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Thinking of moving to the Costa Tropical? #LivingInSpain

I’ve blogged intermittently about the move to Spain over the last few years and two emails in the last month as a result so (a) Velez de Benaudalla (and / or Granada province) is becomingly increasingly popular for those looking to move to Spain, no surprise there, it’s lovely and (b) I could save your time by blogging about moving here.

Lessee if I can come up with ten useful facts rather than scattered over six years of blogs  . . .

1.      Learn Spanish. Or start learning Spanish, it takes a while. You can’t start soon enough. Wish I’d been able to do it at school, wish I’d put in an hour a day from the minute I fell in love with the house, wish I’d not assumed I could pick it up easily when I got here. I go to the local free Spanish classes, I watch TV series dubbed into Spanish, and training videos, and buy kiddie books, and my Spanish Is still stuck at pidgin level and frankly that’s getting a little embarrassing six years down the line, even with Covid19 interrupting play (and lessons, and interaction) for part of the time.  Yes there are English-speakers and expats from Europe who speak English (and increasingly fluent Spanish, sigh) dotted about so socially it isn’t essential. I’ll never, ever, be fluent but every time I suddenly understand what I’m hearing (or being asked) is a real buzz. The more Spanish you speak, the more integrated you’ll feel, and that’s priceless.    

2.      Go through professionals for everything official – conveyancing, tax returns, etc – the Spanish can sometimes seem to be laidback about bureaucracy, but when they aren’t, they aren’t sympathetic with those who have tried to cut corners or sidestep requirements. Not worth it, no matter how many people you meet who will tell you it’s a mug’s game to be legal, they’ve never jumped through a hoop in their life. Good for them. I had to live here and work here in a fairly public arena and I didn’t have the choice but over the years I’ve been very glad I chose to be scrupulously legal.

3.      Translate it! Yes, some communications seem to go on and on and on and yes you’ve got the gist:  but have you? Some words are misleading. (I got a text in 2021 telling me to report to the centro deportivo on x date, x time. I really thought I was going to be deported. Actually, it was a sports (deportes) centre being used for vaccinations.) Every document is miles longer than it would be in English, because the same facts or findings or regulations are repeated again and again. More alarmingly, not always repeated exactly. Bits get updated and other bits weren’t amended.  An official document can literally actually contradict itself. Be tactful pointing out the contradiction. Offence can be taken.

4.      Prices and expenses in Spain vs, say, UK –  swings and roundabouts. Better food, lower prices. Income tax is higher. Electricity is pretty expensive.  On the whole the euro goes further than the pound, unless you’re addicted to imported products and willing to pay over the odds. Once you’re a pensioner you can get a Spanish health card linked to your S1 (or equivalent from any other country of origin with a similar arrangement to the UK) and use the state health system but otherwise you’ll need to arrange for medical aid. Medical aid can be expensive, but some people do choose to have both. Housing, as every other country, depends where you want to buy. Budget for 10% on top of the house price to cover all the related conveyancing costs.

5.      Not everyone adapts to Spain seamlessly and not every move is a happy-ever-after. The Spanish are not hungry for extranjeros who want to turn the country into a home-from-home-plus-sun. Renting first rather than buying is not, however, always an option. Spain is not the only country with an okupa (squatter) problem, but it is enough of one that property owners are not terribly thrilled by the prospect of tenants. One French couple I know started offering a year’s rental in advance and if anything that got them more likely to be eyed askance.

6.     Fitting in – Spain is an immensely proud country with thousands of years of history and traditions. You respect that, bienvenido. You don’t like their attitudes, be sure they won’t like yours. They may smile and nod if you represent profit but under that they’re granite.

7.       Oh, and macho. Just saying. Scratch a traditional Spaniard, especially if you’re female, and you’ll find a man who will unhesitatingly come to your aid if you are in trouble, unquestioningly uphold your right to indulge in female behaviour, even be a virago, but will never truly believe you are capable of making your own decisions in a masculine-dominated world. How could you? You’re a woman.

8.      So much for attitudes … the nuts and bolts of the move, then. You’ll have six months after you move here to get yourself sorted, although frankly it’s a rare official who will hold you rigidly to that. Get your car, if you bring it, matriculated fairly quickly and certainly before your current MoT or equivalent runs out. You’ll need an NIE to buy a house, but also to present on nearly every official occasion or as proof you are here legally, and a padron from the local council to prove your address. After six months, if you’re staying permanently, you need to register as an official resident, then switch your driver’s licence for a Spanish one. It’s pretty straightforward to get a TIE photocard and they’re becomingly increasingly useful. Bureaucracy WILL drive you nuts. Regulations change, and change again. There’s so much paperwork, and it is asked for so often. I have my entire official life, including copies of passports and other documents as well as originals, in a file I carry every time I have to go near a bureaucrat, because you never know what could be asked for. If I ever lose it, I won’t even need to jump off a cliff. So far is Spain is concerned, if I lose it, I no longer exist and I might as well be dead.  

9.      Talking of dead, get your will sorted, especially when you buy a house. Spanish law is different, and a will drawn in another country will simply not cut it here.  Your heirs are in for a long drawn-out and expensive time of it if you don’t.

10.   Get your funeral sorted, or ensure your insurance has Spanish-friendly funeral cover.  If you die (I mean really die, not just lose your file) you should legally be cremated or alternative arrangements confirmed within 24 hours – okay, maybe 48 on weekends. If you haven’t prearranged the cardboard box, or that matter the flock of doves and the hired mourners, and aren’t carrying your funeral card,  you will get one or the other and either way it will cost your heirs a lot of money and Heaven help them if they don’t speak Spanish because decisions are needed NOW and there’s a great deal of bureaucracy about to crash down on their heads.

Oh, and read the Tales of the Alhambra. A Spanish guest staying here was shocked that I hadn’t, and she was right. It re-sets the way you look at everyone and everything about you.

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#Living with a podenco – 3rd year

I glanced back over the earlier Purdey blogs and don’t think I ever said she turned out to be 5 years old when we checked her chip – so she’s now around the 8 mark, not slowing down noticeably yet.  She still springs about in delight when either the harness or a food bowl appears, adores going for walks with guests, and has some friends in the village who take her on their hikes every now and then. Those are BIG outings for her, usually around 2 hours, and she sleeps like a log for the rest of the day. Until she hears me lifting down the harness or even heading towards the front door – ooh, another walk! Yay! I do walk her three times a day anyway but I boringly stick to the streets and rarely head out into the campo. Increasingly on those guest walks the guests are hailed by her buddies in the village who stop to say hello to her and to the person holding the lead . . . she’s become something of an asset, especially for guests staying here on their own, taking them under her wing and doing all she can to make them feel at home.

Right now she’s in the process of preparing for kennels as I am away shortly for a long weekend and can’t take her. She’s had a playday there, will have another this week, then a sleepover, to be sure we have a go. My last dog had been from a rescue shelter and hated all kennels with a passion, refusing to eat and losing fur at an alarming rate, and there will be no more coming back to a bald and wild-eyed pet if I can help it. She can be taken by one of her hiking friends if it doesn’t work out. She enjoyed the playday, I think, at least didn’t drag me to the car in her hurry to leave . . .

As always these podenco blogs are aimed at anyone considering taking in a working pod which has been abandoned. There WAS a sudden glitch or two in the last year which may or may not ever appear again – usually when I come home there’s the dance of delight but three times she has instead shot past me and gone, ignoring calls and whistles, although her recall otherwise is now faultless. Each time she’s been found poking round bins, or wistfully eyeing people eating at restaurant cafes, and each time she’s been happy enough to be brought home but hadn’t been heading back here under her own steam. The second time she was out all night. Somebody walking past whistling a familiar tune? A voice in the street she recognised? Weeks or even months passed between these odd involuntary excursions, and the last time was several months ago. In every other way she is a happy robust affectionate dog with friends and admirers and only now tries to nip people who walk unannounced into my private part of the guesthouse, (which I don’t have a problem with) and she backs off instantly when I tell her no.  Would I still recommend a podenco? In a heartbeat.

She no longer steals food but if she did …
Taking a guest for a walk

Bred to hunt down rabbits and hares, keeping a lookout

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My name is Elegsabiff and I think I may be a troll.

Not a public troll. Not yet. I mean I’ve made the occasional unpleasant crack over the years and afterwards been a bit ashamed but hasn’t everyone done that – hand up, other hand on heart, can you say you haven’t? Ever? We all do it. Open mouth. Insert foot. Open mouth. Change feet. It’s not deliberate. When it’s deliberate … we’ve let the troll out.

foot in mouth

Okay, I’ve been snide lately but never, so far, too far. People laugh, or look a bit uncomfortable, and the steam drops back to where I’m back in control. So far. But now – when I find myself having to delete what I just typed, be it comment on something posted, or an email, or a message, again and again, because I simply cannot leach out the bile: when I catch myself one  finger tap away from sending something so OTT in reaction to stupidity, or selfishness, or complacency, that I am shocked briefly back to normal: when I seek casual company, then catch myself whinging: and when, worst of all, the bile surges higher instead of the pressure abruptly dropping . . . this has to stop. I CANNOT be the only person refusing to let the troll out.   

There are causes, but they don’t excuse or even explain it – I’m so angry, but out of all proportion to any anger that would be appropriate. I’m, this is not helping, so isolated – the reliable people I could usually safely vent to are out of reach, all at the same time, some involuntarily, some caught up in their own problems, some I suspect keeping a safe distance. Perhaps just as well, since venting feeds this beast. I’m so unoccupied – my life is usually busy and full, superficial stuff to be sure, but time-consuming and distracting. The normal little inner troll, the critical one we all deal with, all the time, keeps saying I was and am so stupid. I know. Shut up. No-one asked you. The abnormal canker, the one trying to take over, rolls about with jeering laughter. I’m getting toxic and there’s a growing niggle that if I don’t let rip, I’ll self-destruct. There’s a limit on how much toxic bile any system can take. Press send, the troll urges, SAY it, it should be said. It MUST be said – or I will burn you to the ground.

The internet is crammed with advice on how to deal with trolls but nothing I could find on defusing the troll inside. I looked at anger management. The causes – tick tick tick, all there. Suggestions for dealing with it – ah, bless. Already doing them, way beyond them helping. I looked up inner trolls. That’s all about handling self-loathing, not about the clawed monster trying to get out and wreak havoc.

I actually do know what I want, a rational quarrel for a rational reason where shouting and clean-burning anger would be appropriate, so I suppose I am looking for a righteous fight. Any volunteers, anyone also needing a violent let-off-steam argument, any subject at all? Because I don’t want to be a troll.

hole
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Wiped off the face of the earth –

Facebook options when a family member or loved one is deceased include deleting the profile or switching to a memorial version. Today I was told by FBP that I’d been unfollowed by a family member. As it happened death / deletion of profile wasn’t one of the suggested reasons I could have been unfollowed. Anyway. Profile gone, photos gone, and, slightly shockingly, every comment she’d ever made on my posts, and she had made many, some hilarious, some pithy, some useful – gone. Wow.

If there had never been a Facebook account we’d likely have only ever communicated with chatty birthday and Christmas cards, and the occasional phone call – different countries, different lives. Facebook can be infuriating but for family it is a way of sharing news, photos, updates, and it was oddly chilling to lose all that history.

Okay, no fun whatsoever getting birthday reminders for someone lost a year or two earlier but when I go, I have just added to my very long list of instructions to my long-suffering daughter to please choose the memorial option. Is that narcissistic? Ghoulish? Don’t care. At least if anyone, ever, gets round to wondering whatever happened to old whatsername, they’ll be able to find out.

Hopefully not too soon, of course.

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Living with a #podenco, nearly 2 years in

It’s coming up two years (in November) and time for an update on living with a podenco, the Spanish hunting dog used for running down rabbits and hares, for anyone thinking of adopting one of these lovely sighthounds, especially a rescued working dog which has usually lived out.

Purdey loves little rituals, which become cast in stone – when I return from shopping I unpack the bags against the door, then open it so she can charge out and leap into the back of the car where she waits, trembling with expectation, while I transfer the shopping inside. Then we go find parking and detour into a brief walk on the way home. Not exactly exciting, but she loves it. She loves life generally, everything except thunder and bangs, which bring her trembling under the desk. She was five when we found each other and all I know of her background was that she started life as a hunting dog and three of her owners were hunters. She’s had at least one litter, possibly every time she came on heat although if a dog is too insistent (they still are, although she’s now spayed) she sits down firmly, removing temptation, and snaps crossly at him. No way José.

It seems likely she was never a house dog before, and very timid about coming indoors, but she decided eventually that anything the cat could do was surely legal. Ideal homes for them are large busy families, not single old ducks like me, but I own a guesthouse so there’s usually something on the go. Occasionally paying guests bring dogs with them – she was utterly fixated by a visiting Chihuahua which was very patient about being sniffed from nose to tail every time it appeared. Another guest brought a miniature Doberman which adored her and wouldn’t leave her alone, I’d find her sleeping in a hiding place while the little visitor searched anxiously for her. The very first guest dog was a particularly massive Newfoundland – even I was taken aback by its size. When I let her out she charged upstairs to see what was happening, took one startled glance, and charged back down, but they got on well during his stay. He was a gentle giant, still very young, and delighted to find my last dog’s neglected basket of toys. Purdey hadn’t understood the concept of play until then and now has a favourite teddy. She’ll also now chase a ball (and sometimes bring it back). Mainly she loves attention. She’s not a pest, but is radiant when being stroked and as for grooming, would probably stand rock still to the end of time so long as the brush kept moving.

What am I supposed to do with this?

Sometimes guests borrow her for walks or even dawn runs, both of which she heartily approves. Some guests bribe her with scraps when they are cooking (strictly against rules), but some shout at her to go away when she pokes her nose round the apartment door, and she skitters downstairs looking embarrassed and avoids them from then on. I worried about taking on a breed which needed lots of exercise and company but the walks are good for both of us  and she seems to enjoy the turnover in visitors. Sometimes when a favourite guest is leaving I fancy the glance she gives me says well, we tried our best, maybe next time but then I am a writer and have an over-developed imagination.

She leaps about like Tigger when I lift down the lead and harness, and is always up for adventure – if I get to my feet, any time day or night, she’s instantly alert, those enormous ears pricked, amber eyes glowing. She’s friendly, loving, eager to please, but when I’m busy she’s quite happy to head up to the patio to sunbathe, or to my bedroom for a nap. She hates baths and she hates the sea, fleeing in panic from waves. She’s swum (politely, with a guest) in the river, but generally loathes getting wet, possibly because her wiry coat takes a while to dry even with a towel. Rainy days are few and far between here but those are our shortest walks, and she’s turning for home with a pleading look even as I’m bending down with the baggie.

Because she has way more energy than I do, we worked on her recall until now I can let her off the lead to gallop in open areas. She’s even learned that if another dog comes into sight, especially one on a lead, she has to resist temptation and return to her own lead before introductions, if they happen at all, are allowed. That was essential, as Spanish dogs aren’t generally as sociable as, for example, UK dogs, and are usually on the lead for a reason, especially in the open.  They react in different ways to a pod galloping up to say hello. Some stand rockstill, frozen in shock, some launch straight into an attack, and some are delighted and the two end up having a romp while we owners make laboured Spanglish conversation. She’s very, very, good with other dogs, and very firm, tolerating no more than a polite amount of sniffing before pointedly putting a stop to it. We were on a street walk, on the lead, when a very angry terrier launched itself teeth first from a doorway. She owned him in about four seconds flat and had him on his back crying out in fear while she stood over him making dreadful noises into his face. She was in complete control of herself and the situation, and didn’t so much as nip him as she terrified him into good manners. She’s never started a fight, defends herself with vim and vigour when another dog turns hostile, but doesn’t hang about, using her hunting speed to remove herself from danger. She can jump like an ibex, from a standing start, and is surefooted on high walls or rocky terrain while I’m still palpitating with shock.  She’s in her element, of course, when back in the campo.

Hunting for rabbits – luckily, none around

That’s something to remember, anyone wanting to adopt a pod needs good fencing especially as they are the most inquisitive dogs ever hatched – she’s left in my apartment while new guests arrive, in case they aren’t dog fanciers, and can be seen through the glass door leaping up to five feet in the air while booming out her enormous challenging bark. When she’s let out to be introduced (as she has to be, even to the non dog fanciers since she has to know this lot are allowed in the house) she’s suddenly timid and diffident, then warms up to them by the day if they’re the right sort, and again that shared glance when they leave, as leave they must . . . she adores family visiting because they come into “our” space.

Family in “our” space are firm favourite

There were initial hiccups, to be expected. Even with 3 meals a day, she scavanged at first, still in “who knows when the next meal will come” mode. Although she has no animosity towards cats, anything darting away had her in automatic pursuit – she’s a sight hound, bred to chase. And she was and is stubborn when she thinks she knows best. I’ve previously nearly always owned bull breeds and know about bullheadedness but she doesn’t glower, she just – does what she thinks she should. This stubbornness makes some think them stupid but in fact once they have worked out what it is that you want, and why (logic matters to them) they are willingness itself. She is highly intelligent, clean in her habits, independent, loving, and far more protective of me than I’d expected from an initially timid dog.

I really wasn’t sure I was doing the best thing, for either of us, but she was in desperate need of a home and it turned out we needed each other. Thank you for reading to the end, perhaps you are doing so because you too are thinking of adopting a podenco. She is an enduring delight.

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School’s out … end of a chapter. Ramblings, Covid impact, choices, was it worth it …

One side-effect of Covid19 changing lives was that thousands of teachers internationally switched to online work, and another significant chunk of the English-speaking population started teaching English online to keep the pennies rolling in. Many schools sprang up, and as many websites where teachers could hang out their shingles. I’d been with the same school, based in Hong Kong, since 2017, as one of their thirty thousand teachers handling Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese students, was ranked as a senior tutor and earning good rates, especially seeing my commute was from the kitchen, bearing a cup of coffee, into my study. Lovely!

Covid19 was a personal nightmare. The vast tsunami of competition turned cut-throat, with multiple websites advertising lessons to pupils for as little as $5 an hour, which meant us senior tutors earning up to 10 quid per half-hour class, 2 classes an hour, became unsustainably expensive. The school gave a thin scream of horror and cut rates drastically. Every other decent school had firmly closed their recruiting for the interim. Even those cautiously interested in taking on more teachers for the flood of new pupils pointed out gently that a few years experience and a TEFL hardly stacked up against fully, conventionally, qualified teachers with >twenty years classroom experience competing for the same few jobs. In September last year China banned online private tutoring for schoolchildren, which cut as big a swathe through the pool of available pupils as you can imagine. At least half of my pupils had been Chinese. It made a bad situation significantly worse. The school laid off hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers and I was assigned to the Taiwanese branch, where there weren’t always enough pupils to fill the 3 hours a day I was committed to the school. No pupil, no pay.

Another Covid19 side-effect – no guests, no income. I have a small guesthouse (the Casa Excéntrico tab) which previously paid my overheads, not only letting me live free but even contributing to its own maintenance, and ongoing renovation, in a very understated way. Lockdowns kept abruptly putting that income out of reach. Spain offered some (not much) relief to the self-employed but I was registered as a self-employed teacher and was still teaching, so – nope.

Well, we all have our Covid stories and most of us are still here, even if our savings aren’t, but it got me wondering whether this whole move to Spain thing had been such a good idea. I’d never have done it without the assurance of being able to earn my daily bread, as my Spanish was close to non-existent then and still, to my shame, relies heavily on the medium of dance and the vocabulary of a slightly backward child. If I was meant to be here, if the winds which had blown me through the last few years were dropping, what next?

Lockdown lifted slowly, first within Spain, then within Europe, and house bookings started pouring in. I think the longest I’ve been without at least one guest in the last eight months has been ten days – fantastic, wonderful, luck for me, and every good review, (I have lovely guests, who review enthusiastically) especially in another language, brought in more bookings. The winds have started blowing again – I had to coach for an international English exam, enjoyed it, and was useful. It started a trickle of pupils who are already pretty fluent, appreciative, and scattered all over the world. Ideally I’d have built that up a bit more first but the most popular hours are already committed to the school. However, my contract at the school is up for renewal this month… I’ve swallowed hard, and once again taken a leap into the barely-known by telling the school I’m not renewing. That’s it, freelancing on a wing and a prayer, gambling there’ll be no more lockdowns and enough ambitious students, and that the winds keep blowing until I reach the wonderful plateau of becoming a jubilado and can count on at least one source of income no matter what horrors still lie in store for us all …

Oh, and as for wondering whether Spain was the right choice – yes, I think so. It was a bit of a mad thing to do but I am definitely a bit mad. That may not be comfortable, but it’s interesting. The winds haven’t let me down yet so I’m trusting them to whirl me on along the right paths a bit further yet.

I’d say ever researching on your behalf, as I have in the past, but how to research a wind? Shut your eyes and go where it takes you, but so far so good, no regrets.

Elegsabiff x

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*fingers in ears* lalalalalala #selfish

Got a dog, or even a cat? Here’s an experiment. Spend a week ranting at it, sounding angry, tearful, reproachful, unreasonable, or near hysterical, pointing in random directions. Note its reactions. My dog would be a nervous wreck. If I kept it up she’d doubtless adjust but she’d definitely lose her bounce. She’d even possibly start getting defensively aggressive or go off her food. I wouldn’t dream of doing it to her.

I don’t do it to myself, either. That’s not as easy as it sounds. I can refuse to watch the news, but there’s headlines bursting through on my phone, in the margins of my websites, trickling across the bottom of my screen whenever and wherever I’m online. There’s Twitter, Facebook, and those friends who message any news atrocities they feel I might have missed because I, you know, won’t watch the news. I do want to hear from them, I want to know what’s going on in their lives, but it seems all that is going on is the bad news authorised by the media for circulation and now I’ve hurt their feelings and they don’t message at all. Personal updates to people who know and like us are it seems binned because somewhere else someone you never met and will never meet has the media’s attention and is the only suitable topic for the day.   

I keep up with local events because they directly affect the bubble in which I live my life. I am aware there’s stuff going on elsewhere that is pretty crappy for those experiencing it, in Africa, Australia, the Americas, the further reaches of this European continent, in jungles and tundras, in what should be the untroubled depths of the sea, and in little hellholes created by my fellow man to torture their fellow men or the animals with which we share this planet. If I can’t do anything but feel sick or angry or fret uselessly, I don’t want to know. I resist knowing. I won’t know. Fingers in ears, lalalalalala.

I know no man is an island, I know I should ask not for whom the bell tolls, I know a lockdown cuts off my income, and don’t even want to speculate what a war would do to it. I mean that literally. I won’t speculate about it. As a child I was told “don’t trouble trouble until trouble troubles you” so I try not to. Nearly everything bad in my life has happened without warning anyway. If I’d known in advance, could I have stopped it happening? No. Just been fraught in advance about that event, and about a whole lot of other stuff which actually didn’t happen, but not because my fretting stopped them happening. All my fretting did was damage me a little bit more. Well, that’s useful. Not. All about ME.

It can be all about you. Stick your fingers in your ears and cut out the world for three days. The world won’t end – or if it does, not because you refused to agonise. Just say no to anything outside your customised bubble. If constructive interaction, rather than useless, destructive, global, empathy, puts a wag back in your tail – re-stocking the world, one person at a time, with a little selfish optimism and cautious contentment might, just might, be healthier than flooding it with multi-attack negativity, if only for that one person. From tiny acorns … Worth a try. Three days.

I don’t think I have ever stuffed so many little sayings into one blog before.

Walking the dog on a mountain track before the rain sets in

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Your personal prediction for 2022 – money worries sorted. Guaranteed. If you make it to the latter part of the year.

That bit in Secret Garden where Colin says tremulously of the garden, “will I live to see it? Will I live to get into it?” and Mary is very impatient and down to earth and the moment passes. I now feel as Colin did, but about something which, for most of my life, felt as distant as the Milky Way. We’re all getting older, but now I’m getting a bit cynical about “age is a state of mind” and “you can’t stop getting older, you don’t have to get old” and “I’m not getting older, I’m getting better.”  Fact is my warranty is running out and you just can’t get the parts any more. There are the first crackles and creaks and my vision is occasionally blurring just a little and my middle toe on my left foot aches on cold mornings (I blame the horse that stood on it more years ago than seems actually possible) and sometimes when I carry something heavy my hands don’t uncurl instantly when I put it down. I had a glorious wonderful Indian summer and I wish the same on everyone AND it lasted nearly 10 years,  but autumn itself is slowly but inevitably drawing to an end, and winter is approaching. There is, though, that one tiny twinkling star hanging in that late autumn sky. Will I live to see it? Will I live to get into it?

My state pension . . .

photo CreativeMarket.com

In months, in less than a year, my seventeen years of working in the UK and another five years of contributions will pay out in glittering cascades of gold for the rest of my life. Will I live to see it? Will I live long enough to become a jubilada?

I bloody better.

Oh, the only point to this blog for you, gentle reader, is to stuff every penny you can do without into a pension plan. If this blasted pandemic did nothing else it taught us that you can’t always assume your own efforts will be enough because you may not be allowed to make your own efforts. Such a huge relief that something you never thought twice about is sailing in to the rescue – if you live long enough –

If you already did, excellent!

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Do not go gentle into that good night while it is still late afternoon. Sheesh.

Tripped over another of those pious, infuriating, now-we-are-fifty “prepare for death good people”  posts today which have irritated the crap out of me for years. Before I was fifty, especially in my tiring forties, I owlishly believed come the dread fifties one must take to a rocking chair and with good grace and gentle regret watch the sun setting on our lives. Sunset shmunset. Late afternoon is awesome, sunset is blazing with colour, and after that comes the evening and THEN, okay, prepare for the good night but that’s hours and hours away.

Walking In The Late Afternoon Autumn Sun High-Res Stock Photo - Getty Images

I’ll tangle my metaphors further, why not. Late middle age is autumn, not winter. Autumn can be, sometimes is, blustery and challenging, but it is also mellow afternoon sunshine, respite from the heat of summer, favourite season of many – as in the year, as in life.

Hands up if you love late afternoons, sunsets and the promise of the evening: if you think that autumn is spectacular: do you apply that to the context of your own life?  Too many say, and believe, I’m old now. Losing my leaves. The light is going. Must be winter. Nope. Not yet. Enjoy the season to its full, and let winter wait its turn.

If at 30 we said sadly we had peaked physically, so it was time to give up all sport and exercise because what’s the point, we’d be howled at. If at 45, when we have reached our productive peak, we said that’s it, I shall stop trying at work now, those older and much higher up the corporate ladder would be aghast. And yet at 60, those who say I’m studying a new language, have taken up a new sport, am painting, am going to travel on my own because no-one else wants to visit the place I have always wanted to see, etc etc etc, our own generation ask if that’s wise, at our age, when there’s that nice rocking chair out on the porch instead.

If you, having read this far, have said to anyone (or even thought) they were too old, when they were clearly capable at least for now, did you really believe that, or are you simply groomed to fixed expectations by their age? Time is flying, yes. Older friends and relatives will have to start trimming their sails, yes. Tick tock. Now is more important than ever before, and maybe that’s why it is such a thrilling time and why, if you have the energy, the desire, and the funds, the freedom to do it, you should be cheered on, not anxiously cautioned. Carpe diem. The rocking chair will be there in 10, 15, years, when we can enjoy sitting in it to look at the stars.

Of course the motivated ignore the faint disapproval from family and even friends and go ahead and do it anyway but crucially don’t talk about it much because they are bored with being judged. Many are simply too busy to tell the burned-out forty somethings wilting in summer how awesome autumn will be.

I know the friend who reposted the pious ‘count our blessings as life nears its ends, we the over fifties’ has enjoyed a riotous autumn, meeting the love of her life, taking up cycling and winning races, running in half-marathons, and eventually uprooting and moving a thousand miles away where she is now successfully running a business with new skills learned in the last few years, and trying to meet kindred souls who are equally loving their so-called leisure years. She must have been having a pensive day, or be feeling a bit down. Of course there are down times as well as up – when not, in life? but remember, said good people, there IS up, bags of it, and more of those enjoying it should be grooming those following behind to know what to really expect. Autumn is awesome.

Expat support – is it even possible?  The #Dickason tragedy gets expats remembering what we normally don’t let ourselves think about
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Expat support – is it even possible?  The #Dickason tragedy gets expats remembering what we normally don’t let ourselves think about

Quarantining and lockdown has created some understanding of loneliness but it has always been presented as temporary, even when temporary kept extending. Most of us cope, most of the time. But when loneliness comes with huge distances, when boats are burned and there seems to be no turning back –

Following the Dickason story (I didn’t want to piggyback on their tragedy, although it triggered this blog – there’s a comment with a brief outline for the puzzled) there’s been an accusation from another expat who had attempted suicide that there isn’t enough support for expats. I don’t personally see how there could be support. Strangers, however kind, are still strangers, and while yes yes a stranger is just a friend you haven’t got to know, that’s not an attitude that helps when one is surfing angst. In fact neighbours popping over to issue a friendly greeting can trigger the despair, if it’s obvious you’re never going to be bosom buddies because they are so “different”.

Perhaps the support is in recognising that stress is to be expected, loneliness is natural, and that all those brave letters and blogs and posts from expats talking about how interesting and excitingly challenging this new life is are genuine enough, but interest and excitement and overcoming challenges is a work in progress, and bad days happen. They aren’t brilliantly succeeding where you are faltering and failing – they’re having a better day. And you will too. Soon.

It isn’t actually about losing family or friends, because thanks to phones and emails and social networks they are still there, even if no longer close enough for an impromptu coffee. It is the whole fabric of life once taken for granted and now lost. We cut ourselves out of that familiar fabric and now have to stitch a patch for ourselves onto very different cloth. The minutiae of our lives – different shops, products have different names, favourite foods never appear on these shelves, where to buy wool, no librarian keeping back a book you’d like, no reliable mechanic who knows your car inside out, an awful haircut from even a recommended hairdresser, getting lost yet again on roads which never seem to have names matching the satnav. Stupid tiny things, but so many of them that at first the alienation is overwhelming. They are mastered eventually but the interim period is – daunting. Challenging, interesting, exciting, yes, and a little bit horrible, oh yes.

Douglas Adams, in the Hitchhikers Guide, says “in moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth”.  (He goes on to say that as it is never possible to be more than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace on Earth the signals are too minute to be noticed by others, but Ford Prefect was born over 600 light years away and the barman was hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance.) Great books, love them, but he nailed it there and that sense of terrible distance may not be tangible to others, but does rock the soul in times of stress.

Support lies in realising that feeling like you made the biggest mistake of your life is NOT personal failure but known to many, most of whom refuse to talk about it because the fear of it is still too close and too real. It passes. It comes back, and it passes again. We’re NOT on the wrong path – just temporarily lost and afraid. Where, after all, is home? The place you were born has gone forever and exists only in memory. The last place you were truly happy? For many, that’s lost in the past too because who would have left behind true happiness. The past is a different country. Knowing we can’t go back to the exact place and point in time we want to be makes the difficult present seems briefly even more to blame.

Perhaps the tragedy, and the other stories which will be following of suicide attempts and despair, will bring new awareness to the stresses faced not only by those who have chosen to emigrate, but refugees who have had it forced on them. The awareness isn’t to make others more understanding, but so that the displaced can be more understanding and forgiving of their own bad moments. It’s a time thing. Alien surroundings become less alien every day. Give yourself time. Support, for this, I think, can only really come from within, but it’s comforting to realise others go through it too.