Awards for Everyone

New faucets, are the fastest and simplest way to start that home improvement project you have been putting off.

Popularity: 9%

Well, it’s that time of year again. Our normally small quiet village has been invaded by horders of post-Easter visitors. Restaurants and bars that have been closed since November, are open again, and the streets are full of people with milky pale skin wearing t-shirts and shorts, whilst we are still wrapped up in jeans and sweaters. How quickly we have become used to warm weather, so that now we still shiver when the temperature is in the 70s.

Time for us to plan a holiday I think, to somewhere peaceful and even warmer than it is here. We are ploughing through economy hotels promotions to see if we can find something that will suit our budget but we cannot agree on where we want to go. I want to go to Australia, the rest of the family prefer New Zealand. Both are appealing, but it is not possible with the limited time we have to visit both. Drooling over holiday brochures, until I speak to an Australian friend of mine who gently reminds me that now is not the time to visit Down Under, since the winter is just starting.

Oh well, it was just a thought. With all the business with lawyers and accountants organizing the incorporation of our agency, now is maybe not the time to do a flit. We will have to wait. At least we are waiting in relative comfort, and tomorrow will be warmer again, maybe time to leave the vest in the cupboard, who knows.

Popularity: 62%

There are various energy efficient energy saving lighting options on the market. And with some of the new energy tax credits you can actually upgrade your fixtures and get money back from the government.

Popularity: 61%

I remember when Motorola first brought out the Razr telephone. I was absolutely smitten with it, and even though there was nothing wrong with the phone I had, I just had to have the new Razr. At the time I was still living in England, and the Razr was expensive. However, with a bit of shopping around I managed to get it for ‘free’. That is to say, I managed to sign up for a contract with a big telephone company who then gave me the phone for free.

When we actually sat down and calculated how much of the contract had been ‘wasted’ , it transpired that in fact I had paid more or less the same for the contract as it would have cost me to just buy an unlocked phone.

After we moved here, I therefore bought an unlocked phone and chose my own service provider. Initially I just used pay-as-you-go, so that I had an opportunity to look into the different companies that provide mobile phone services here, and could compare their charges, what was included in the contract etc. I am now with a small company that charges very good rates for calls to other European countries, a must for me, with friends and family all over Europe. Even though the initial purchase of the unlocked phone appeared to be ‘expensive’ , after a year I have more than saved that money back in being able to choose my own service provider and my own contract.

It is so easy to fall for the advertising of the big phone companies, who also plug into our wish to own the latest and most popular phones, but with a bit of shopping around there are usually better deals to be found if you go it ‘alone’

Popularity: 62%

Everything Must Go, 50% Off, Last Days of Triple Discount. These are the words that as a child struck dread in my heart. It heralded the imminent arrival of my grandmother, who would drag me screaming and squirming round every shop in the city to buy things I did not want. Always the wrong size (you will grow into it), the wrong colour (but it goes so well with your hair) or something that no other child in the neighbourhood would be seen dead in (it is a classic design).

I could never understand why my grandmother, who was a fairly wealthy woman, would want to go to a sale to buy the wrong things but at the right price. I guess as a child you do not have your own money, so there is no need to look for the best deal in anything.

Nowadays, things are a bit different. The money you have earned is a reflection of some effort you have put in,and therefore when I spend it now I want to get the best I can get for the least money. But still, I do not like sales that much, the noise, the fighting for items when they are in limited supply, the overcrowded changing rooms and the endless queue to pay for my bargains. Research has shown that some people (mainly women) get a real kick out of shopping because it releases endorphins in their brains. Unfortunately for me, I am not in that group, I lose the will to live when I have to spend too much time in shops. So for me, it is internet shopping all the way. At home, in the warm, no driving, no parking, no queueing and often cheaper than in the nearest shopping centre. I justify it to myself on the grounds of saving time, saving money and saving the planet. In reality it probably just saves my sanity.

Popularity: 98%

This post if about that most ordinary of activities, driving a car. Because I have to move from patient home to patient home, I have to drive a lot, so here is what I have learnt about driving in Spain so far.

PARKING THE CAR

It is perhaps no coincidence that the words ‘aparcar’ (to park) and ‘abandonar’ (to abandon) both start with an A, since a lot of Spanish drivers appear to be unable to distinguish between parking and abandoning their vehicles. We ourselves (as a joke initially) now mainly refer to parking the car as abandoning it. Cars are abandoned on pedestrian crossings, in bus stops, on street corners, on roundabouts and left double parked. Double parking is very common and most mornings I have to drive past at least half a dozen double parked cars in the main street of the nearest town to get to my early morning patient. These are not delivery vans, which could be expected at that time of the day, they are ordinary cars abandoned in order to purchase bread, newspapers, cigarettes etc. I have been told that double parking is allowed as long as it does not obstruct the flow of traffic, which of course it always does But, they do leave on their hazard warning lights, so you can at least see they are there

MOPEDS

There appear to be millions of those, all owned by 12-year old helmet-less riders. These weave in and out of the traffic with complete disregard for their own safety and the overwhelming confidence of the young that they cannot possibly die or injure themselves. Miraculously they tend to get away with it most of the time.

DIRECTION INDICATION

Que? Never heard of that in Spain. I am fairly sure it is not included in standard driving lessons, since no-one bothers to indicate. If you are behind a car and it does indicate, it is 99% certain that the car is being driven by a foreign driver. Never ever ever believe that the car that is indicating will indeed go where it indicates it will, because it most likely will just go straight or turn into the opposite direction to the way it indicates. After all the guessing game is far more interesting than ordinary driving, get used to it.

SPEED

Drive as fast as your car will let you. Drive as fast as possible up to junctions and be almost affronted if a car happens to be passing, since they are making you brake. That seems to be the general idea anyway – and I have now got used to trying to drive a bit further out from the curb so that when a car does push its nose into my path I will miss it (just) – as long as there is no traffic coming from the opposite lane at the same time. Or, and this is just as common, drive as if your car is made of porcelain, when you go over one of the innumerable speed-humps in the road, try to stop in second and then take off again. Do this over every speed hump and soon you will have a two kilometre queue behind you – but persevere and keep doing it anyway – just because you can )

RAIN

We tend to get all our rain in one big ‘lump’. Because most of the time it does not rain in our bit of Spain (even though we are on the plain) the roads cannot cope with rain. The drains do not work, which causes innumerable problems, particularly when driving. The surface is then greasy and very easy to lose control of the car. Drivers here are not told about the increase in stopping distance (something we tediously had to learn off by heart to pass the driving test in the UK) and don’t take it into consideration. Great care on rainy days please, unless you like water skiing in your car. Most drivers here seem to love it.

PEDESTRIANS

Pedestrians have an absolute right of way in Spain, and even if they cross between two zebra crossings, you are supposed to give way to them Zebra crossings appear every 25 m or so, but most people ignore them, preferring to cross where they come out of the shop to get to their double-parked car. A lot of zebra-crossings are within a meter of the corner, which is very silly, as when you have just turned the corner you are still moving and there is the zebra crossing. So far I have managed to avoid hitting pedestrians, but more luck than driving skill. It is one thing I would change really, the position of the zebra crossings in relation to the corners of streets and roundabouts.

TRAFFIC WARDENS

Do not exist in Spain. If they did, they would need one wheelbarrow load of ticket books each day. Now there’s an idea for raising some new taxation!!

No matter how dangerous the roads are though in Spain, apparently Portugal is even worse. My advice is, if you are a hesitant driver, do not drive in Spain. Never buy a new car in Spain or import one, a battered second hand car is fine. Most cars here get dents in them very quickly because of other car’s doors being banged into them, parallel parked cars hitting them front and back, and general chaos on the road. Having said that, when they do have little scrapes, there does not seem to be the animosity I have witnessed on British road in similar situations. Mainly both drivers just look at the damage in amazement, and then go home, no exchange of insurance, no-one plans on having the damage repaired, no big deal really.

Popularity: 8%

Popularity: 4%