Time indoors in Spain

Posted on by
Reply

One thing I was not prepared for when I moved to Spain was to spend so much time indoors.  Not just being indoors, but inside with the shutters down and the windows closed.  It seems a bit odd, especially when everybody says that the weather is so ‘good’ here.  However,  I spend a good part of every afternoon that way, shut up inside our flat, waiting for the moment when it is OK to poke my nose outside, and venture off to the playground.  It isn’t just me who lives this way, just about every family in Southern Spain at least does exactly this.  Why?  The answer is simple, the heat.

I live in Granada in Southern Spain, in the middle of mountainous Andalucía to be precise.  Between the months of June to September the afternoon temperatures are over 35ºC.  In July and August it will hover at 40º, or maybe 45º if we are ‘lucky’.  It is pretty unpleasant being out in the direct sunlight, even being in the shade feels like a session inside a slow cooker.  There is no way that I would want to end up outside with my son at that time of day.  It isn’t until about 6.30pm when the sun is lower in the sky and there is a lot more shade, that people venture outside with their kids.

It means that from 3 until approximately 7pm every day I am indoors with my son.  Now, to anyone who is a parent of young children, they will know that this can be a challenging situation.  Does “I’m bored Daddy”, “don’t want to do that again” and squabbling sound familiar.  Try doing it every day…

However, luckily there is an answer.

In the summer months of June through to early September, Spain moves to a different timetable compared to the winter.  It is called intensive working, or ‘jornada intensiva’ as we say here.  The idea is that workers and children go to their jobs / school / nursery from 8am until 2 or 3pm in the afternoon.  There are few breaks, and it is pretty an ‘intensive’ period of time.  However, this is quite ingenious, as, as a result, my little ‘tear away’ gets home at 3pm pretty worn out.  This is good.

My son heads directly for the sofa almost as soon as he walks through the door, my wife and I eat and then do the same.  Not a lot happens until about 5pm ish, when we start to get moving again.  At that point it is time to get the toys out, drawing pens or maybe even watch some cartoons for half an hour.

People ask why there is still a siesta in Spain, why the timetable is not reformed, to be brought into line with the rest of Europe.  Indeed there are regular debates about this topic in the Spanish media.  Indeed many business people working in offices with air-conditioning have already changed, they had to.  However, as long as the sun is shining, we are still having children and they need to be kept occupied in houses, the current arrangements work pretty well for families.

The result is, as is so often the case in Spain, that people adapt, fit into their surroundings according to their circumstances. People do what works in each particular situation.  The result is that Spain seems to have multiple daily timetables running for different types of people.  These timetables are all loosely aligned to tradition, which in turn was set by the changing weather.

So when will Spain ever reform its timetable and adopt a single national standard?

Personally I won’t lose sleep waiting for it to happen.

Keeping up to date with your UK tax return

Posted on by
1

HMRC Tax demandDoesn’t time fly.  It feels like no sooner have I finished one tax return, another demand finds its way into my buzon de correo.  This time it is HMRC calling.

With all the day-to-day activities of work, family and enjoying our time in Spain, it is easy to forget about the end of the UK financial year.  The letter from HMRC and my little gMail reminder are the only prompts I see during the year.  There is no helpful ‘tax needn’t be taxing’ government sponsored TV campaigns for us expats.  I have found it is a really good idea to keep in touch with HMRC, making sure they have our current address.

I would like to offer a word of warning.  Written correspondence from HMRC seems to be very slow arriving in Spain.  Letters are posted to me using second class post, and take a minimum of three weeks to arrive.  In the year that my wife and I moved out we both needed to submit paper tax returns, I ordered copies rather than printing them at home, thinking it would be straightforward.  As a result it was well into October before I managed to send in the return leaving no room for error before the 31st October deadline.

If you are filing electronically and you were to put it off until January (I’m sure none of us ever leave it that late :-) , then don’t forget!  The reminder, usually sent by HMRC in December, will most likely not arrive until February allowing for the Christmas post, you could end up with a fine if you are not careful.

So this year the returns are going to be in the post before the end of May…!

LIKE ME to leave the Euro!!!

Posted on by
51

(Original published on my Facebook account Sunday 20th November 2011, this version has some new edits)

I have had enough and I am leaving the Euro TONIGHT!!  Why not join me – HIT THAT LIKE BUTTON NOW.

We are about to see a new government in Spain tonight.  Unfortunately for the EU Commission it will be a democratically elected one.  The outing Socialist chaps are about to go into opposition and thankfully are going to start opposing all of the daft RUSHED austerity measures that the EU (Germany, or more accurately the German government in Berlin) is trying to sell to the worlds investors as the solution to all of the Eurozone’s problems.  What a load of rubbish…!

Greece and Italy now have freshly installed EU puppet presidents and their problems are getting worse!

So, I have decided to take some action, someone needs to stop this madness.  It’s time to leave the Euro, bring back the ‘inflatable’ peseta and get devaluing to get out of this mess!

Devaluing means that Spain will become cheaper again, it will be difficult for the locals here for a while, but eventually people will be attracted to the country again, they will bring their money to this country again, they will invest here.  That is what is so desperately needed at the moment.  Over time, Spain will have time to learn its lesson and will have to address some of the bigger problems that it faces, employment laws and a bloated comfortable public sector being the notable problems.  SLOW austerity is needed.

This however is FAR BETTER than continuing with a rushed austerity package where Spain will be forced to sell of its national assets on the cheap.  Handing the keys over in the process to the reckless creditors of France, Germany and the UK, who are just as guilty in creating this situation as the people who were in power in the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) who accepted the money in the first place.

This is exactly the process that has now started in Greece and Italy by the way.

Austerity is necessary in the PIGS, but it takes YEARS.  Germany knows this, it has just done this under re-unification.  RUSHED austerity is NOT the answer to this problem.  So LIKE ME, JOIN ME and LEAVE THE EURO WITH ME today!

Why all the fuss if austerity is needed?  Austerity yes, RUSHED austerity, NO!

Consider the following hypothetical situation.

  1. The new government of ‘national unity’ (there is no opposition in place) approves the austerity demands of the EU, demands that have probably been hammered out the night before in a meeting in Paris or Berlin.
  2. National assets like the railways, power companies and public spaces are then quickly sold, below market value, to the creditor nations (capitals in Paris and Berlin) who will then immediately sell them on for a margin to other investors.
  3. These investors will immediately increase the prices of using this assets for the people of the country (train tickets, electricity, fuel, postal services… it is a long list) which will affect the whole population and the local economy.
  4. The same investors will review the ‘efficiency’ of their new spoils, surprisingly finding cheaper sub-suppliers in their own country to carry out work that was previously done by the locals…  Think about how Halliburton, the US oil services company benefitted from the Iraq war, it’s that kind of thing…
  5.  The newly unemployed, and poorer locals, will then begin their new lives sitting around twiddling their thumbs in groups in their freshly privatised public parks.  They will be discussing how they have been stitched up by their own politicians, Europe and big business.  They probably never even had the chance to vote yes or no on the Euro back in the 1990′s.
  6. Someone says “I know, let’s do something to send a message that it is our country.”
  7. We have some radicals.

And so the wheel turns…

Europe has rarely been peaceful, we have been lucky for the last sixty years.  We have a responsibility to do our best to keep it that way.

How a sentence can change your life

Posted on by
2

I saw a post on a forum earlier today which made me think.  Someone in the USA asked other expats already living Spain what it was that had finally helped them to decide to emigrate.  The question brought back the memories of my own decision making.  A process of several years of thinking and procrastinating before finally taking a leap of faith and moving over here.  I found the question interesting because it made me think about the point in time when I actually made up my mind.  Looking back now, just over two years on, one event sticks clearly in my mind.  This event more than anything else is now ‘my reason’ for moving.

I have a friend who I met at work.  She is a very brave and adventurous lady and she has lived and worked all over the world, whilst at the same time raising a family.  Very sadly, she lost the people closest to her in her life.  Her story was so poignant to me because at exactly the same time, my own family life was just beginning.  I had just got married and become a father, and we were seriously considering leaving the UK.

One day we were talking in the office and I mentioned to her that I was thinking about moving to Spain.  I can still picture how she looked at me and said very seriously “For heavens sake, just do it.  You only live once and you must make the most of every moment.”

I came away from the conversation with a sense of urgency, also a feeling of just how fragile life is.  At that moment, I realised how lucky I was to have time and choices available to me.  That moment made me think, “What if look back ten years from now and realise that I never even tried to change my life.”

That moment is when I believe that I finally stopped procrastinating and worrying about what might happen in life.  I had finally decided to take the bull by the horns and give Spain a go.

My friend was right, you have to take the opportunities that come your way.

How to import a car or motorcycle into Spain

Posted on by
23

 

How to register a car or motorcycle in Spain

I have imported both my motorcycle and car into Spain during the last year.  I wrote these DIY notes a while back.  I imported in Seville and in Granada and the processes were very similar.  I can’t speak for other cities though so there may be some differences.

Many people just use a ‘gestor’ who should pretty much do the job for you.  I wanted to save money and learn some Spanish, so I went through the process myself!

Firstly you need to complete your NIE and you Padron processes.

If you are going to insure your bike with a Spanish company once registers then you will need to also swap your driving licence over to a Spanish one.

Driving Licence

You will need to go to ‘Trafico’ (vehicles and licensing office in most big cities) to do this and it can take ten days or a fortnight to receive the new one.  So start this soon after you arrive in Spain.  Take originals and copies of NIE, Padron, passport and both parts of you UK driving licence down to the local Trafico office.  You will need to ask for a form, I can’t remember which one it is.  You will have to pay some money, about 50€ springs to mind.  Then wait in the queue to see a person at a window hand over the documentation and probably your counterpart original UK licence as well.  They will give you a receipt and then they will contact you when your new Spanish license is ready.  Then you can go and collect it.

While you are in Trafico, also ask for the ‘Solicitud de Matriculación de Vehículos’ document, you will need this later on in the process and you might as well fill it out in the comfort of your own home/mansion!

Before you leave the UK, make sure your V5 is correct.  Chassis (VIN) number, your name, your address in the UK.  If you are going to do the ‘Baja consular’ process (we’ll get to this bit in a minute) then the vehicle must have been in your name for a minimum of six months.

You will then need to get hold of a document called a Ficha Técnica Reducida.  This is a document signed by and authorised engineer saying that your motorcycle really is what your V5 says it is.  I have done this two ways in the past.  Online, using a company called TUV Rheinland who have an office in Madrid (I’m not connected to them in anyway incidentally!).  I sent them photos of my frame number and a scan of my V5 and about 100 euros.  They sent me a signed Ficha Técnica Reducida about a week later by post.  You can probably do this from the UK before moving to Spain.

The other way I have done this to contact a local ‘Perito’ here in Granada.  A Perito is a vehicle assessor.  He came round and gave my car and the V5 a good look over, then wrote a document and then came to the ITV (vehicle testing station) station with me.  This also cost about 100 euros.  I found him by calling the local ‘Colegio de Ingenieros’ (Institute of Engineers) here in Granada and they gave me his phone number.

In parallel, start to sort your headlights out, I had to buy a new one for the BMW and it cost about 250 euros.  To reduce the pain I just told myself that I would be safer with it fitted.  I suppose I could sell the old one on Ebay to reduce the damage, but I’m keeping it as a spare.

Next you will need to make an appointment at the ITV station, either by phone or go and visit them.  Go along with your NIE, padron document, passport and V5.  Also take copies of each one just in case.  When I used the services of the Perito I just went along with him, he didn’t need to book an appointment.  After passing the test, I was given a green ‘Ficha Técnica’ document which becomes part of the official paperwork for the motorcycle.  Well done, big step forward.

Baja consular

Now the fun begins… There is a tax to import a vehicle into Spain which varies according to the CO2 emissions and age of the vehicle.  There seems to be some debate in the EU as to whether this tax is legal because this pollution related tax would already have been paid when the vehicle was first registered in the EU.  Anyway, there is a process by which British expats moving to the UK can have an exemption.  The process is called the Baja Consular, and guess what, it also costs money!  It cost me about 150 euros plus the cost of the trips to the consulate office (I used Seville).  Now, for me, it was cheaper to do the Baja Consular process, than pay the import tax.  So how much is the tax?  It is tricky to say.  Maybe someone on the forum can help you to calculate it.  It depends on the original value of your motorcycle, the CO2 emissions and the age of the motorcycle on the date that you register it in Spain.  For my bike which is a 2001 model with a large engine, I would have had to pay 14% of the original sale value discounted by 9 years.  It worked out at about 400€.  So it was cheaper for me to follow the Baja Consular route.  Our car however was 11 years old and the tax worked out at 200€, so I would not have bothered with the Baja Consular process for that on it’s own.

I suggest that you contact the consulate in Malaga for advice on the Baja Consular process, you will need your V5, passport, NIE and copies.  I went to Seville and had to swear an oath on the bible as part of the process it was all rather… fantastic.

Important note.  You will be exempt from paying import tax for a vehicle for 60 days from the date on the Baja Consular document.  So you need to make it to the Hacienda (the tax office) in time.  We’ll get to the Hacienda bit in a minute.

Once you have the Ficha Técnica you will then be able to pay the local ‘Impuesto sobre Circulación de Vehículos’ (which is the road tax).  You can do this at local Ayuntamiento (town hall office) and you will need to do this every year anyway for the motorcycle once it is registered.  Take the Ficha Técnica, your NIE and copies.  They will issue with three copies of a document, you then need to take these to a bank to pay.  From memory road tax in Spain is about 115€ per year.  The bank will frank the documents and your done.

Now for Hacienda (Tax office) to sort out the import tax.  You may need to book an appointment for this bit, I did in Granada.  I then had to come back the following week which was a bit frustrating as it only took them a couple of minutes to process it all.  The process is like this.  You turn up and tell reception that you wish to speak to the vehicles department.  They give you a number on a slip of paper, you wait, you go to the window when it is your turn.  I handed over the Baja Consular, the Ficha Técnica and my NIE with copies of all of them.  They then gave me a document to say that the import tax had been settled.  If you are going to pay the import tax then much like the Ayuntamiento office before, they will issue you with a document which you would then need to take to the bank to pay.  Then you would need to return to the Hacienda office, queue up again (often you can use the same queue number so don’t lose you little slip of paper!).  Then they would issue you with the document saying that the import tax has been settled.

Now you can go back to Tráfico.  Taking… wait for it… original and copies of the completed ‘Solicitud de Matriculación de Vehículos’ document, your Ficha Técnica,  your NIE, the receipt for the ‘Impuestos de Circulación’ and the receipt from Hacienda in your hand.  Go to ‘Tasas’ window and give them the ‘Solicitud de Matriculación de Vehículos’ document, they will ask you for about 90 euros to register the motorcycle, you pay and then they stamp the ‘Solicitud de Matriculación de Vehículos’ document and give it back to you along with another queue number written on a slip of paper.  Find the queuing area and wait until you are called to the window.

Hand over all the documentation (with copies) they will check and stamp everything.  They will then issue you with a green ‘Permiso de Circulación’ document and a registration plate number for the car or motorcycle (which will be stamped and perforated into the Ficha Técnica’).  Congratulations, you now have both official documents for your vehicle!

Now you can go to a shop and buy a licence plate(s), it will cost about 15€ per plate.

Also you can now arrange for some insurance.  A nice policy which will probably cost more and have less cover than in the UK… and then you can sit back and laugh or cry depending on how you feel.  Your bike may now have appreciated in value (Spanish second hand market is a funny old thing) and you can now drive around legally without worrying about being stopped by the police for failing to import your bike, which is nice.

Comments welcome, I’m off to have some breakfast…

Applying for a Spanish health card

Posted on by
14

Two official letters arrived this morning.  These letters made me feel good, more secure, I feel that we have just taken a big step forward with our adventure in Spain.

The letters were from the Spanish Department of Health and contained new Spanish health cards for my son and I.  I never thought I would feel so good about receiving something like that!

It is easy to take things for granted in life.  Growing up in the UK I never really thought about health care.  The national health service was there on the rare occasions that I needed it.  With hindsight, I now realise just how lucky I was to be able to take something like that for granted.

Wind the clock forward to this summer, August 2011 to be precise, and I suddenly discoverd that I was without any health care at all!  My blue EHIC card had just expired, however I had not yet received my Spanish health card to replace it.

Luckily, I didn’t need to see the doc and stayed out of harms way so in the end there was no problem.  But knowing I had no access to a health system and not knowing when my Spanish cover would start, was a little sobering.  I can now see how access to high quality national health care has become something that we just expect these days, and that it is worth having!

My situation is just the sort of ‘hole’ that expats can find themselves in whilst negotiating the long process of moving country.  Sorry, it is a process, quite a long process to be honest.  By the way, if any estate agent seeking to sell you a ideal retirement home in the sun, tells you that moving country is a doddle, my advice would be to run a mile!

It is this process that can catch you out.

Since I have been in Spain I have had a thousand jobs to do, from setting up my own business, to finding customers, registering the car, registering my wife’s motorbike, moving flat (twice!), finding a nursery and learning Spanish… the list is long and it hangs on my wall.  Of course applying for the local Spanish health card (called ‘Tarjeta Sanitaria Individual’) was on the list, and I did it, not straight away because I had my EHIC card, but I did apply.

Like many people I also have various insurances, health cover, bank accounts, credit cards which were all set up whilst I was living in the UK.  Now that I am living in Spain, they are steadily needing to be replaced as they expire.

The trick is to manage the moving process so as to avoid the ‘expat hole’.  You really need to make sure that you have applied to the Spanish system(s) in plenty of time, so that when your UK cover or card etc expires you have a replacement at the ready.

In my case, my son and I were entitled to Spanish health care as my wife is Spanish and works here.  However it still took three months from the date we applied for the Spanish health cards, to the date that we actually recieved them.  During that period my UK EHIC card expired and I spent six weeks without cover.

Whether or not the doctor would actually have asked to see my EHIC card, or if he would have refused to see me if he had found out that my card had already expired, I will never know.  My experience is that these days the Spanish health system is quite efficient at picking up on these small details.  I am glad I did not have to find out.

But it brought home to me just how important it is to get the moving process right.   Whether it is registering your car in Spain, applying for a health card or renewing your passport, doing nothing or starting things too late can easily land you in the ‘expat hole’.  And the hole is a place I do not wish to visit.

Keep a close eye on your expiry dates, speak to other expats to know what you are entitled to and most importantly… apply early to the Spanish system!

Our Spanish adventure continues, only today it feels just a little bit more secure now that we have put our new health cards into the ‘important’ draw.

Learning Spanish, but quicker!

Posted on by
25

I’ve changed my attitude recently and decided that I am going to start working harder on my Spanish once again.

I have reached that ‘intermediate’ stage in Spanish where I can do everything that I need to, I can understand and speak, read and write, but, that’s not where I want to be forever.

What I am finding now that I am living in Granada, is that the more effort I put into my Spanish the ‘bigger’ my world seems to grow.  I find out more things about what is going on, I enjoy meeting people and I laugh more.  I have even just found a job because I can speak ‘good’ Spanish…

So, I have been doing some thinking about how I have learnt Spanish up until now.  I have also been talking to friends and work colleagues who are really fluent in a second language.  What has occurred to me is that my progress in learning Spanish has not been ‘steady’.

If I think about it most of my progress happened during a couple of short periods of time but spread over a few years.  This is not uncommon situation.  A lot of my friends said the  same thing. There was a particular time when their level just seemed to steam ahead.

The consensus seems to be that it is down to having the ‘right attitude to learn Spanish‘ or the ‘best mindset to learn‘.  This it seems is far more important that having the right tools, techniques or going to a certain language school.

So, I decided to jot down all of the helpful hints and advice about learning mindset that I and my friends used over the years.  I am using this advice right now.  What I am finding is that, surprise surprise, my rate of improvement is accelerating once again.  Great!!

Even better is that I think it would only be fair if I shared this with you!  That is if you want it of course.

If you would like to have a read then put all the advice into an eBook which you can access from the link below.  The good news is that it is FREE! Happy reading.

The download process is still work in progress but it does work so stick with it.

Click the image to access the eBook

A great reason to love Spain, and learn Spanish!

Posted on by
9

I went to start my motorbike this morning only to find that it had decided to leak petrol on the floor.

Eeek! I’m not going to start that then!

Feeling fit, I thought I would push it round the corner to the local Motorrad motorcycle mechanic. I had never been in to see him before, so I was going to be at his mercy.

We had a good chat about bikes for a while and he was keen to tell me how he loved British bikes, he had been at a Triumph event at the weekend test riding one of their new models.  Walking away I felt that I had done my best to try and get on his good side, and was also feeling pleased with myself that I had enjoyed a good chat in Spanish.

As it turned out, I need not have worried at all about the service…

He called me a couple of hours later and told me that it was nothing serious. The bike was ready to collect whenever was convenient.  I went back to the workshop and, would you believe it, he refused to charge me anything!!!

He said it was to minor and too easy to fix, besides he liked to work on my model of bike.  Eventually I managed to slide 10€ onto his desk and quickly ran outside so he didn’t have a chance to give it back to me.

The funny thing is that I had exactly the same experience last February when the car broke down.  It was raining, I had my son in the car with me and ….no push chair. The garage fixed it in no time and refused to take any cash.

I feel like I made a friend today.  I’m going to go back and get a new set of tyres from him in a couple of weeks.

Isn’t that how all business should work!

Even though things are tough right now, I do love it here in Spain.

Top tip to help you learn Spanish

Posted on by
1

This is going to sound very daft and a bit techy… but ‘Yoda’ the fictional character from the Star Wars series of films has really helped me to improve my Spanish. I’ve decided to write this on my blog because I hope it can help you too if you are also struggling with this bit of the language.

In Spanish, I really struggle to understand sentences which use the ‘indirect object’.  Err, sorry which bit is that exactly?  Examples would be:

 

“I sent the email to Dave” or “I threw the ball to my son” or “Mary took an apple crumble to her Grandmother”.

The problem I have in Spanish, is that this type of sentence ‘Dave’, ‘my son’ or ‘her grandmother’, is likely to be repeated.  Literally translated, the Spanish sentences would look like this in English:

“I to him sent the email to Dave” or “I to him threw the ball to my son” or “Mary to her took an apple crumble to her Grandmother”.

The ‘to him’ or ‘to her’ which appears in Spanish as ‘le’, was really confusing me.  I just wasn’t able to make my brain adjust to hearing about the person receiving the action, before the speaker got round to giving me the verb.  I suppose the repeated subject should have helped me, but by the time I heard that bit I was already in a mess.

While other parts of my Spanish were improving, it didn’t matter how many times I reread the theory on indirect object it simply would not sink in.  In every conversation, I was having to ask people to either slow down, or explain to me what was going on in a different.  That was until I had a breakthrough.

One day, I was showing off trying to do a not so convincing Yoda impression, when it struck me.  Although he doesn’t do the repeating bit, Yoda sometimes speaks English, slightly backwards.  HmmmMMMM! You may say.  So what?

After that day if I am struggling with these types of sentences I try to repeat the Spanish in my head with a Yoda voice, and somehow, when I do this the Spanish makes more sense to me.

There is probably a deep scientic explanation for what is going on in my brain when I do this.  Getting into the slightly backwards mindset has helped me to understand the object coming before the verb.

A silly little trick has helped me so much I really wanted to share it.

If you are not a Star Wars fan and have no idea what I am talking about then I guess you will be confused, and are probably thinking that I have been spending too much time in the sunshine.

Learn Spanish

Posted on by
3

‘Learn Spanish’ has been on my to do list for years. It is one of those niggling personal goals that I just cannot tick off as done.  No matter what I try, I simply cannot escape these two words creeping back as one of my top three priorities.  For the last four months I have been happy deluding myself that my level is fine, that I will progress naturally now that I am using the language on a daily basis.  It turns out that my expectation that I would learn ‘on the job’ is utter rubbish.

Since 2005 I’ve improved a lot and my level is probably better than 80% of the British expats who live here, however it is not good enough to work in a professional job in Spain and it is not good enough for me.  This week I have had trouble speaking to the guy fitting the air con, my son’s teacher in the nursery and spent about an hour trying to read a newspaper article in El País about the situation in Greece.  Not being able to communicate annoys me and it makes me want to stop living in Spain and go back to the UK where things would be easier.  However the thought of going back to the UK and not having mastered Spanish annoys me more, as I know that will disadvantage me in the long run.

The other reason I think that learning Spanish is so important for me is pride.  I worked in a very international business sector for the last fifteen years and in that time I met hundreds of other bright professional people from other countries.  On average they all spoke English well enough to do business, they had worked hard at their level from a young age and they all impressed me, not only could these people do their jobs but they could do them in a second language as well.  When I left my last job I was managing to get by with Spanish and English, however I know that my ability to communicate was dependent upon who I was speaking to.  If the other person was sympathetic with their use of their own language, then communication in Spanish worked.  However I don’t want to rely on other people’s sympathy in order to get by.

I have used most methods available to reach my current level and they have all helped.  Private and group lessons, files full of notes, software packages, watching TV, reading newspapers and books.  I have a verb tables book which is falling to pieces because of the use it has seen (I am proud of that!), I also have a little translating computer which I can carry with me.

I am finding that the best tool however is fear.  For a number of reasons it could be that my time in Spain is running out, I may need to go back to the UK and it maybe that having the Spanish language in my list of skills gives me the edge to get a job in a difficult climate.  I may stay here and need to work, speak to my son’s teachers, fill in forms or answer the telephone.  I think it is fear that keeps moving ‘learn Spanish’ to the top of my list.

So here I am again facing my learn Spanish action,  I just need to find a way to get this work done and tick this box so I can get on with the next thing.