Spanish Shilling

While many Spaniards will be inconvenienced by the summer elections and the possibility of having to re-plan their holidays – either through being called to be poll-workers or because they’ll be suddenly running for election – we foreign residents (who can’t vote or of course act as invigilators) can relax knowing that the time is coming around for our trip to Portugal, or to discover somewhere unknown in Spain and stay in a Parador (the only place in Spain where people actually whisper), or perhaps back to our own country to see the family and try and avoid the heat.

The joy of living in Spain of course means that some of those family members, plus surviving school friends and other exotics, will be fully committed to coming over here to stay with us.

Clean up the spare-bedroom, put all the books and records away, buy some things for the fridge and plan an evening at the local fiesta (in our case a Moors and Christians extravaganza where the costumes, noise, gunpowder-smoke, rivers of beer and a few sensational looking-girls will make a lasting impression on our visitors, who will once again toy with the idea of buying an apartment down on the beach).

You said something? Yes, of course I’ve got records. Decent pop music stopped in about 1992.

We may not be Spaniards, but I think that we are now something a little different from what we were when we first arrived. We treat the Spanish coast – our new home – in the same way as the North Americans from New York or Chicago treat the south of Florida: a good place to retire to (with the added bonus of no alligators) - and we shall leave all the work and scheming here down to las familias, the local mafias.

There are clouds on the horizon though. Assuming the Partido Popular and their strong-arm friends from Vox win the forthcoming summer elections on July 23rd, there’s every chance that there’ll be some unwholesome changes around here.

I think for a start that there’ll be more beach-property available.