A Foot in Two Campos

Forty degrees and higher.  Really, that is too much.  The rhythm of the day changes to suit the temperature.  At the hottest time, after a lazy late lunch, it’s time for a siesta.  Late at night, after midnight and into the small hours, it is finally cool enough outside to sit on a kitchen chair on the slope of our little street and share some comfortable time with the neighbours, catching up with the minutiae of life.

Fifty of us from the village (49 Spaniards and me!) escaped the heat a week ago and went on the holiday organised by the town hall, travelling up north to Galicia where not only are the temperatures 12-15°C lower, but there is even that blissful possibility of a little light rain!  As always, the town hall staff had organised a cracking programme covering all the sights of the area, but (also as always) every day was packed, from early breakfast in the hotel through three or even four different visits in a day, and ending with late nights and singing in the bar.  Every village has a Pedro, and ours entertained us with songs and jokes long into the night.   Even better (or maybe worse!), this year our hotel was in a pueblo celebrating its annual feria.  Despite having celebrated our own feria the week before, some of our group sallied forth to participate;  I felt my age and retreated to bed, the music and the fireworks close enough to enjoy but far enough away not to keep me awake.

We had excursions to Santiago de Compostela (bagpipe music in the streets!), Pontevedra, Combarro, Cambados, Monte de Santa Tecla, several bodegas, a river cruise, and innumerable castles and cathedrals.  Galicia had a, well, an “uncomfortable” history with the English, and possibly a dozen times our tour guide made reference to the marauding English, the treasures stolen by the English and now in the British Museum, and the damage done by English pirates.  I did a lot of apologising!   Then, by way of a change, we crossed the border into Portugal and visited Oporto.  The official city guide there had a much more positive view of Great Britain and spoke glowingly of the two countries’ relationship, the impact of various British people on the growth of the city, and finally led us to an ancient bookshop, Librería Lello, with twisting wooden staircases, that had been on the brink of failing fifteen years ago, until in a radio interview one day J K Rowling mentioned how this quirky bookshop had inspired elements of Hogwarts and of Diagon Alley, when she had worked in Oporto for a year teaching English.  On the point of closure, within ten days of the interview the bookshop began to receive a trickle of visitors which rapidly turned into a flood.  Within two months they had to institute a queuing system, and two more months later, a charging system – 5€ refundable against the purchase of any book.  To this day, tickets need to be bought in advance, and the 200-strong queue is fenced on the other side of the road, as the bookshop’s success was threatening that of the neighbouring shops.  The magic of Harry Potter pops up in extraordinary places!

On our final night the hotel organised a traditional Galician ritual, una queimada.  A witch, a burning cauldron, scary Celtic music, atmospheric chanting, all to make the local fruited alcohol, la queimada, which is like a very strong mulled wine or punch.  An unforgettable finish to the holiday.

Exploring the rest of this enormous, beautiful country is such a joy.  I love my “escapadas”, whether on my own, visiting friends in other parts of Spain, travelling with friends, or these frenetic holidays with my village.  Each style of travel has its charm and its advantages.  The trips with this lively, noisy, kind bunch of people that I am delighted to call my neighbours, provide me with an intensive week-long language immersion.  They might leave me exhausted and in need of another holiday in order to recover, but they further deepen my ties with this special little village which has embraced me as much as I have embraced it.

As the August heat continues (surely hotter even than last year?), I escape again and fly to Dorset for a week of visiting friends in more manageable temperatures.  I messaged a friend asking what the weather was going to be like.  Her reply pinged onto my phone:  “The weather is going to be lovely over the Bank Holiday weekend”.  A minute later the phone pinged again:  “Well, lovely for Dorset”.  It’s all relative.

©  Tamara Essex  2019                                                        http://www.twocampos.com

Back when I worked (oh how long ago it seems, now!) I was up with all the jargon.  Words like social inclusion, stakeholders, outcomes and future-proofing.  The charity sector’s version of management-speak.  And yet all of a sudden I am “future-proofing” all sorts of aspects of my life!  And it feels quite serious.

Purely by luck rather than any sort of forward planning my house will, I think, do me well into old age.  Watching friends both in Spain and the UK needing to make adaptations or move to more manageable accommodation or nearer essential services triggered a very serious walk around my house, looking at it dispassionately.  Will it work for my later years?  Yes, I think so.  There’s a downstairs bedroom with easy access to the bathroom.  At a pinch, a stairlift might even be possible.  I’m in the village centre, easy access to shops, buses, neighbours etc.  And, as importantly as any of those practicalities, it’s where I want to be.

A couple of friends have thought that I’m being premature.  But a stroke, a fall, a broken hip, a debilitating illness, these things can strike at any time.  We all know that.  We’ve all seen it.  And how much harder is it to move when in the middle of any of those problems?

So the house will suit me until they carry me off to a nursing home or to the crematorium.  Yet all the while, all the small changes I can make now, all the slightly bigger changes that I can envisage and budget for further down the line, the over-arching question-mark is still there, hanging there, that uncertainty, probably manageable for most of us, probably not for some.  Is there any point in planning for the future while the dark cloud of the unmentionable B-word hovers over us?

In the meantime, a big part of future-proofing continues to be improving and perfecting the Spanish language.  Because only through the language are deep friendships made, and only through deep friendships are real roots put down.  So I carry on studying, carry on practising with friends, including with Jose, my inter-cambio language partner since I arrived (and always my best resource).

Yet all the while, all the time the language improves, that cloud still hangs there.  The hours and the money on lessons … we lack the certainty to be 100% sure that it’s all worth while.  The brain says “of course it is!” and I continue to actively help and encourage other British people wanting to learn Spanish.  But deep inside the niggle is there.  Learning and improving the language assumes a future here.  Despite the clear blue Spanish summer sky, we are never without that cloud.  It just hangs there.

So there is not just the normal future-proofing that everyone should be on top of – updating the will, ensuring that loved ones are protected – five million of us have extra future-proofing to do, we have to do Brexit-proofing.  Of course, everyone has to, not just those of us who exercised our Treaty rights to live in a different country.  Everyone needs to prepare (just like the leaders of the Leave campaign, most of whom have demonstrated their patriotism by moving trust funds, wealth management companies, or their manufacturing base out of the UK).  But we lesser mortals have to plough through a list of additional tasks, whether we are citizens of EU27 countries living in the UK, or UK citizens living in one of the EU27 countries.

Future-proofing our residency cards.  After five years of official residency in Spain we are entitled to change them for a card that has the word “permanent” on it.  Only a small change, but the “guidance in case of No Deal” that the Spanish government has prepared for us sets out that people without “permanent” residency may have more hoops to jump through in the future when we become “Third Country Nationals” and change to a different, non-EU identity card.   When we have fewer rights.  When we don’t, in fact, have the RIGHT to be here, we only have “permission”.

Future-proofing our driving licences.  I finally got round to exchanging my driving licence for a Spanish one.  In case of No Deal.  Because we don’t know.  Because so many things remain unclear.  They have taken my British one, given me a temporary one, and I check the postbox each morning awaiting the Brexit-proof Spanish licence (which will need explaining when I drive in the UK!).

Health care.  The big one.  Frankly, all I can do is check my savings account and my ISA and hope and assume that there is enough in there to take care of me in the case of No Deal.  You move to another EU country safe in the knowledge that the 300,000 British pensioners who have done the same before you, have their healthcare funded by the UK (from the taxes paid throughout our lives) paid to our new host country through the EU-wide agreement.  Without a Deal, many will reluctantly return to the UK, unable to pay for healthcare and medications out of a pension which every month buys fewer euros.  Pensioners faced with bills of 1,000€ a month, some even more, just for medications.  Those of us lucky enough to have come out here with a bit of a cushion check it nervously, wondering if it will last.  The enormous blue sky stretches from the village to beyond the mountains.  And in the middle, unseen by everyone except British people, hangs that cloud.

I went on one of my little road-trips last week.  Una escapada.  A lovely few days, meeting old friends and new.  Back via a village that’s not too far from me, Torrox Pueblo, which traditionally hangs umbrellas in the main square to provide spots of shade and a bit of colour.  Lovely!  Colourful.  Photogenic.  From nowhere, between the coloured brollies, up in the blue Spanish summer sky, a white cloud drifted across.

The cloud is always there.  Life goes on, we future-proof, and as far as we can we Brexit-proof.  But life is in limbo for five million people about to lose our rights.  There’s a cloud that doesn’t go away.  Never a day or even an hour goes by without it forcing its way, uninvited, into our thoughts.  And a coloured umbrella won’t be enough to protect us.

©  Tamara  Essex  2019                                   http://www.twocampos.com