Linda has gone back to the UK for a week, taking her farther with her that leaves me all on my lonesome. Her farther really enjoyed his stay here, just a little trouble with the high curbs, especially at night; we have not had any streetlights for well over a week on the main road outside our house. There seems to be quite a few streets with them out, no doubt someone will fix them eventually, this is Spain, so I’m not holding my breath waiting, and no-one has asked for a pound for the meter yet. Maybe this is part of the new energy saving drive they are having here, first drop the speed limits on the roads, and then turn the lights out to save a few more pounds, sorry, euros. Despite all the quotes in the papers, no-one actually seems to be taking any notice of the speed limits anyway. I do try to keep to them, but I am in a minority, with people regularly flying past me as if I were stationary. I even got asked by someone the other day as to what he should do, as people behind him were leaning on their horns in an attempt to get him to put his foot down. Don’t let them get to you I said, if they are late, they should have left in better time, stick to the limits, let them get the speeding fines. If you are at the front of a line of speeding traffic, the police are going to nab you, especially when the local coffers are running empty, and they seem to have sporadic bursts of activity every couple of months, sooner or later it will be your turn.
I have actually gone and bought a cheap Spanish mobile phone, having avoided it for quite a while. If you are trying to organise anything, and you get asked for your phone number, giving an English number gets you some funny looks, and you quite often find that no-one will ring you on it. So a cheap pay as you go seems the way to go, only need to top it up once every three months with five euros, just the ticket for those incoming calls. That should see the end of the ‘are you mad’ looks, till anyone sees the phone anyway, not exactly cutting edge, but it functions. Being portable has its advantages till we settle somewhere, and get a landline sorted out, although that may not be necessary. It seems quite common to use local companies, without a fixed line, and they provide a service similar to cable at home, but no wires, just a receiver on your roof, television, phone and broadband. Worth looking at when the time comes as they seem cheap enough, and they reckon to provide support in English, I wonder where the call centre is, it might even be in the UK! Wouldn’t that be strange?
I have been asked by one of the friends I have made if I fancy trying my hand at fishing, it sounds like it might be fun. He is making enquiries as to what licences are needed, and the equipment seems cheap enough, not worth buying expensive tackle till I have tried it. If I don’t catch anything, I can always nip down to Mercadona and buy a monster fish, and tell a few yarns about how it took two people three hours to land it, and of course get the photo with my ‘prize catch’. At least that way it may actually be safe to eat what I have ‘caught’ without making anyone ill, assuming it will fit in the oven. More shark anyone?