Moving Abroad
Migel Jayasinghe
©
Copyright 2021 by Migel Jayasinghe
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Strange
to think that less than two decades or so ago, we hadn't even thought
of visiting Spain on holiday, let alone settle down there to a life
of leisure and retirement. I think it was probably when Barcelona
hosted the Olympics, that our eyes were opened to the potential of
swapping our high season timeshare week in East Sussex, for something
similar, in and around Barcelona. In 2001, my wife and I planned to
spend a week in the holiday resort of Salou, a few miles south of
Barcelona. We decided to fly from Stansted airport to Barcelona and
to rent a limited mileage Mercedes car that Easyjet airline was
promoting at the time. We had to get to the city of Barcelona from
the international airport before we could rent the hire car from the
Easyjet office. The airport was a fair distance from the town,
accessible using the Metro underground network. We did not want to
spend unnecessarily on a taxi to get to Barcelona.
I
don’t remember exactly how far Salou, the seaside resort was
from Barcelona, perhaps no more than 50 km. Having spent a few hours
getting acquainted with Barcelona, we managed to get to Salou before
dark, using the newly built AP7 motorway. We could easily have used
the N332 and saved on toll charges, but we could not risk travelling
at slow speeds on a possibly congested highway. As it turned out, our
fears about congested roads were groundless during that late spring
break. We booked into a pre-arranged holiday resort in Salou, Costa
Brava, on the north-eastern coast of Spain.
We
had heard about a town, Torrevieja, further down the coast in Costa
Blanca, from the holiday literature we received prior to our coming
to Salou. According to the World Health Organization, Torrevieja was
rated the second healthiest place on earth, second only to Salt Lake
City in Utah, USA. Feeding themselves on a Mediterranean diet of
fresh fish, vegetables and fruit, and surrounded by salt lakes, its
inhabitants reportedly continue to enjoy longevity exceeding10 years
over the average human lifespan. Our naiveté was such that we
thought we could travel down to Torrevieja directly by train from
Salou, to spend the day there exploring. We didn’t know then
that neither Salou nor Torrevieja was a town served by the Spanish
RENFE passenger railway network.
Before
our visit, the possibility of moving permanently to settle in Spain
may have fleetingly crossed our minds, but we could not have been
serious, as we were both still in full-time employment. Yet, although
my wife Sue had a few good years left at work, my state retirement
age was almost upon me. I knew I was getting old since for the first
time in my life I had to resort to the use of dentures, when most of
my decaying front teeth had to be extracted.
Now,
I must admit that our first holiday in Spain did not exactly have an
auspicious start. We got late for the scheduled flight. As my wife
pointed out, in the first place, I had not allowed sufficient driving
time to reach Stansted airport from our home in Croydon. To add to
our problems, when I was driving our old Toyota Carina halfway down
Wellesley Road in the centre of Croydon, I realized that after the
morning ablutions, I had not placed my newly acquired temporary
denture back where it belonged – inside my mouth. We had to
rush back to retrieve it from where it lay on top of the wash basin.
I still thought we had more than enough time, but this was to prove
not to be the case. We hadn’t bargained for the bus ride from
the car park to the airport. The outcome was that the plane we were
due to travel in, took off without the two of us, as we were running
down the walkway frantically waving at it. I am ashamed to think that
at the time, we must have stupidly believed they would stop,
apologize, and take us on board. But no, that did not happen; we were
left high and dry.
Luckily,
there were seats left on the next plane due to leave one hour later,
but we were required to pay an extra £50 each, as some kind of
penalty surcharge. That meant £100 less spending money on our
long-awaited holiday. To my welcome surprise, my wife remained calm
and dignified and, to my recollection, didn’t appear too
aggrieved.
The
one-bedroom holiday apartment in Salou, had all what we could expect
from a 5-star holiday resort exchange. There was a large
kidney-shaped swimming pool right in the middle of the apartment
complex. The beach was a short walk away. To our surprise, we were
required to pay a few Euros, to rent seating space on the beach. We
later discovered we could spend the whole day, entirely free, on
Torrevieja and Guardamar del Segura beaches, which were equally good,
if not better. Of course, we would have to take with us our own
sunshade and folding seats.
We
had bought advance railway tickets in London, which we were told
could be used anywhere in the EU countries. Now, we thought of making
use of them, since the rented car mileage was restricted to a daily
average of 50 miles (unless you were prepared to pay a lot more for
extra mileage. We remembered that Cutlark International (not their
real name), a well-known property agent, was advertising in the UK,
low-cost trips to Torrevieja, billed as the second healthiest place
on earth. Without having their sales literature to hand, I can’t
remember how we got hold of their telephone number, but we did manage
to talk to them on the phone. I doubt if we owned mobile phones as
far back in time as 2001, but we did make contact with Cutlark
International. It is more than likely that we used a public telephone
on the street opposite our holiday apartment.
When
we explained to them that we were already in Spain on holiday, just
north of where they were, the woman on the phone at Cutlark
International assured us that if we came along to their office the
next day, they would be pleased to show us around. She insisted that
there were never-to-be repeated, fantastic bargains on properties of
all types in Torrevieja. They were the only property agents who had
access to them.
We
finally discovered that we could take a train from Tarragona, the
nearest train station, only as far as Alicante, from where we would
be constrained to take a bus, since there was no train service from
Alicante to Torrevieja. We had no idea then that the tickets already
bought were not valid for travel in their original form. We learnt,
much later, that the tickets had to be validated on each journey,
since passengers were allocated to carriages and to specifically
numbered seats. When we got on the train at Tarragona, the guard
looked at the tickets, shook his head, said something we did not
understand and left us standing at the entrance to the carriage, even
when it was obvious that there were vacant seats. We did not
understand a word of what he was trying to tell us in Spanish, and he
immediately stopped the spiel when he realized this and busied
himself with other work. Half way through the journey he relented and
showed us to two seats not far from the entrance. The fact that we
were allowed to travel on the train in the first place, we later
realized, must have been some kind of personal dispensation on his
part.
We
did not carry any luggage. It was just a day trip. With absolutely no
acquaintance with the Spanish language at the time, how we made to
Torrevieja that day, still remains a mystery to me. Finding the bus
station after alighting at Alicante railway station must have been
quite a trial. I must admit I don’t remember how we managed it.
Even more astonishing was the way we found the offices of Cutlark
International in the centre of Torrevieja. There, we had the shock of
our lives to be told that it was not the right day for us to have
come to see them. All the agents or reps were attending an all-day
training session. There was nothing they could do about it. We felt
betrayed and utterly disgusted. Why didn’t they tell us this
before – only yesterday, when we were on the phone to them?
They had treated us with utter contempt. We resolved never to have
any further dealings with that estate agent.
Sadly,
that was not to be the end of our woes. It was well into the
afternoon, and we hadn’t eaten anything since the morning
continental breakfast of croissants, fruit juice and coffee. We
repaired to a tapas bar that we had seen on our way to the estate
agent. We ordered a couple of small beers and some tapas, the very
first time we had encountered the latter, although we had heard of
them. They tasted very good, fish and meat, and did not cost the
earth. Everything was fine, until I bit into my second or third piece
of tapas. Then suddenly, it went ‘PATAS’; that was the
sound of my temporary denture breaking in two! How I managed to hide
my face from the public for the rest of our holiday is not a subject
I want to dwell on.
Trying
to board a train at Alicante, without the tickets being properly
validated, we were turned away by the guard in spite of our protests
and pleas of ignorance. By the time we had managed to get the tickets
sorted, we were forced to take a later train and ended up in
Tarragona late at night requiring us to hire a taxi back to our
resort in Salou. The taxi, obviously a minicab, was not metered, and
the fare was arrived at after some haggling. I remember giving a lift
to another late arrival, but gallantly refusing when she offered to
pay her share of the fare. Our resources now dwindling fast, again it
was surprising that Sue, my wife, made no complaint.
Driving
in Barcelona
alongside multi-lane traffic was nerve-racking, but we survived. The
Gaudi architecture was not something one could have seen anywhere
else in the world – anywhere else even in Spain. We took the
tour bus and circled the town, stopping off at interesting points,
and re-boarding the next bus. Although we could not get inside
Picasso’s house, closed that day, we walked miles in the sun to
see the Miro exhibition. Indeed, we had to have the help of a local
youth to find Miro, after a very long and hot climb in the sun. I
tipped him with a few Euros and Centimos, all the loose change I had
in my pocket. The climb to Miro was well worth the trouble.
We
managed to see quite a bit of Barcelona, before we finally hobbled
back home to Croydon, much relieved that the holiday had ended
without lasting damage.
*****
It
took four years of visiting the Costas of Spain, exploring the
Torrevieja and Guardamar areas with a handful of property agents,
before we finally sold our home in Croydon and settled in the
brand-new property ‘of our dreams’ in Algorfa, just north
of Torrevieja. It was inland, and roughly equidistant, about 14 km,
from both the seaside towns of Guardamar del Segura and Torrevieja.
Later, on a local free trip arranged by one of those organizations
selling Merino wool mattresses and bed linen, we were pleased to hear
our tour guide declare that officially, Torrevieja and its environs
were now rated by the WHO as ‘the healthiest place on earth’
for human habitation.
Since
our arrival in Spain in November 2005, my wife and I have enrolled
for Spanish classes, first privately, and then on classes arranged
and subsidized by the local ‘ayuntamiento’ (Local
Council). Living in an urbanization away from the local people means
that our everyday use of the language has taken somewhat of a back
seat. It is still very much book learning and speaking only within a
classroom context. Local TV channels broadcasting news and popular
programs go some way towards filling the gap, but the temptation to
view only British channels is very strong (except that my wife
eventually got addicted to Spanish ‘soaps’).
Although
we hear in the pages of the free weekly newspapers that British
expatriates here are experiencing difficulties due to what is
regarded as Spain’s bureaucratic inefficiencies and failures,
(or the ’mañana’ mindset), we ourselves have not
experienced any such problems. State run medical facilities are free
for seniors. For example, at age 70, I exchanged my soon to become
invalid British Driving License for a Spanish one, after appearing
before a medical panel of two, who tested me to see whether my
reflexes and eyesight (wearing spectacles) were in good order. For
oldies like us, this procedure needs to be repeated every two or
three years.
We
were pleasantly surprised that for a nominal fee we could watch
displays of flamenco dancing, choral and instrumental musical
extravaganzas, attend jazz festivals etc. at several venues in
Torrevieja and its environs like Rojales and San Fulgencio. Once we
even watched the Kirov ballet perform at the Torrevieja Teatro
Municipal. My first attendance at a bullfight, with my wife
desisting, was during the local fiesta in Algorfa, a few years back.
Many people love Torrevieja because of the abundance of golf courses
in the area. I ride a bicycle around the urbanization to keep myself
fit. And of course, we both have a dip in the community swimming pool
during the hot summer months.
Throughout
the year we’ve had friends and relatives visiting us, and have
already made coach trips to Madrid, Valencia, and other less
well-known, but equally visit-worthy venues. Occasionally, we go out
for meals with friends, some of whom are our neighbors in the
urbanization. Best of all, I have taken up creative writing, a
lifelong, at times dormant, hobby, but still with a burning ambition
to win recognition.
We
have been living the good life in Spain, possibly because someone
once told us that Torrevieja was among the healthiest places on the
planet. Unfortunately for us, when Brexit came along, we doubted our
capacity to serve out our allotted life span in these sybaritic
surroundings. So, with a heavy heart, we relocated to the UK. We now
live in a rented retirement flat in Purley, within the London Borough
of Croydon. The final chapter of our lives happens not to be what we
had envisaged even a few years back.
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