The view from the back

We've had some luck in a way, a good word from our gardener resulted in a new friend , a friend who is familiar with the NIE process at our local office having successfully helped others over the years and more to the point this year post the changes. So A look over our submission papers and several cups of coffee revealed where good to go ! A minor change to the photocopy form was all that was needed , so the lovely wife run some more off and re did them , so at least now were waiting with hope of a positive out come, But there's still time for some one to change the law or have a poor start to the day and reject the submission after all as every one seems to say    " it's Spain ". 

As part of my photography course I had an assignment to take 36 unique images of an outdoor subject, so it was yet another nice day yesterday ( back in England this trip would probably be called off due to weather a few times ! ) so I grabbed my kit and the lovely wife and set off to " El Castillo de Macenas " a early 18th century cannon fort on the beach at Macenas. When we arrived there was hardly any body about which suited me as I'm a bit conscious still of the whole David Bailey routine , so the lovely wife found a spot on the beach with her kindle, she's reading book 3 of some popular trilogy for the third time funny enough , the name escapes me but it's about some millionaire bloke called grey . I set about snapping what was turning out to be a very un photogenic pile of stones on all bar one side, should I change subject ? Nar I tried hopefully to find the inner beauty in its resilience and presence. What a crock of , but that's going with my home work LOL . Whilst I was deeply involved with a composition challenge, juggling F stops , fractional seconds  and ISO settings a few cars had arrived , not to photograph this stone block but to have a dip during the afternoon siesta. Feeling the heat I went to sit with the lovely wife and take a few situation shots, whilst reviewing what I'd got so far the lovely wife said OMG he needs more lotion, yeh what ever , it's a bit leathery looking, what ? When I looked up there was a group of 50 something's just a few metres away completely in the buff , looking closer at the ones who were already there in the distance it seemed that they too where getting an all over tan ! Now it's of no bother to us and I wouldn't want to inflict Spain with big lads tanning issues but sitting there fully dressed with a camera around my neck seemed a bit inappropriate so I pulled out my long lens it's 400mm you know , and took some close ups from near the car ( of the Castillo , filth I don't know )  This must be a popular spot as another guy turned up got out in the car park and clothed off 8m from us . So I got what I wanted and apparently the lovely wife got what she wanted , as for Mr grey he's on the factor 12+

Cortez when he reached the new lands burnt his boats on the beach to ensure his crew were properly motivated, and they were. As I've said I have spent a large part of the last 30 years delivering-change to the front line in a large organisation . If the decision is made and it is believed to be correct then no good will come from having a return to comfort zone option, all the non believers will congregate there too afraid to enter the real world. Unless your one of those who can have a house where ever you want and hop around the world as you please then the rest of us need a Home. Some where to feel safe and welcomed not to have a cross on the calendar to remind you when to run away from the baddies. As I keep saying we want to live in Spain not on Spain, we've had some problems recently with our washer and a nice local guy has been to repair it , he speaks less English then we do Spanish but we manage , it makes us focus on what's wrong and what we need to be able to say after all we came here it's not his job to conform, and after some mime and a few jokes we have a washer that works and a new friend who always apologises for poor English ? We will be looking further afield then the almanzora valley although we like the area it's too English, having the worst of our English traits in abundance and has too many housing issues. I know that's a bit arbitrary but it's often like living an episode of only fools and horses or one of those London based DIY shows where a trail of tradesmen abuse the previous persons work. To be fair I think some are only here because they can't get work in the Uk nobody wants to finish a job without being chased. We came to Spain with the preconception that the Spanish where eccentric and lazy but far from it having seen them working in the fields behind us planting and pruning trees for hours on end their more industrious then the guy who wired our cooker hood and 2 weeks later has still not fitted the vent on the wall ( Carl from Essex  ) but -- they are eccentric ! When we get our NIE and can finally buy a  we will be using Spanish tradesman where possible and putting our €s in the local pot , because if I hear " r u there babes " addressed at my lovely wife whilst he has a fag on my patio once more ill scream , customers property , personal space , respect , common manors not a prayer . But for now we're trapped in a rented villa unable to buy a car or a house just passing time waiting for our appointment on the 24 oct , let's hope all is well and we can return on the 5 dec to collect our holly grail the NIE as we have to be out of our rental on the 1st June so it will be a bit full on let's hope the buying process is quicker than the NIE !  

These triffids are now resistant to chemical warfare , sucking up any moisture and thriving on it. I will have to turn to a more determined attack when the ground softens with the autumn rains , what muppet would put Chipping's over stoney earth without a membrane first ? They should be made to pull the weeds out . You may recall the sad night when a kitten fell in our pool and was lost , well the lovely wife is doing penance now as the mother has up n gone with the fittest kittens leaving 2 behind,  and against all advice the lovely wife is now feeding them. They have there own bowls , food etc and if she can ever catch them there's a box of flea treatment on the side. I first found out she was feeding them as the squid I got for fishing bait was missing from the freezer ! . I have had the first lot of feed back on my photography course , I'm on unit 12 and just got the tutor comments on unit 1& 2. Now I don't know where this guy lives but he says I need to be careful taking shots in the day due to strong sun light bleaching detail, so avoid mid day shots. The shot in question were took between 4 & 5 pm , obviously he's not used to the clear blue sky's and clean air we have here the sun currently is full on or off as it drops over the hill. But point taken if I can't avoid it ill have to learn to get it to work for me .  Our application for an NIE and inclusion on the register of EU citizens is on hold until our appointment on the 24 oct, we seem to have all we need document wise our gardener over a coffee was able to confirm in addition that the forty days starts after a successful visit on the 24th of October , should we encounter an issue then it would be from our next appointment. This all flys a bit in the face of having to register after 90 days and all the vehicle issues that arise after 183 days when the process is taking so long . The forty days must be an arbitrary number as they have no control over who or how many apply on each day so the work load is not spread even over available slots just dumped in every forty days ? I can't imagine what they hope to gain in addition to the submission during an hours interview , is this the Spanish Inquisition returned ? I've never been to Gibraltar so can't help there , I have no advice on tax avoidance so can't help there , well see. I hope to take the lovely wife in as my advisor and she'll have me ! Makes sense as we have the same basic papers . As EU citizens we have the right to live , travel and work ( shudder the thought ) any where in Europe we choose and this process not legal unless we have chosen to be permanent for tax purposes , some lucky beggars go on holiday for longer than 90 days . I don't want to work , vote , claim anything have anything treated ( other than the triffids ) not even sure if I want to buy a house any more as most seem to be illegal , albeit they were legal enough for the government to gather tax off them , lay Tarmac , street furniture and kerbs , living off the proceeds of crime ? Harbouring fraudsters ? I read an article the other day quoting the UK foreign office as recommending that you should hire a solicitor to confirm your Spanish conveyance solicitor is qualified and registered with the local bar association ( CAMRA ? ) then you should get involved yourself and confirm all the land registrations personally at the town hall. So pay two possible con men several hundreds of € each if not thousands to then not trust either of them and do it yourself . My mate down the bar says you check the papers and if it says rustica on any then use that to knock the price down as its illegal then buy it any way as no body cares any more , his is illegal he had all the papers and bought new and a year later he had a letter saying it was illegal and that was 8 years ago along with most of the village . So he pays his tax to criminal ring running the town hall and they have a stale mate both in a symbiotic relationship happily keeping the status quo. 

If not France maybe a motor home ? 

When ? We've had a response form the MIB and we have our date , 24 oct 2013 , an hours appointment each independently in addition it says that no other date can be applied for until after that date has passed. It is already nearly a month since we collected the forms where they had every chance to outline the process and the documents req'd we have collated what we believe is req'd and attempted to submit , so now we wait . This is the 40 days from making a footprint , 12 sept to 24 oct that seemed so confusing. I would like to add at this point do not believe all you read from the forum gurus as so far the advice I received has been completely wrong . I am not offering my musings regarding our trials as advice just my view of our journey through the office of aliens. 

In an attempt to move things along I have attempted to request an appointment with the chief inquisitor down at the office for aliens, I politely requested an appointment listing all the documents we want to present and that the originals would be available , I even included a day that we are unavailable due to airport an run with the MIL.  24 hrs later ping a reply , what no date ! Yep no date ! Just a short line , requesting passport numbers ,  no hello, good bye , please or kiss my pixel . So I have replied with all the due reverence and our numbers and await the next move in this game of chess will we ever corner the king and force a closure or will we loose confidence and move along the coast. I have pondered if there is a favourable region to start in and once in the system move to where you really want to live ? All our neighbours and new friends say how easy it was for them or a few who haven't got round to it yet , well it's only been a few years , one guy I spoke to has insured his uk plated BMW 5 times in Spain no probs he says , his mate added tell that to the judge LOL . The system has been updated and tightened and I'm not convinced that all those involved are up to speed yet or may be they just don't like Brits, in the waiting area signage and notices are in Spanish as expected and some form of Arabic , no English . 

It was a beautiful day for me and the lovely wife and the MIL to all head off for a day out , the sun was shining the breeze was light and the roads as always were quiet. Our destination? The national police station Almeria. After an easy drive down we arrived just after 10am , the place was swamped so after several turns around the streets trying to park we went for a drive along the coast road heading back north towards the airport, looks a little forgotten down there but nice, some one had just splashed out on a couple of dozen 6m palm trees and they were busy planting them, the med was just about a flat calm. Enough of all that around the airport island back on the autovia and attempt 2 . Straight in to a parking place and the crowds seemed smaller? Strange it had only been 45 mins? But in we go , queued for the reception for 30 mins when we got to the front the lovely wife asked where to hand in the EX18/ NIE , take a seat ? Odd answer no number no ticket ? so we sat looking a bit perplexed then we saw some one we sort of knew ( worked in the asisa store, we’ve bought so much for this furnished villa we get discount ) so we asked and she had her own issues but said that no number is not right. So we sat again and decided to queue for the desk where the lovely wife got the forms last time, only 20mins here, result! . no as you know it was a very  helpful lady on this desk but today it was a older guy so the lovely wife presented what we had to him saying she would like a NIE, he looked through the application , EX18, pictures, padron, rental agreement, bank statement, health cover note, bank receipts for the tax. Put them all in the folder and handed it back and pointed to a seating area behind a rope. Progress? So we went across the room and was turned away from the roped area and shown the seats we had started in ? so we sat again and then noticed that the previous guy had gone and the lady from the last visit was in his place, so up we went , no queue efficient eh ? we presented the folders back to her she looked through, said ok, no need pictures, then a whole lot we didn’t understand, so I explained we had poor Spanish ( durgh ) so this ace woman got up and went in the back office and brought out a smart looking young lady who had excellent English and explained that we needed an appointment and should make it on line , not now but on line ? Yes not now but on line and handed a sheet of paper that listed all the documents that are required and that examples are on line. Talk about drip feed the info. So our bitter sweet relationship with this office continues, OFFICE OF THE ALIENS – it really is like the arrivals in MIB. Having drove the 90min back home (home? what’s France like?) we set about translating the forms we received and looked at the web site and gave up, our folders got an OK but we may be short a financial statement if this is different to a bank statement, one form asks for health care the other never mentions it , one statement says after making a footprint your NIE will take 40 days, foot print , so far they haven’t recorded any info so I would assume were a long way off and as for the web site well I love the web but what? So when in doubt get a professional in, so our gardener is having a look on Friday after sorting the trifids he’s helping the aliens.

I'm back , still no NIE  or EU register done as we have our first family guest and its a full time job trying to turn every day life into a holiday . We do however have our Padron a relatively slick process by our current opinions of the Spanish system. We down loaded the form the town hall web site in its bi lingual form completed and arrived at he town hall with copies of our passports confident we were right. We knew the Spanish for what we wanted and were ready to shine in front of our guest . 2 mins later were in the bar across the road with a different form in hand dejected and our guest ? Convinced that their all mad and we had joined them . The form had been changed and not updated online and the Clerk was surprised any form was on line ! as you've probably guessed she knew very passable English LOL. 
Junction 547 on the E15 should really be subtitled little Britain ! As the number of times I've heard a English voice complaining about Spanish food, life, property etc etc etc within 10 km of that point. In the bar the other night I over heard some one say Ooo don't touch the tapas too much garlic and oil ? Then , you can't get a decent tea just strong coffee with too much milk,  In the mercadona a guy asked his wife if they could try the calamari ? The answer I've got some frozen prawns already in the trolley ? Why would you live or long stay here in a very traditional part of Spain if you don't like he food or the company ? In albox I've seen 3 English food stores selling all the essentials from ketchup to cornflakes. Like I've said before its live in Spain or live on Spain I'm glad I want to live in Spain , I know I complain about the system but that's the Spanish way isn't it ? 
We've finally managed to get our land lord to do some of the repairs, the air con catching fire due to faulty wiring was the final straw , so drains , toilets, hot water , cooker hood & pool filter all done . After last weeks storms the pool has been on the cool side but us hardy ex northerners are still in twice a day , its bracing .