Spain v Britain: The sunshine life is for you - as long as you don't need a job

In the misery of a cold, wet Manchester day, my daughter Lisa left a depressing message on Facebook this week.

‘‘What are we doing in this bloody miserable country?’’ she asked despairingly. ‘‘Can someone give me reasons not to move abroad, please.’’

Family, friends and making a living were the most popular responses she received – and when you have three children of school age, that is a BIG, BIG consideration.

Over the weekend, my local community here in Spain has been saying a tearful farewell to a family as they headed back to the UK after seven happy years on the Costa Blanca. The main reason they have returned to their roots is that their 15-year-old daughter pines for an English education and has understandably found it difficult to build a social life in the ageing expat community.

But even though Mum and Dad struggled to make a living while they were here, they loved the Spanish lifestyle so much that I reckon they will be back once junior has passed her A-levels – and leave her to her own devices at university.

When one looks at the pros and cons of moving from Britain to Spain, it is no contest until one gets down to the thorny question of employment. Spain wins on virtually every front – but if you are going to need a job, then my advice is to tread very carefully because there’s very little work available in these crisis-wrecked times.

As for family and friends, no problem there. They can always come out to visit. After all, it probably takes longer to drive from north London to Birmingham as to fly from Gatwick to Alicante or Malaga.

Personally, I reckon the best thing about modern-day Britain is that it is 1,500 miles away from where I live. But then I fortunately have sufficient pension income to keep going without a fulltime job,

But since there are two sides to every story, I took a straw poll of other exiles’ thoughts via the ExpatForum.com website. And, believe it or not, the UK more than held its own with some of my fellow expats.

Some of the areas which won a ‘Britain is best’ vote included jobs, mid-summer weather (in other words, Spain is too hot in July and August), home healthcare, keeping homes warm in winter, better tap water, no price rip-offs by utility companies, natural scenery, faster legal processes, broadband speed, TV, Sunday opening – and of course shopping.

Also, in the UK things actually work. It’s unusual to get a power cut, for instance, something that is all too common here in the Costa Blanca, with the attendant danger of losing all your freezer contents if you happen to be away when the switch trips.

Then there is a widely-publicised town-hall corruption that has blighted Spain in recent years. Not that it doesn’t exist in Britain, of course – it’ just not anywhere near as obvious. Not at local council level, anyway.
I can also confirm from personal experience that the service in UK shops, banks and other service outlets is vastly superior to the couldn’t-care-less attitude of so many workers out here.

As one ExpatForum member put it: ‘‘I hate waiting in a queue for an hour at a bank because the cashier is chatting to every Pablo, Pedro and Jose about their *abuelos/hermanos/gato/perro etc. Then it gets to your turn and. . . SIESTA TIME. Cashier is now shut!’’

Whereas banks and shops in the UK invariably put the customer first, prepare for a long wait if the clerk or shop assistant’s mobile rings while you’re being served. Because the chances of the caller being told curtly ‘I’ll ring you back’ is virtually nil.

My local vet Julien is a lovely young man who is unusually good at multi-tasking but suffers from acute ‘mobile attached to the ear’ syndrome. When I took one of my two cats to his surgery for a checkover recently, his phone rang just as he called me into the treatment room.

‘‘Un momento,’’ he said, taking the call from a pal. During the next 15 minutes, chatting throughout to his mate, he checked the cat, treated her, put her back into the cat box, ushered me out into the reception area and then signed some papers for a delivery man who walked in as I waited to discuss the bill.

Ultimately, seeing my face growing increasingly crimson, he mouthed the words ‘’14 euros’’, took my 20 euro note, rang it up on the till, gave me change and whispered a swift ‘’hasta luego’’.

As I closed the door of the surgery behind me, Julien was ushering in the next patient and its owner…still talking on the mobile that may one day need removing surgically from his ear. Because not everyone is going to be as patient as I was.

On that occasion, I had little choice but to wait – or to go to another vet. But I’ve walked out of a Spanish shop more than once when a staff member has put a phone call or chatting with a friend or colleague ahead of serving me. Unbelievably, it is as likely to be the boss as an assistant who snubs you – the person with most to gain. It simply could not happen in the UK but is so typical of the ‘mañana mañana’ Spanish mentality.

Having said all that – and factored in the menace of the myriad midsummer mosquitoes – Spain scores highly on so many fronts that it really is no contest which country has the most going for it. Particularly if you are looking to retire out here, rather than build a career.

The sunshine and healthy air obviously tops the lot. But then there are other aspects like the quality of life, cheap eating out (if you avoid the tourist rip-off joints), inexpensive housing, the third lowest crime rate in Europe (though you could fool me with all the handbag snatching and pickpocketing that goes on in the Costas), the fiestas, the family-orientated culture, the gentler pace of life and the golden beaches.

Oh, and pharmacies that sell prescription drugs without a prescription – something I have personally found very useful. (And no, I am not a junkie!)

ExpatForum members also gave Spain the thumbs-up for healthcare, public transport and less-congested roads. But sadly there was no mention anywhere of motorbikes.

Why motorbikes? Well, my Lisa’s fella Rob is a motorcycle training instructor and if they ever did come out here with the kids he’d be looking to open a training centre wherever they decided to settle.

And much as I would love to see them on my doorstep, I haven’t the faintest idea how he’d do that. Come to think of it, I don’t even know the Spanish word for motorcycle…

Life in the bus lane: The cruel cost of crossing a fine line

My autumn visit to the UK was anything but a road to happiness, thanks to the local council's road-traffic enforcers. Justice - or pure greed? You decide.

Dashing onto the runway at Manchester Airport in pouring rain and a furious early-morning gale was a sheer pleasure for me on my return to Spain – because I was swopping the cold and miserable British weather for the Costa Blanca sunshine I so adore.
 
Apart from the shivering, soggy climate, my four weeks back in the UK also brought home some of the reasons why living in England today is more of a penance than a joy. 

Yes, the beautiful countryside, unique historic buildings and ironic British sense of humour are still intact. But the breakdown of law and order and increasingly large sub-culture of yobbism, alcoholism and drug addiction is frightening.  

I won’t go into the most controversial subject of all – the massive over-immigration which is polarising rather than uniting the country. That would be politically incorrect, even if my personal viewpoint is considerably less extreme than that of many native Brits. 

However, one subject that really does make my blood boil is the unnecessary traffic chaos – and the incompetence of the faceless bureaucrats responsible for the massive disruption on motorways and trunk roads. 

Everywhere I drove, I seemed to be held up - from an enforced 30-mile motorway detour to accommodate a bridge-building exercise, to temporary traffic lights causing hold-ups on virtually every main road. The general philosophy of the transport bureaucrats seemed to be, ‘‘Cause maximum disruption to as many motorists as possible at the time the traffic is heaviest’’.

OK, I don’t tend to drive in busy areas in Spain, but I have never even seen a proper traffic jam in the Costa Blanca. I get the impression that the roads are kept as clear as possible in the daytime with most maintenance work done at night, when fewer vehicles are on the roads. Yet in England, I rarely go out without being stuck in a queue of crawling cars. 

I also had the dubious pleasure of clashing with the council jobsworth who monitors minor traffic offenders in Bury, Lancashire, where my UK home is. I lost the battle, of course, because being fair did not tally with his mission to fill the town coffers with as much cash as possible from the softest touches of all – law-abiding motorists. 

Pay up or else: But was this justice?

I was blissfully unaware that since the my previous visit to the UK last May, Bury Council had decided to prohibited one particular bus lane to other vehicles from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, rather than the normal 7-10am and 4-7pm double slot which operates for every other bus lane in Greater Manchester. 

My 'crime' was that I went on a lunchtime shopping trip on a quiet weekday and, at 12.38pm, moved my little Kia Picanto into the empty bus lane momentarily to allow the only other car on the road to pass me. It hadn’t crossed my mind to check the hours of prohibition first – I naturally assumed the rules were the same as everywhere else. 

Gotcha! The council spiders had set up a camera to trap heinous criminals like myself in their devious web. And three days later I received photographic evidence of my car tootling along in the bus lane at 25mph, plus a demand for £60 – reduced to £30 if I paid within 14 days. 

How kind of them to penalise an unknowing pensioner for merely being courteous to another driver and clearly having no intention of using the bus lane to jump a queue or for any dubious reason.  

I duly wrote to the council very sweetly explaining the situation and asking that they reconsider, enclosing a £30 debit-card payment to avoid the possibility of being stung for double that amount while I was awaiting a response. 

A few days later I received a written reply from Bury’s Parking Services Manager John Foudy in which good grammar and accuracy were given particularly low priority. 

(Sic) ‘’I have noted your comments, however, upon further investigation of your case it is apparent that full payment of the Notice has been made,’’ he wrote, as if that was a reason the fine could not be reversed. 

‘‘I can confirm that there is ample signage at the entrance to the bus lane specifying the relevant start and end times. The onus is on the motorist to check the information before making the judgement to enter a bus lane.  

‘’Thank you for your prompt payment, however, I would like to inform you that any further right to appeal is lost and the case is now closed.’’ 

That’s it, then. Guilty as charged, and no reference whatsoever to my explanation.  

I’m not the first person to suffer in this way at the hands of Bury Council, whose greediness for fleecing soft-touch motorists at every chance is regularly highlighted in the local press. 

So I’ve decided to repay Mr Dowdy, sorry Foudy, in my own way. I’m boycotting Bury on my future visits to the area and will do my shopping in Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham.  

My thinking is that if disgruntled local motorists hit local traders in the pocket by boycotting the town, the business community might press Bury Council to stop ostracising decent citizens with greedy forms of entrapment. 

Of course, my plan is unlikely to work – and in any case you may believe I did cross the line, both literally and metaphorically. But I bet you 30 quid that councils like Bury are persecuting motorists in order to maximise council funding.  

Make your losing cheques payable to John Foudy at Bury Parking Services signage department.

First published in Female Focus magazine, December 2010