Episode 14: ..........but seriously.........

I've been racking my gin-addled brain trying to think of a suitable topic for the last post of 2011 and I can't actually think of anything, so I'm going to do something else totally different instead. You know when you go to these poncy 'awaydays' or 'training seminars' or whatever your company is labelling the call to arms that says "we are going to listen intently to everything you say today, all the while nodding and appearing interested, but in reality, you will do it the way we have already decreed"?? Well they often do these things called a 'stream of consciousness'. It used to be called brainstorming, but apparently that's politically incorrect and could offend the terminally stupid amongst us, so they changed its name. Personally I've had better ideas when polishing off the last of a bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream, but each to their own. The point to all this nonsensical rambling is that today, I've decided to go on a boat ride down my own consciousness stream. The problem I've got is that the motor on the boat has stopped working and I only have one oar, so I may go round and round in circles, but it will make for an unusual journey if nothing else.

Deirdre!
Still torturing me

A year ago, I was sitting in my little house in St. Leonards, getting it ready to put it on the market in order that I could move out to Spain with the lovely José. Christmas was spent in Lincoln with the family and New Year with a rather dodgy Abba tribute band in St. Leonards and some prawn vol-au-vents that you wouldn't touch with someone else's ten-foot bargepole. Twelve months on and I'm in a flat in a little town a couple of miles outside La Coruña in north-west Spain, sharing with a couple of stubborn octagenarians, surrounded by plastic flowers and Deirdre the squirrel. I have no regular income - in fact I've had no income since we arrived here in July - and I don't speak the language. Such fun!

Once had a threesome with
Jemima and Humpty from
Play School, allegedly

Sitting in my centrally heated house in the UK, the prospect of setting up our own business sounded like the grand adventure I had always dreamed of. Ever since I was last bounced on my grandad's knee, I've known I wanted to work for myself, but then I was 19 and a student nurse at the time. I think it's time to confess here about my nursing 'vocation'. All through my 28 year career in the NHS, I've been told time and time again that I must have been drawn into nursing as a vocation, because of the energy I threw into my work. The truth is considerably less sexy than that. I am the sort of person who gives my all to anything I choose to do, so if I'd gone in a different direction and been the person who was inside the Bungle suit on "Rainbow", I would have given it the same energy, albeit with more fur and sweat.


I was working in a restaurant and training as a chef/restaurant manager, but my old boss preferred posh foreign holidays and beautiful men - as it turned out did her (now) ex-husband. They spent all the profits from the place and when it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, it was sold for a song to one of the most vile men you could ever wish to meet. I worked for him for a while as I had no choice, but I hated it, so I went to my old Careers Officer and talked to her. I completed what felt like a 68 page form that was then fed through a computer, which in those days was the size of Basildon. A week later - yes young people, it took that long to process - I got a list of the things I was qualified for. Always with my eye on the long game, I was swayed by the superann scheme and the ability to retire at 55, so I opted for Mental Health Nursing. One interview with the sublime Gordon Rutley (Senior Tutor) later and on 25th April 1983 I was on my way. The rest, as they say, is history.

Where it all began back in April 1983, when you learned how to be a nurse and not a number cruncher

At the age of 18, I could have bought that restaurant off my old boss. It was thriving and took in loads of money, but I didn't have the means to do so. Ever since then, I've had the desire to work for myself. Gosh, this is  getting serious..........! So, the lovely José and I decided we would come to Spain. For me, the NHS is going swiftly down the toilet and the way we were meant to work as mental health professionals sucked all the enjoyment out of my work. The only time I enjoyed going to work was when there was a storm. Our office looked over the English Channel and apart from the sea looking spectacular, the place leaked like a sieve, so the fun was laying odds on where the water would come through on that particular day. Then that was taken from me and they moved us to another unit where I had a spectacular view of the car park. Days full of juggling a team with loads of staff sickness and stress, as we were expected to do more and more with less and less, took their toll and the decision was effectively made for me. Three large catering tins of magnolia paint and some crossed fingers later and the house was on the market.

Bad luck!!

Since we sold the house and moved out here, things have gone downhill rapidly and have continued to carry on hurtling in that general direction. I've mentioned most of these before, but there are a couple of new bits to maintain your interest, so I'll précis them for you:
6th July: Moved to Spain. Hoorah! Very excited!
20th July: Informed that my sister was in hospital after a near fatal car accident and could possibly die. Cancelled planned holiday to USA and rushed to the UK where she thankfully survived.
22nd July: Informed by our holiday insurance company that they wouldn't pay out as my cover was for flights from the UK. As we had moved to Spain, our initial flight to the US was from Spain which meant we weren't covered. Who knew?!?! Lost nearly £2.5k on that one, but had other things on my mind; my sister was far more important.
11th August: Came back to Spain and found mobile phone bill for €174 for the two phones, instead of the €58 we'd been expecting. Been arguing about that one ever since.
September: Had kitchen refitted which cost us about €2000 more than we had planned as the way things are done over here is so very different to the UK and we weren't used to that. 
16th October: Had pointless argument with family, who are now no longer talking to me (and no, I'm not going into details on that one, but needless to say, I was right!!!)
November: Parcels that my mother had sent over were lost in the post, including a special Christmas gift for the lovely José that I can't replace.
Mid-November: Dealing with terrible homesickness as well as the fallout from the family argument. 
22nd November: IKEA finally deliver the new stone worktop, but the guy in the store piddled about with the numbers when he got them and it doesn't fit. They offered to let us keep it as compensation!
1st December: We take our mobile phone company to court through the local 'Consumo' organisation - we're still waiting to hear.
9th December Father-in-law goes base over apex and fractures his neck of femur. He ends up in hospital and isn't operated on for 10 long days.
20th December: I come down with a terrible cold and feel rough as a badger's bum for 2 days.
23rd December: The New School of English closes for Christmas with barely enough students in it to pay the rent each month.


Why have I told you all this? Why am I not on the carpet, sobbing uncontrollably at the awfulness of it all? Well, I'm a glass half full kind of guy and right now, my glass is half full of neat gin. Then once breakfast is over, I'm going to take my Prozac and go back to bed!!

Good Luck...........and how!!!

There is light at the end of the tunnel, as there always is. Despite trying my best to be a miserable sod, I always see the positive side of things, which is so bloody annoying at times.

• my sister is out of hospital and making slow, but steady progress at home
• I have started talking tentatively by email to the family again, although some huge bridges will need to be built next year
• my Spanish speaking skills are improving, slowly but surely
• my father-in-law is coming out of hospital in a couple of days and will be home for Christmas 
• the new worktop from IKEA will come eventually, even if they are crap as a store
• the cold is getting better and I feel a little more lively today
• Christmas will be Christmas with or without José's special gift - I've told him so!!
• there's a new series of "Mrs. Brown's Boys" starting on Boxing Day and some new "Ab Fab" episodes to look forward to
• Me and the lovely José are returning to the UK to see our lovely, wonderful, loyal friends on 29th December until 5th January and I personally can't wait. (If I'm not coming to see you then don't take it personally. I have every moment of every day filled until our flight home, so I'll get round to you next time)

As for The New School of English, we are gearing up for a massive January. The recent online promotion we had secured us 51 new students and we have another promotion coming up in a few weeks for holiday English. We are now so busy that it's taken us all by surprise, but our dreams for the business are coming true at last. Not bad after only 2 months trading. Thank goodness I give things my all, as I'm going to need it!

Would I go back? Nope! I miss the UK and I miss the people I left behind, but the opportunities for me and the lovely José are here in Spain. Life throws crap at me, but like one sad little demented old lady I nursed on night duty in 1987, I make little balls out of it and just throw it back!!!

January - the month I always decide to go on a diet
January 6th is my birthday - the day the diet always fails!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to one and all!! Thank you for continuing to read this meandering drivel. I will be back in the middle of January 2012 and if you know of anyone you think would like this blog, let them know. I've decided next year to go global. What could possibly go wrong with that??

Episode 13: Unnatural Disasters

Goodbye NHS!!!

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that there hasn't been a blog for the past couple of weeks. I imagine that some of you are not surprised by the lack of output from this particular rotund, avuncular northern gent, as you're probably thinking that I'm sitting in a corner eating something and too busy to type. I also imagine that some of you are wondering if I'm okay; whether or not something terrible has happened to me and if I will ever put digit to keyboard ever again. If you were thinking this, why haven't you written to ask? You have my email address?!? And I imagine that some of you are sitting there, pitying your sad little lives, looking round at the list of family members you have and wondering if you can get away with telling your miserable, ancient great aunt that you have worms and don't want to come round on December 25th for fear of infecting her thirty six remaining cats.

Only 35 cats remaining now!

There is a reason for the lack of blogs over the past two weeks and that's because, quite frankly, life has been crap and I couldn't be bothered. Now I'm not going to spend the next 1925 or so words bemoaning my life here, because crap Spanish style is still 100% better than crap NHS style, so I have to be grateful for small mercies. I am, however, going to bore you all to death with tales of misery and woe. Well this is (unlucky) episode 13, so what the hell do you want? Downton Abbey? Instead, we will be taking a shared journey back over some of the previous blogs, enjoying some updates and revelling in the sheer ludicrousness (ludicrosity??) of it. 


Going back to the very first blog, I was talking about the hassle José and I went through in order to get mobile phones here in Spain. Quite frankly, it would have been cheaper to have paid to use a NASA satellite directly for all the calls I made, for when we got the first bill, it was a few centimos short of €175 for the two phones. We thought we were paying €58 a month for both! Needless to say we called the online helpdesk, although why they use the word 'help' in their title is beyond me. Quite simply, the story here in Spain is this............you bought the product, so tough titty! That's it really. Every helpdesk in every shop in this land works in the same way.


HELPDESK: Can I help you sir/madam/troglodyte?
CUSTOMER: Yes, I bought this thingumabob and it doesn't do what it says on the label
HELPDESK: Oh dear, that's terrible isn't it?
CUSTOMER: Yes it is, so what are you going to do about it?
HELPDESK: I'm afraid there's nothing we can do
CUSTOMER: But I bought this product from you and it's faulty
HELPDESK: Ah well, that was your mistake. You bought it in the first place, which you shouldn't have done as it obviously doesn't do what it says on the label!


And so it goes on. The phone company are blaming the shop (they are two separate companies here) and the shop are blaming the phone company and they are so busy arguing with one another, they've forgotten that we are in the middle of this debacle. In the end, after several useless trips to the shop (which I didn't mind as there's a sweetie shop nearby) we have had to go to the local 'Consumo' place, which is a sort of Spanish Anne Robinson 'Watchdog' set-up, although more local and with a terrible bubble perm. Our claim has gone in and we're waiting to hear. Naturally fair readers, you will be the first to hear of any success or failure in this and should we win, there's a bulls testicle in it for each of you! (Episode 12).


Moving on to Episode 5, I was talking about the kitchen and how everyone here knows what's best for us other than us, the poor consumer. Well, I'd like to report that IKEA took this onto a whole new level, which is well worth a few lines. Here in Spain, there is no such thing as fitting a reasonably priced kitchen. It's either IKEA or selling *a kidney/*an elderly relative (*delete as appropriate) in order to buy something from a fancy schmancy shop in the town centre. Naturally, we went with the former, as it seems are most of Galicia, because it's nose to nipple in that kitchen department most days. Anyway, a rather nice and very thin young man called José (everyone is called José or María here - it's the law!) came to fit the kitchen for us from the company that works alongside IKEA. He did a sterling job and then completed a complicated looking document with all the worktop measurements. As we're having a stone worktop, we've had to have a temporary one (for that read cheap and nasty!) put in until the correct one can be cut to size; namely the size that José wrote. Armed with his measurements, we went and ordered the worktop, but the guy who took the order started making changes to it. We protested, but we're only the consumer and he insisted that we had a little 'wiggle-room', whatever the hell that is in Spanish. 


Six weeks later we got a call to say the worktop was being delivered and fitted. Well, they got the first bit right! They delivered it, but they didn't fit it and you know why......? Yes of course you do. IT DIDN'T BLOODY WELL FIT! Several heated exchanges with the shop staff later, we asked the helpdesk (!!!) for the name of the manager in order that we could make a complaint. After a telephone call to "upstairs", they reluctantly gave us the name of Fred Bloggs - it seems that he manages everything these days! Anyway, we wrote, complained and asked for some form of recompense for the inconvenience, as we're not likely to have the new worktop installed for Christmas. We later found out that the name of the person they gave us was not the manager of the store, but someone of no significance at all, probably the man who runs the hotdog stall. This is something that apparently often happens here and was just to appease us in order that we had a name and would leave the store. Arrogant or what? And here's the best bit, guess what they offered us by way of compensation........?? The @*!%-ing stone worktop that didn't fit!!! They told us we could take it away. We told them they could stick it where the midnight sun doesn't shine.

We've had a response to our letter today and in it, IKEA say they can't give us any recompense because they will be footing the extra transport costs, which will serve as compensation. Yep, you got it............."Dear Mr. Fell. You shouldn't have shopped here because we're shite, so tough luck. I do hope that this won't spoil your relationship with the store and you will continue to spend money hand over fist!" I hope their meatballs go soggy.


And so we fast forward to Episodes 9 and 10 and the schools. I went to get my ID badge from the EOI (I'm still not writing it out in full. If you want to know what it means, you will have to look back!) and walked into the secretariat. There are no more queues of students so the number dispensing machine is no longer used and looked rather sad and lonely on the wall, dreaming of a past life, hanging around the sticky doughnut counter of a well known supermarket chain. I took one anyway, just for old times sake. When I walked into the office, there were two ladies in there and one guy. The two ladies in front of me were talking to one another across the desk and just totally ignored me. The guy was on the internet looking up "penis envy", or at least I think that's what the page translated as. He certainly had his head in his hands and looked like someone had just peed on his Cornflakes (other breakfast cereals are available). It took a fourth person to come in from outside the room and ask me what I needed and he served me. That place is like the Twilight Zone, I swear to you.

This seemed like an appropriate picture to put here, but was actually a Currywurst
sausage served to us in Cologne last year. It made me rather jealous!

My language skills are also improving day by day, although we're still only doing the simple present tense, which is fine if I want to tell someone what I'm doing now, but a bit of a bugger if I want to tell someone what I did 10 minutes ago.


Then there's our school; our wonderful little school with its tiny number of students and an easy life in front of Facebook and Bubble games in the afternoon, whilst telling José I'm hard at work, developing databases and suchlike. I do occasionally think of you all, slaving over a hot patient or whatever it is you do with your lives these days.........but that's all about to change. 


Last week, we worked with a company called Let's Bonus, which is a sort of posh online shopping experience for cheapskates. We've offered one of our courses at a heavily discounted amount in order to get punters in and then once they're hooked and armed with only just enough words to ask where the toilets are, we charge them the full amount for extra months once they've spent their bonus. We thought we may get around 20 or 30 bonuses bought, but we didn't. We sold 78! I'm now working like a roadrunner on acid in order to get through everything! I can't complain as we needed to start paying some bills and couldn't keep relying on the sexual favours of the water board man and the guy who comes to read the electricity meter. Mind you I'm not complaining as his flippers had started to smell a little by the end of last week.


The constant dripping of water appears to have dried up through the ceiling, although as I write this, we're in for a severe storm tomorrow, so let's see how it holds out against that. I may not have a shower that day and just take my Imperial Leather to the office instead.


You see, it's not all bad news today, although I have saved the pièce de résistance until last: the piece of bad news to end all. 


We had a posh wardrobe fitted soon after coming here, por supuesto (of course) and chose some fancy sliding doors to go on them. After about a month, the doors started to bow and by the end of month two, they were so bowed that one had to push hard on them in order to get them to go straight so that they could be opened. (Insert your own crude joke here!) The shop on this occasion knew of this problem and agreed to refit new ones at no cost and last Friday, they came over to do so. Whilst the guys were in the bedroom doing this, my father-in-law decided to saunter down the corridor. Unbeknownst to him, they had left their toolbox in the corridor, he didn't see it (well, you wouldn't think to look for a toolbox, would you? ) and promptly went arse over tit - or culo over teta! The result of this is that he has fractured his neck of femur and is in the local hospital awaiting surgery, which will not be until early next week. We're looking at the possibility of spending Christmas Day on Ward 7. Hoo-bloody-rah! I'd like to say that it never rains but it pours in my life, but there's been enough of that coming through the ceiling that I don't want to chance making it worse.


I do feel the need to finish off on a lighter note and so, harking back to Episode 11 and the language problems I've had in this country, I'd like to mention one thing someone told me a couple of weeks ago that made me laugh out loud. He's a young Jewish guy and may read this, so if you're there - and you know who you are - thanks for this great story. 


He studied Spanish at school and on coming to Spain, was introducing himself to some new people and talking to them a little about himself at their request. He wanted to say "Soy Judio" (I am a Jew) but instead said "Soy jodido", which means "I'm fucked". I couldn't think of a better way of summing up this last few weeks in my Galician life!

Get Well Soon Pepe xx