Ramblings in Retirement
March 2009

I had to renew my “Residencia” this month (all non-Spanish residents must carry an ID, as indeed do the Spanish themselves), and I duly reported to the Oficina de Extranjeros in Denia. Having been forewarned that there was a likelihood of large queues, I arrived early at 8am to find myself 3rd in line with the office opening at 9am. Eventually I arrived at the desk and was given a ticket saying I should return at 11.50! It appears that you can book an appointment online and many people had done so resulting in me having to wait. Nevertheless the process was simple insofar as the clerk completedall the forms, gave them to me and sent me to the bank to pay the fee of €10 then return for my new certificate. Previously we were given a small ID card about the size of a credit card but now it seems we just get a certificate which is just more awkward to carry around.

This has been a month of car things. Eke needs to have a MOT (ITV here) and I thought I’d give it a treat and have it serviced first and a pre-mot check. This having been completed I made an appointment for the ITV which is scheduled to take place on 8th April. (Unlike the UK the MOT/ITV must be carried out at a government ITV station and not at any old garage).

Penny had her car broken into when she visited the hairdressers and the thieves stole her car radio/CD player! This is a most unusual occurrence here and even the garage said “no one steals car radios anymore” (actually he said it in Spanish)! Anyway, the net result apart from losing the radio was that the driver’s door lock was damaged and needed to be replaced. We booked her car in for an annual service (actually it was some 15 months since we bought it and the mechanic told me off as failure to adhere to service dates would invalidate the guarantee). We decided not to go through the complicated process of filing a “denuncia” (crime report) with the police, subsequently claiming from the car insurance, and forked out €111 euros for a replacement lock (central locking is expensive)!

My Scenic keeps nagging at me to get a service also, and I will have to book it in soon, although I am reticent about going too early, and I want to wait till the 30,000kms is up as service cost on my model is expensive.

I am still enjoying a good spell of golf (I’ll quantify that by saying that my golf is of a low standard normally and this spell is slightly above that). My cut in handicap affected me in the second round of the Spring Trophy in that I dropped from 3= to 8 place out of 34 players, the only consolation was that I won nearest the pin and a 2 scooping the entire winnings of €37!











Penny and I have spent most of the month clearing up the garden ready for spring/summer and I have lost count of the number of black bags I have taken away. I got a load of compost from the council site (equivalent to 6 80ltr bags for €2.40) which has now been dug into various borders. The geranium plugs I ordered from the UK arrived only to find that most of them were not rooted plugs but rather just cuttings stuck in compost. DHL who delivered them must have treated the box as a football as many of the plants were detached from the compost resulting in heavy losses. No-one wants to take responsibility so I’m afraid that I will not have the display I expected this year.
We had to register our mobile phones this month as this is a requirement in Spain and in November 2009 any unregistered phone will be switched off. I don’t know if something similar exists in the UK but apparently it is to do with terrorism (I believe that any curtailing of one’s rights by government is labelled as the fight against terrorism so they can get away with all sorts of infringements of human rights. You just have to look at the CCTV coverage in the UK and see that almost everywhere is covered and now you can even watch what is going on yourselves in YouTube)!
We are looking forward to a good spell of weather, Penny is off to the UK for a few days over Easter, Hope you have a nice time too.