Spanish Diary (Part 2)

Pam's brother Nigel came over a couple of weeks ago, he is a lovely lad but rather camp without realising it; he is also well known for speaking without thinking! So it was no surprise that when he was offered cannabis in the local bar by a pusher who is about 17stone and 6', Nigel, in English, said the first thing that came into his head: "I'm a policeman!” Saying this is not a good idea in the first place, but fortunately I doubt the pusher believed a 5'-5" tall mincing Brit was in the constabulary! When the same thing happened the next night with another pusher, Nigel now knew that it was not a good idea to say he was a policeman so he said "Anglaterre, Anglaterre!", which I think is French for "England, England!" Yep, that should do it in a Spanish country bar…Nige!
Nigel also needs to go to the bar every day for a drink. As we didn't want to go he went alone. He didn't want much to drink so after the first one he said "Poco cerveza" which he thought meant "I don't want much to drink" Unfortunately what he actually said was "that wasn't much beer" so they brought him a bigger beer next time and when he said it the next time he got an even bigger glass of beer, and the time after, right up to a schooner! They also bring you a small plate of food with every beer which he was also unable to stop, so he didn't really need the meal we had prepared either.
I rang the builder - Rafael - again about his estimate and found another pool-builder to get another estimate [Both are coming today, I hope, the pool-builder in the morning and Rafael at 20:00 hours] This did not work out as planned, the guy who came was in fact a plumber but he did know a pool builder who could do the work for us, so I rang him and he came the same day. He looks quite promising. Rafael did come and will give us an estimate next week.
We also went to a company that make reinforced concrete beams for the pergola to find out suitable sizes of main beams and top struts. I will be quite expert on these things when the garden is done! It seems the main beams weigh about 200Kg each…scary.
Our Spanish lawyer has been promising us for months that he will sort out our local Council Tax but as we need to get planning permission for the garden we went there ourselves yesterday - and it seems the lawyer had done nothing – the property is still in the name of the previous owner, but we have now started arrangements for it to be transferred to us in Granada. We have just noticed, though, that the receipt we have is for the correct previous owner but the wrong address [it is for next door] I feel another trip coming on.
If we can sort out estimates and building dates over the next week or so, we can set out to explore the countryside a little, at the moment we are always in waiting for a builder to call. Maybe we will take off for a few days to another part of Andalusia.
We were driving down a track a couple of days ago when we saw a sign ahead with an exclamation mark that said "Undefined perils!", so we turned back only to find a similar sign on the route we had just travelled! They only seem to put signs randomly; mind you it was a hairy road with hairpins and sheer drops on one side with no barriers at all.
We also went to a hole in the wall for some money. I put the card in and pressed all the right buttons. Out came the card and receipt but no money…panic. Pam went into the bank and then I noticed that the receipt said “transaction cancelled”. Apparently they had lost the computer line for a while so all is well.
Today was a bit quieter, we went across to one of our neighbours for lunch and very nice it was too, even if it is an acquired taste. We had spiced sausage, followed by fried squid, rabbit paella and some lovely meringues with coffee. Quite a spread don’t you agree! We then came home and slept until about an hour ago.
Rod - Retired