whole day of to go to the doctors. Arghh!

I makes you consider signing up to some private health scheme here in Spain, just to avoid the wait. At the moment we are all covered by the national security because we live and work here (Seguridad Social) but if this continues I might have to go private!

I have decided to create a new category called Spain and…

My first little moan is about how pedestrians are always walking in the middle of the road, especially in the smaller towns and villages. It really drives me bonkers sometimes.

I am no boy racer, but would like to actually move forward. It is almost like people get slightly surprised when they realise there is a car right behind them even though they are actually walking on the middle of the road, as in where cars usually drive! They will then proceed to slowly and without any haste what-so-ever move to the side to let you by. If you DO decide to walk in the middle of the road, which in some cases is absolutely understandable taking into consideration the state of the pavement - big trees growing right there in the middle, tiles missing, far to narrow etc - cant you just at least be a bit more aware of the fact that there might be, and usually is, cars coming.

When you are aware of one being behind you, walk to the side to let it pass straight away, and make an effort to notice them before they are right up your (quite likely very wide) arse.

Thanks, and it will make my life so much easier if you heed my commands, so make an effort people!

Here we are again. On hold on the phone trying to get through to Telefonica. Telefonica, the company we love to hate…

As the name suggests Telefonica has to do with telephones here in Spain. They used to have monopoly on offering phone lines, but some years ago they got privatised and other companies could move into the market.

Tele2 now offers line rentals in some areas, but of course they start in the larger and more populated areas and cities, so I will probably have to wait a few year more…I wouldn’t mind being able to move away from Telefonica straight away.

Some areas in the countryside/campo you cannot get a phone line. Telefonica used to be obliged to provide every house with a telephone connection if they so desired, so some places they had radio or satellite phones (not quite sure which) but this is no more. So you might be so unlucky that they don’t want to provide you with a phone now.

Anyway, it was all about being on hold. Which I have been. A lot.  And sometimes they put you through to this stupid automatic system which tells you you have tell them which department you want to go to. About 50% of the time it does not understand what I am trying to say and hangs up on me after 2 attempts! How bad is that? Doesn’t even put me through to someone, just hangs up on me.

So as soon as it is possible I will get a fixed line with someone else. I guess you can expect me to be whining about them when that happens.

What is it about not being able to sleep that just makes you extra sensitive?

Last night I was lying awake dead tired but unable to fall asleep. This happens very rarely to me, I usually sleep within 5 minutes of putting my head on the pillow, so I got very annoyed.

As I lay there I was trying to decide which sound was more annoying; El Hombre snoring next to me, the cat cleaning itself and making the whole bed move with his efforts, the spanish teenagers from next door smoking joints on the street outside our house and chatting or the baby tossing and turning and sitting up all the time.

Obviously it couldn’t be the baby, El Rubio, because that would mean that I was an uncaring mother. And who would want that tag on them?

So I put the cat top of my list and threw him off the bed.
Then the teenagers left and El Hombre stopped snoring.

That left only the baby. Shit.

Furthermore I felt the bedding was all itchy and there wasn’t enough room to lie properly.

But then I committed the cardinal sin of sleepless nights. I started thinking about money.

About the money I need to pay back. About where they are going to come from next. How am I going to get that holiday I so need/want. Etc etc.

Needless to say, I was quite tired this morning.  But I did make sure to hover really early in the hope of a little payback. It might just wake the grumpy teenagers up next door.

What a way to start a Monday morning in Spain. In fact, it is not just on Monday morning it is like this, but EVERY morning. But it is only starting to really bother me know as the weather is getting colder.

Because having a shower in a outside bathroom is just not that fun. First of all you might be a little cold. The house is not that warm yet, you spilled water on the floor which you then proceeded to stand in so your feet are soaked, and a nice warm shower would be just the thing.

You then have to walk outside in the patio (how do I explain a patio? Almost like a little terrace at the back of your house, or in the middle of your house with no roof on. ) and into the bathroom which is attached to the house but only accessible from the patio.
So there you are. Cold feet, goose bumbs all over in a cold room, and you know the only way forward is to undress if you want that shower.

It really in no problem in the summer, having to walk outside. But in the winter is is just a bitch. In order to stay warm I constantly turn up the water heat which then results in almost getting burned on one side of your body, and still being cold on the other.

But all this is soon over, as we are moving into our house after a big reform. For a while we have stayed somewhere else, but soon the luxury of having a shower INSIDE your house shall be mine again.

Edit: Look I found a picture of goosebumps to illustrate my post!

So yesterday we went for an Indian in a nearby town. Really nice meal and quite revealing that I didn’t see a single Spanish face there.

I must admit that after living in Southern Spain for so long, I am not always overly keen on Spanish food. Or maybe I should write, Southern Spanish food, because I believe there is quite a regional difference and it might be a bit more sophisticated up north.

When I want to go for a meal out, an occasion more rare after the arrival of El Rubio, I like to try something a bit different.  Like thai or indian. Something that mightsurprise me and make me a bit excited about food. And I don’t really get exited about spanish food any more. Same same, but different.

I am almost prepared to bet that I could walk into any restaurant, venta, or tapas serving establishment down here and order quite a few things from their menu, without having seen their menu. Because it is all the same…

It seems if you want something more modern or a bit more experimental you have to go to a fairly expensive restaurant, which is a shame as it excludes so many people who might want to try something other than the usual grub, Spanish and foreign people alike.

A list of the classic dishes almost every place have:
Tortilla
Magro con tomate
Albondigas
Ensaladilla Rusa
Jamon Serano
Queso Curado
Gambas rebozadas
Pimientos rellenos
Chorizo

and the list goes on and on. I wish they were a bit more experimental, but maybe that’s just not what the Spanish people down here want? Because if there was a market for it, surely there would be more places selling something different? I think all these country folks are quite traditionalists and I am the one who gets to suffer.

I have been to the Costa del Sol today. More precisely somewhere between Benhavis and Cancelada along the N-340 (the coast road for ignorants ). Had to stop because of the baby, so I had a little stroll around to pass the time.

And if just confirmed to me again why I am not living in that part of Malaga.

All the shops on that stretch seemed to be catering for Brits. Real Estate Agent, two restaurants, a English butcher, English supermarket, English sports bar, a newsagent selling loads of English papers and magazines (now I know where I can get The Sun, yippee ) and various other places catering for foreigners. I sat down to have a coffee at a place which seemed to only have a menu in English. They served full English breakfast, jacket potatoes, toast etc. and was full of english people on holiday and a lot of them golfing.

After having watched too many socks in sandals I tried to not speak any English so people might not know that El Rubio and I were foreigners too, but I guess the blond hair on both of us was a dead give-away.

At least I now know once again why it is that I am not living down there. but up here in the countryside.

Ok, so today it rained. Quite a bit admittedly, but not the torrential rain we had some weeks ago. And so it happens again, the same thing that always bloody happen when it rains…the power goes. That’s right, no power in the whole village. For about 4 hours (providing it stays on all night now) we have had nothing, nada.

So there I was again, this time trudging about in the dark with a whingy and tired baby on my arm, a cat and two dogs trying to obstruct my passage as I was trying to remember where the fuck I had put the candles the last time this happened. Because you see this is not a one off. I am getting quite experienced in these matters now as it happens almost every time we have something more than a bit of a drizzle.

And I find it bloody absurd, that for more than 4 years we have no power when it rains. And that is just the amount of time that I have lived in the village. I mean, come on, how difficult can it be? Just bloody fix it! Spain IS a part of the European union and it’s not and underdeveloped country (or so they will have us believe) and it IS the year 2007.

So come on, save me some bruises and general annoyance and DO something about it, because you know what? I am pretty sure it is going to rain again this year. And if I’m not mistaken next year as well. As it did last year. So by now it can hardly be s surprise every time it happens.