Life in La Unión

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...

They really couldn't make it any easier. Name and address, delivery address, old passport number and not much else. That's done on-line, then you pay - just short of £103. Next you print out the form which tells you the documents you need to enclose, a couple of passport photos and away in the post. Spaniards carry ID cards so even the smallest town has a photographer to take the appropriate photos. There are photo booths too but I thought a photographer would know the rules. The photos of me were pink and silver haired but then that's me. I thought there was a lot of shoulder and chest though and not enough face. True enough when I tried them against the template on the passport application form my face was too small. Also the photographer had guillotined the photos with a serrated edge which gave them a nice 1960s feel something I suspected that HM Passport Office may not find quite so charming. So I drove to a photo booth in Cartagena. The blurb on the outside said...