Cutting loose!

AT LAST!

The title of the blog is now a reality. I am in Catalonia!

Considering the length of time that it took to sell the house (I was rapidly becoming known as ‘the teacher who tried to go to Spain to live’) the actual process as soon as contracts were being bandied about was relatively quick.

It was not, of course, without its attendant horrors, otherwise selling a house would not be ranked with divorce and death as one of the most stressful things that you experience!

Although a vast amount of what can only be described as ‘stuff’ was already residing in the depositories of Messrs. Pickford I seemed to have amassed another house worth of possessions to join the two pallets of the library and assorted items ready to wend their way to Spain.

Pickfords made the wrapping and packing of the house look like an elegant art: the packaging of the television created an art object worthy of entry into the Tate Modern as a Christo wrapped original. If I had my way I would leave it in its bubble wrap covered state for future generations to wonder at!

The eventual settlement in Altolusso was something of a relief; its position was wonderful, but we never really got used to the maniacal shriek of harsh metallic brakes on the passing trains. I do not see how anyone short of deafness could possibly live in those flats. It may be ‘location, location, location’ that sells accommodation, but surely there must be audio limits to what you are prepared to suffer!

The last days there were difficult to take as we had all but gone and were irritated by the fact that somehow, we were still there. When you are making such a life changing move; the decision made – the last thirty or forty hours are unbearable.
Luckily my inability to pack came to the fore to help me. Toni, of course, packed his possessions impeccably with elegant economy within a couple of hours. My ordeal would have had Saint John of the Cross rethinking his concept of the ‘dark night of the soul.’ In all packing experiences there comes a moment of truth when you know, beyond all doubt, that what you want to pack will not fit into what you are using to pack it in. This moment came early in the process and yet, and yet . . .

You can define most people by their approach to the definition of the CDW concept. This is the ‘Can’t Do Without’ appellation of certain items that have to go into the case. This CDW is widely interpreted. For some people going on holiday without a full mini library of chosen reading matter would be unthinkable; for others a selection of bathing costumes is essential; perfumes for morning, evening, afternoon and tea time would be the difference between civilization and barbarism; everyone, thank god is different.

I have found that the (I have to admit it) imperfections of my corporal state are space consuming – especially if you are moving country. Consider: faulty vision has to be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. In my case with a combination of both. If you have faulty long and short sight then the combination and number of glasses increases. You have varifocal glasses, reading glasses, sunglasses, contact lenses, glasses to read with contact lenses, tinted lenses with – well, you get the idea and with supermarkets producing cheap single strength reading glasses for a couple of quid the sheer number of pairs of glasses increased super exponentially. And they all take up room. Contact lenses, you would have thought, take up no room at all – unless you wear daily disposable contact lenses and then you have box after box of them. Especially, again, when you stock up to come to a foreign country.

My medication also takes up more space than you would think. There was a time when pills were put in a bottle to be shaken out when needed. Nowadays pharmaceutical companies like their consumers to think that everything they take has important magical qualities and so they pack all pills in day specific blister packs which are packed in boxes. Even aspirin! Less than a penny a pill and one firm packs them as if they were life saving panaceas and charges accordingly! Space, space, space! I think that anyone would agree that specs and medics were CDWs – doing without them could be fatal! And then you have to pack clothes! It’s just impossible.

And it was impossible. Various things had to be left behind. Including the car.

I wasn’t thinking of taking it with me, but I was hoping to sell it before I left and use the pitiful amount I could get to go towards a new car in Spain.

The idea of taking abroad and driving, with Catalans with the disadvantage of a right hand drive car in a benighted country of left hand drive fanatics on the road was not a starter. The experience of being flicked a vicious V sign by an ancient driver as he overtook me on a mountain hairpin bend descending from Montserrat and being harangued by his equally ancient wife, just because I was sticking to the speed limit on a clearly dangerous road, has stayed with me as an indelible memory!

That experience changed my driving expectations in Cataluña for ever. I need to be able to fight back and restricting your sight lines by a driving position on the wrong side of the car is not to be recommended anywhere, let alone in Spain!

I woke on the first day of my new life to the sound of rain.

I do not feel homesick yet, especially as Welsh weather appears to have followed me.

Today has been a time to check on how much I have in my Spanish bank account and to think about what I have left behind.

Without the Pauls and Ceri and Dianne the last day would have been a haze of horror as we tried to get too much done in too short a time; they made possible the impossible and it ment that our last day was a rush of action which left us no time to think.

How considerate life can be sometimes! With a little help from my friends!

This blog is from some time before the 17th of June, only posted now because of my inability to link to the internet!

I am now having withdrawal symptoms because of my internet deprivation.

Sad, but true.

Living a train filled life in the lower reaches of Altolusso with the temptation of a dust filled, shop enticing central Cardiff dominated by earth movers and shakers should be the stuff of dramatic blogs charting the raging emotions and depleting bank balances of a high octane existence. But it isn’t.

My computer reaches out its electronic tentacles and finds serried ranks of computer users all around me, their wireless links seductively encouraging, but the sternly repulsing ‘security enabled’ label dashing connection hopes.

The days since the Move Out have been filled by finding just how many ropes, threads, strings, manacles, chains, scaffolding, flying buttresses, shackles, cables, locks, and all other metaphorical impedimenta impeding the surgical cutting of the ties that contain a person’s movement from his home country. Not, I must add, that I want to sever those links, but the normal process of ‘housekeeping’ so as not to leave any loose ends is an enervating series of brushes with Automated Authority.

I have now heard every variation of the computer generated insults that are non human telephonic responses to a poor human trying to gain an organic ear to list to the poignant tale of separation that is inherent in emigration.

The present front runner for the Orwellian Big Brother Prize for Bewildering Choice in Telephonic Response is the DLVC. Make one wrong choice to the stultifying plethora of alternatives and you will find yourself in the dead end of a proffered telephone number: your alternatives have narrowed to one set response – and this after wending your weary way through a thoroughly unsatisfactory set of numbered choices.

The best of the Big Organizations so far has been Customs and Excise! This was in response to an enquiry about income tax which encouraged a thoroughly pleasant man to be helpful and coherent and offer to send any further information that I might need to Spain. Gosh! This is in marked contrast to some other businesses which made my move to Spain seem as though I were going to settle on one of the more obscure chunks of rock in the unfashionable end of the asteroid belt.

The only thing that makes telephoning faceless bureaucrats and officials bearable is the loudspeaker button on a telephone handset. This at least allows you to continue with your normal life until something approaching a human makes some sort of contact. Unfortunately, in my experience, this always occurs when your normal life has reached a potentially sonically embarrassing stage.

The last time that I was carrying around a noisy handset which was playing a suitably moronic and immediately unbearable tuneless note sequence that, unbelievably, someone in the organization had actually chosen, the human response came at a time when I had just started to eliminate a certain quantity of waste, as it were! When you have phoned as many organizations in the last few days as I have you take such inopportune human contact in your stride. Though thinking about it, ‘stride’ was possibly not the most appropriate word to describe my response. When you finally get through to a human operator you have to cherish and nourish this contact or you are condemned to repeat the via dolorosa of gaining information all over again.

And again.