A Room With A View

Right now we are in England. We arrived a week ago with a very special purpose; to celebrate our Golden Wedding anniversary with our two daughters, and later with our granddaughters. We didn't want a big party, lovely as it would have been to see the wider family and some friends. We wanted something small but special. So we booked two nights for the four of us at the Harte and Garter Hotel on the High St in Windsor.Mandy and Nicky shared a superior twin room and Mary and I wallowed in a Luxury Kingsize Room. This was the view from the room. Although the weather was cloudy and cold, we had a wonderful time. Friday evening we found a fantastic Moroccan restaurant that was buzzing with groups of friends out for the evening. Saturday morning I headed for a local Catholic church, having decided that after 22 years as a Catholic it was about time I made my first confession. This was followed by a stroll around the centre of Windsor and a very light lunch. Then it was time for me to drift through a lazy afternoon while the others went off to their spa treatments. We ate in the hotel restaurant that evening and it absolutely lived up to its promise. A surprise bonus was finding our daughters standing by with a bottle of champagne when we arrived in the bar for a pre-dinner drink. On Sunday we went round Windsor Castle and then down to a service in St George's Chapel, before another light lunch and then back to Clandon to await the return of our granddaughters from a weekend at Daddy's house. We can't leave them out of the celebrations, naturally, so Aunty Nicky will be over again on Easter Monday so that all six of us can go into Guildford to an Italian trattoria. I can think of no more fitting way of celebrating fifty years of marriage than in the company of the five most important people in my life.

Never A Dull Moment

Some of you may remember that in the local elections last year the outcome was a perfect stand-off between the three main parties - four seats for Partido Popular (PP), four for the socialist party (PSOE) and three for my own party, the Andalusian Party (PA). After negotiations and poker faced intransigence right up to the last moment (to be precise, less than five minutes before a new mayor had to be sworn in) PP agreed to the red line demands of PA and a pact was agreed to govern in coalition. Almost immediately after the swearing-in PP began backtracking on one point of agreement after another, making it extremely difficult for the three 'junior partner' councillors. This was largely something going on behind closed doors. At the beginning of this week though, José Antonio the mayor informed his (PA) deputy without any prior discussions that he was stripping him of his functions which would henceforth be carried out by a PP councillor. Paco held an emergency meeting with his two colleagues who agreed that this was totally unacceptable and the following morning they each resigned their own portfolios. The three PA councillors will now sit in opposition. So now the ruling party has four seats whereas between them the two parties in opposition have seven seats. However, historically there has been a great deal of animosity between PSOE and PA and so it is far from clear how effectively the opposition will oppose. On Thursday night, for instance, PP presented to a full Council meeting a budget for the coming year which included a 10% pay increase for the mayor, and the extension of a paid post to another PP councillor. PA voted against this budget before further discussions had been held over the salary proposals. PSOE who have consistently voted against each annual budget, and who declared in their election manifesto last year that if elected they would seek to reduce the money spent on salary payments to councillors........ abstained. I'm interested to see what happens next.

The Big Issue

This blog tells of my life in retirement here in a village in southern Spain. Apart from a couple of postings last year describing my involvement in the local municipal elections, politics have played no part. However, last weekend my life in Spain and politics in Britain collided. David Cameron returned from Brussels and announced that a referendum will take place on June 23rd in which voters will be asked to say whether they want the UK to remain a member of the EU, or whether they want to leave. That announcement has put my life on hold for the next four months. Not just my life, but that of all British citizens living permanently and either working or retired in one of the other 27 EU countries. For UK citizens living in the UK this may sound alarmist. There will be many who already know that they want to continue in the EU, others who know equally clearly that they want out, some who don’t see that it matters either way and may well not bother to vote come the day, and a lot of people who don’t know which way to vote and will look to the arguments from both sides before making a final decision. But the vote is not until the summer; for now it can be ignored or put low down the priorities. Not so for British expats. What happens on June 23rd is crucially important to us. If the decision is to stay in the EU we can breathe a collective sigh of relief and resume life as normal. If, however, the UK votes to leave the EU, our lives are thrown into immediate turmoil. We - around two million of us - will the first to be affected, and we will be those most affected. Why? Because we will not know what will happen to our resident status or our treatment as non-EU immigrants. Let’s look at some of the questions that are raised: Will our resident status be decided by each member country individually, or will an EU-wide decision be taken in Brussels? My Residencia the document that entitles me to live here permanently is issued on the basis that I am a citizen of an EU country. Will I be allowed to stay on the same basis, with the same entitlements? If not, what will be my new status and what entitlements will it carry? If my new resident status were to be granted for a period of, let us say, five years, but must then be renewed, would the Spanish Government be bound to renew it, or might they take the view that for health, financial or whatever other reason they would prefer me to leave and refuse me permission to remain? Will my access to bank accounts in Spain change? At the moment, as residents, we have a current account, credit and debit cards which attract no charges, and we earn a small but welcome commission on direct debits to pay our utilities bills. Will my health care entitlement change? On the basis of the S1 Form from Britain, all of my healthcare needs are met, free of charge, by the Spanish state health scheme, with the cost being remitted by the British Government on the basis of my NI payments over a working lifetime. I had retired before I moved to Spain and so have never worked here. Consequently I have never made payments into the Spanish welfare system. Will I have to turn to private healthcare paid for out of my own pocket for my future health needs? What about my UK pension? European Union regulations require equal treatment in the payment of benefits and pensions. In other words, when the state pension paid to people in the UK increases, so the pension paid to expat pensioners in the EU must increase by the same amount. But that is an EU requirement. We have friends and family living abroad outside the EU; the pension they receive is the pension that they were entitled to on the day they left the UK. It never increases. That is a decision that the British Government is entitled to take. And why should I tell myself that it would never do that to us? Right now the European Court of Justice has an appeal before it, challenging the decision taken last year not to pay winter fuel allowance to expats living ‘in a warm country’. The grounds of the appeal are that if the warmer country is an EU country then the Government is in breach of the ‘equal treatment’ regulations. As an aside, the Government appears unaware of the winter temperatures commonly experienced across all but the southernmost fringes of the Peninsula every winter; nor that Spanish houses and apartments are built with little or not heed to thermal insulation; and of course within a year or two of arriving your body has adjusted to the new range of temperatures so that what may feel a little chilly in Britain comes to feel very cold in Spain. What about motor insurance? My comprehensive policy covers me for travel anywhere within the EU, and includes roadside assistance and recovery anywhere in the EU. What will happen when I take a car to the UK? And the same applies to my travel/holiday insurance. And what about my Spanish driving licence? Will that still be valid? As a permanent resident I am entitled to own my own home in Spain, and I do. Will that remain the same, or will restrictions be placed on ownership and use? And if I wish to sell, will restrictions be placed on the amount of money that I am permitted to export from Spain to the UK? As a permanent resident over the age of 70, I can sell my property exempt from any capital gains tax. If I am not an EU citizen will that change? I have given directions that when I die my estate such as it is shall be distributed in line with UK inheritance law. If the UK were to be outside the EU, would that instruction still be valid, or would my Spanish estate have to be distributed according to Spanish law? All of this is not nit-picking or scaremongering. It is an example of some of the consequences that could follow a Leave vote. And the trouble is that whatever soothing, reassuring words the Brexiters may direct at us, they do not know the answer to a single one of these questions. They don’t know because nobody knows, and nobody can know until after a decision to leave has been taken. My personal position is that way back in 1975 I voted unreservedly to stay in the EEC as it then was, and I still believe that the right place for Britain is inside the EU, and I shall vote accordingly. As I say, for the next four months my life is on hold. If the Leave campaign carries the day, the dream becomes a nightmare. In the meantime may I make a request that I would not normally make? Whether you agree with my position or not, will you share this particular post as widely as you can through email, Twitter, Facebook, etc, so that people in the UK can at least know the fears and anxieties of expat Brits in Europe.

Update

Today it is cold, grey and raining as it should be at this time of the year, but once again we are having a very dry winter so a day like today is unusual. More common recently has been the wind. Indeed for almost a week we had strong winds frequently gusting up to gale force, although thankfully that seems to have passed. Further north, however, the weather is bitterly cold and there have been heavy snowfalls, not something which people would generally associate with Spain. Spain is a mountainous country. Madrid, the highest capital city in Europe is 2,100ft above sea level, and Granda which is only an hour and a half from her, lies at 2,400ft. This offsets the effects of the Mediterranean and so snow and ice is quite common during the winter. Indeed, Granada nestles at the foot of the Sierra Nevada which is a popular skiing destination, and contains the highest peak on the Peninsula, Mulhacen, t 11,000ft. We will probably see snow on the highest peaks behind us when the cloud clears again Even so, last weekend the village was out in force, dressed in pretty flimsy fancy dress to parade through the streets to celebrate Carnival. The procession was led by a group of samba dancers dressed more appropriately for a Rio carnival than a winter one.. Our elder daughter and a friend came over for a long weekend which managed to begin just after Carnival finished and end yesterday, just before the rain came. The weather during their stay was favourable for a couple of walks in the surrounding countryside during the course of which they encountered the dread processionally caterpillar. Fortunately they had been warned to look out for them and treat them with respect; the caterpillars do enormous damage to pine trees, but also defend themselves if threatened by firing off a cloud of the hairs which cover their bodies and which contain a severe irritant to the skin.

Woken In The Night

Nothing much happens at this time of year, so it can be difficult to think of something to blog about that I haven't touched on before. Well, nature has dished up a topic for me. Just before half past five this morning my wife and I were wakened by a pronounced shaking of the bed. This continued for only three or four seconds after we woke, but was unnerving to say the least. Anyway it quickly stopped without any perceptible damage. We agreed we had just had an earthquake and rolled over and went back to sleep. This morning it's the main item of news; a strong earthquake, currently described as 6.3 on the Richter scale had occurred with its epicentre just about 75 miles due south of here, just off the coast of Morocco. The main impact in terms of damage was felt in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the Moroccan coast. Over here little if any damage and certainly no reports of any injuries. On reflection, the remarkable thing is that this should be unusual. Spain lies on the southern boundary of the European Plate, whilst the North African Plate's northern boundary meets it under the Mediterranean. Shifts at the junctions of tectonic plates are the norm rather than the exception, and that is what causes earthquakes. It's just that this boundary is more stable than many. More stable, yes; totally stable, no. Anyway, there you are - something different for a change.