Hola

It's been a while since I have last posted. Almost a whole year. A lot has happened in that time, summer has been and gone and now we are in the middle of an Almerían winter. In September that passed it had been five whole years of me living in Spain. I cannot quite beleive how quick its gone to be honest. I feel very settled here than anywhere now. Its the sun, it does that type of thing for me. I was made for this enviroment, although in the summer it does feel too hot, once we are over July and August temperatures are still warm but bareable. The problem I have now due to living here so long is I have aclimatised to winters. When winters arrive here I feel cold if the sun isnt shining on me. The evenings and nights can be cold and its always a problem in trying to work out the exact right time to start using the log fire. Too early and you end up opening every window and door to cool down. This year I must have got it just right, although I did try and delay lighting the fire as long as I could. When I did there wasnt a mad dash to opening the windows and doors when it got too hot. So the ideal time to light the fire is just after hallowe'en.

As I have been here for five years I have had to renew my Spanish ID card. I always knew this was going to be a challenge as appointment avaialbility can be very limited. We decided last year that this year we wouldnt return to Wales for the usual Christmas trip as without getting our Spanish ID sorted in time we could foresee problems. My ID card expired on 13th October, so with that I tought back in May I would start looking for appointment availability. A little early but I wanted to get myself familiar with the process. In all the time I had been checking since May and until the end of July I had not seen one appointment available! This was concerning as time was counting down to my ID card expiry. Toward the end of July some appointments did become avaialble but as soon as they appeared they would vanish as a result of the demand. I took it upon myself to email the provincial sub-delegation of the Ministry of the Interior that dealt with these appointments. To my utter suprise I received a reply giving me an exact time that day when appointments were being released. The email can in at 8:27am and the time detailed fir appointments was 8:30amd and 6:00pm. I had 3 minuits to prepare myself for the race to get an appointment. I could feel my heart pounding already. Unbeleivebly I managed to secure an appointment it was for 3rd September.... but it was too early and not in the window for being allowed to renew and ID card. So it was back to square one. I was able to book an appointment for 30th September, it was within the one month periof befor my ID card expired, I was happy. But in the back of my mind there was a nagging. I had seen in various forums that people like me wasnt able to attend an appointment to renew until the day after the expiry of the existing ID card. This I confirmed later when I met the local Gestorias office to complete the paperwork.

Meeting with the Gestorias office was odd. The person that was attending to me was lovely, she needed to clarify with her manager if my appointment for 30th September was too early. But instead of initially answering the enquiry she was a bit snooty and patronising that I had been able to secure an appointment. Clearly it was her job to book appointments and she wasnt having a good time. Well my advise to her would be try harder, get to work earlier and then you'll have no problem! As much as I wanted too I didnt actually say anything unpolite the woman. I just gave her my usual facial expression. I wheeled out my 'sour lemon' face. Its just as satisfying. During my time at the Gestoria the attentive woman completed my paperwork for me and I agreed that I would proceed to book my own appointment. The truth of it I didnt trust them to get me one quickly. So they charged me 100€ for just compleating a simple form, the 12€ tax and for their representative to be with me at my appointment. Had I known how easy the forms were to complete and they didnt need to be uploaded, just taken to your appointment then I would have done them myself. That teaches me for not checking the process fully beforehand.

The next day I did manage to secure an appointment for 15th October, 2 days after my card was due to expire. I bet had I waited for the Gestoria I would have been waiting an age as the manager woman didnt really have a cule as to when appointments were released etc. Despite the problems I had in securing an appointment in September changes were made in office I needed to attend for my ID. They had taken on and trained extra staff to be able to get through the backlog of people like me. This showed in the appointment booking system, there was loads of appointment available, people needing one were spoilt for choice.

I attended my appoitment on 15th October was was dealth with a lovely efficient woman at the office. All my paperwork was in order, fingerprints taken and given a date to return and pick up my new card. All done now so really please, the whole process hadnt been as bad or difficult as I had anticipated.