Life in La Unión

As I sprayed the antiperspirant under my armpit my mind strayed to getting in touch with the phone company. The flat is beginning to look a little barer because things have been migrating back to Culebrón for the past few weeks. At the end of the month I will leave La Unión and before I go I need to cancel the phone and Internet connection. I realised I would need to know the number I wanted to cancel. I have no idea of the land-line number for the phone here because I never phone the flat and if I did I would just press something on my mobile. In fact I don't know any phone number except that of my mobile phone. And the address. The phone company would probably need that too. I know the street name but I'm not absolutely certain whether it's flat 3 at number 11 or flat 11 at number 3. When I need a physical address I never use this one so all I need to know is how to walk to the front door. Although some people would disagree with me it's not a memory problem. ...

I only turn out for event type football games - World Cup and European Championship basically. Last night it was Holland Spain. When one watches football there is really only one suitable drink. No point in sipping a sherry in front of the telly at home. Football means beer. Beer means a bar. Bars mean atmosphere. I reckoned half an hour beforehand would be plenty of time to bag a seat. As a lone drinker I thought I may not be that welcome - taking up valuable selling space. It's true the Cantina, with it's big screen, was pretty much all reserved. The customers had war-paint, flags and paraphernalia. Not so in the bar where I most often buy alcohol or the bar I use more for coffee. Plenty of space and no sign of football fever. I have no idea if England still dresses up with flags and banners before the big football events but Spain doesn't so much. It's not as though the World Cup isn't going on. Telly and radio are full of it and there are lots of football ...

In the days when I used to trade birthday parties with Andrew Gwizdak, Rachael Iredale, Denzil Broadhurst, Elizabeth Clegg and John Hobson it was sandwiches, trifle and pin the tail on the donkey. Then my parents came up with a wheeze. With a packed tea from Thomas's the bakers we went for a birthday party to the Queens Hall in Leeds to see Billy Smart's Circus. The last circus I remember after that was when I was about fifteen and I went with Garry and maybe Tracey to a circus in the Boxhall playing field. I'm sure there were animals. They were different times and mistreating animals, at least in the form that circuses do, was not considered a sin. I vaguely remember people standing on the backs of horses, dogs jumping through hoops and men putting their heads into lion's mouths but what I remember more are the strong men, the jugglers, the knife throwers, the unfunny clowns and the tightrope walkers. Even then I liked the tackiness of circuses - the leopard ski...

The country is gripped by election fever but, rather than tell you about that, I'm going to tell you about my fun with the tax people. In Spain the tax people, Hacienda, prepare a draft return which they send to each tax payer. It's called a borrador. If you agree with the draft you sign it, send it back and either collect the tax rebate or pay the shortfall. Nowadays the process is generally an electronic one but it's still possible to deal with your tax return through your bank, your accountant or by going directly to a local tax office. Now, since I turned 55, I've been collecting a pension from Teachers' Pension. Whilst I was working I also contributed to an additional voluntary contribution scheme with the Prudential and their scheme now pays me some forty quid a month in pension. When I started to get these pensions I wrote to the UK tax people and told them my situation and asked what I should do about paying what taxes where. As I remember it t...

I went to a "pop" festival yesterday - well one day of it anyway - the SOS 4.8 Festival in Murcia. Pop in case you expected opera or classical or flamenco or jazz. I'm not really a festival animal. I don't keep up with modern music, I will not dance, I don't even sway. I noticed last night I wasn't bothering to applaud either. I usually have to drive so my drinking is limited and I haven't used any non scrip drugs for years. I am also around 30 to 40 years older than your average festival goer and, to top it all off, till 4 July I'm on my own. So why go? Maybe it's the noodles. I do like noodles and there are always vegetable noodles at festivals. The SOS Festival is not a big name do even by Spanish standards. The Prodigy, Damon Albarn and The Pet Shop Boys were the big names - basically 80s and 90s bands. With some of the bands I had no idea about their nationality - bands like The Kooks (Brits apparently) or Phoenix (French). Of the Spanis...

Somebody told me that we expats are to be denied the cold weather allowance on our state pensions. It gets pretty cold in our house in Culebrón in winter I can tell you but it's beginning to warm up nicely now. I'm a bit of a list writer. I always have been. I've kept a diary for years and a few years ago I took to adding a little note at the foot of the page with the maximum and minimum temperatures and a Today programme like weather summary - sunny and warm, cold and miserable. In La Unión I have nowhere to put a maximum minimum thermometer so that it stays out of the direct sunlight. Instead I started to use the maximum and minimum records from the state weather service for my diary log. There are weather stations where I work in Cartagena about 15kms from home, Torre Pacheco is 16kms away and San Javier Airport is 22kms away. Pretty close. Good enough to give me a fair indication of the weather in La Unión. Yesterday it was 25ºC and 16ºC in Cartagena, 23ºC and 1...