“The Water Is Lovely, Come On In”

Although we do keep ourselves relatively mobile with our regular walks, which often than not is on a daily basis, they are generally pretty much flat walks, so we were pleased when we awoke the morning after our day trip into the mountain, to discover that we had no aches and pains after the numerous steep climbs that we had done, using and stretching leg muscles, and working them very much harder than we would normally have done. So, at our routine ‘What Do You Want To Do Today ?’ morning conference, sat on the balcony and leisurely looking at the world go by, even though it was yet another warm and sunny day, Shazza and I agreed unanimously that we would conduct a less physically active sort of a day, which actually interprets as not venturing out of the front door, opting to spend our day doing very little of any importance, apart from one essential outstanding task that had been on our ‘To Do’ list for several weeks, but apart from that, our day would be given towards our continuing transition into becoming a little more Spanish, yes this day would be about developing our own ‘Mañana’ culture 😂

As for myself, well I made a start on reviewing the mass of photographs that I had taken on that road trip, after which I then had to try and select one’s that I wanted to include in the respective ‘Rambles’, and with so many to sort through this was never going to be an easy task. Eventually, the time then came for me to commence tapping away on the keyboard, making an initial start on drafting what would then become ‘Part 1’ of my next ramble. Shazza, on the other hand, who can never sit still for very long periods of time anyway, combined her daily activity between perusing her social media accounts, reading a couple of chapters on some book she was reading on her Kindle, a routine telephone call to her mum, starting the process of making a fresh loaf of ‘sour dough’ bread and whilst doing so, making more home-made soup for some of our lunches, catching up with some ironing, whilst watching one of her ‘Girlie’ Netflix box series, then watching some different ‘You Tube’ Plant Based cooking and baking videos, I was knackered just sat in my balcony chair watching her 😂

We now only had six weeks before we would depart on our Christmas trip to Munich, which we were now beginning to get quite excited about, we had already pre-booked and pre-paid for our return flights well over a month ago, but we were still considering the best way to get ourselves to and from Malaga Airport, journeys that generally we are not accustomed to doing with our own luggage. My personal preference had been to drive there ourselves, and use our normal parking, but the multi-storey car park opposite the terminal building, the one we would normally use, when we are either collecting, or delivering, our visitor’s, would we believed, be astronomically expensive if we were to pay the usual hourly rate, and to be honest we also believed that this was only short-term parking anyway. So, that meant that we would have to consider leaving the car at one of the several long-stay storage areas that are located on the fringe of the airport, some of which provided a courtesy bus to and from the air terminal, although not all of them. Shazza had done the due diligence research around this, the proximity to the airport and of course costs, but she became concerned after reading a lot of the ‘Independent’ On-Line reviews, many of which related accounts of cars being left on public roads outside the facilities, rather than in a secure storage area, other’s having sustained damage, and more worrying, some reporting excessive amounts of additional mileage on them 😲 The last thing that we wanted was to have our Christmas spoilt, worrying about the car whilst we were away, so we also considered alternative options, a taxi, or using buses, however, cost, or timings and convenience, did not really make them attractive options.

Shazza can sometimes be like a dog gnawing at a bone, relentless, but more often than not I do have to say that her tenacity does actually pay off. She managed to find an email address to contact the firm who manage the Airport short stay multi-storey car park, so she enquired about the possibility of longer term parking arrangements at their location and she discovered that, if we were to book and pay in advance, then we could actually leave the car in that multi-storey car park, which would be very handy for us with it being directly opposite the air terminal building especially as our return flight was not until the evening. So, for a period of seven days under-cover parking it would cost us €96, which worked out at less than €14 a day, which we thought wasn’t that bad really, although it was not as economic as the other longer stay parking facilities that she had looked at, but it was certainly much cheaper than a return, door-to-door, taxi transfer service (€200). The cheapest option would of course have been public transport, as in buses, we could get a bus from the bottom of our hill to Estepona bus station, from their we could get a bus that went via Marbella directly to the bus station at the Airport, but that would give us an issue with timings, to meet both the bus and flight schedules, on both the outward and the return legs of the journey, and of course the inconvenience of perhaps spending a lot of time waiting around for connections, not to mention lugging baggage up and down the hill. So in the end it was a no brainer, we both agreed that for peace of mind and much easier convenience, and for the sake of only a difference of around €50, the Multi-storey parking at the airport was the most viable. Shazza went ahead and pre-booked the parking and within seconds of doing so, she received a confirmation Email with the procedure to follow when we arrived at the parking entrance barrier, it was a little different to the normal entry procedure because of the pre-payment. So that was our one and only essential task for the day completed, now our Christmas travel arrangements are all sorted, apart from the final On-Line checking-in procedures a week or so before we actually travel.

The following morning we had our pre-arranged appointments at our Solicitor’s local office in town with one of their Tax Consultants, they had already been dealing with our ‘Non-residents’ tax affairs for the last eight year’s, so we were confident that we would receive the correct advice and information and as a bonus, this consultation came at no charge. I had already conducted a lot of research into the Spanish Taxation requirements and procedures, well before we had even considered seriously thinking about applying for the Residency Visa itself and, whilst I am certainly no Economics or Taxation Expert, I have always been pretty astute when it comes to matters that concern our own personal finances. With my own, and Shazza’s, incomes all coming from UK ‘Government’ Pensions, I had gone to the trouble of finding, downloading and reading, the rather laborious ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ Document, that had been signed off between the UK and Spanish Governments, and so I believed that I already had a good understanding of the requirements, and how the taxation procedures worked. However, it was only after we had obtained our initial Residency Permits that I had contacted the UK HMRC office, which is a mandatory requirement, to inform them of our change of residency circumstances, they in turn sent me a Form, which instructed me to complete and return to them, on the telephone they had made it sound simple and straightforward, but now they needed additional ‘official’ paperwork, not from us but from the Spanish Tax Agency, and then also required ‘us’ to tell ‘them’ how much ‘refund of tax’ we were claiming back from them 🤔 Now this had certainly created some confusion as, my understanding had been that, under that Agreement, and because our incomes were solely from ‘UK Government Pensions’, we would remain being taxed ‘at source’ on those pensions, meaning paying our income tax in the UK and not in Spain, so the question in my head was ‘Why on earth would I require to apply for a refund of tax payment’ 🤷‍♂️ and, now lets just say that I had totally misunderstood the ‘Agreement’ procedures, surely ‘they’, UK HMRC, would already have our tax records, so ‘they’ should already know themselves how much tax ‘they’ had already deducted from us ? Something just didn’t sound right with this, although I could certainly have understood it if our incomes had been from ‘Privately’ sourced pensions, as these would have been different procedures.

I had expected the meeting to last for at least an hour, if not longer, and then, at the end of it, to probably come away more confused and frustrated by it all, the way that Government’s generally like you to be, and leaving me asking the question ‘When is a No Double Taxation Agreement, NOT a No Double Taxation Agreement ?’ However, and as it turned out, our meeting lasted no more than ten minutes, five of those engaged in pleasantries and just general chit chat about how we were settling in to our recently acquired new residency status. They already were fully familiar with us, as I have previously stated, they had been our Solicitors, and dealt with everything on our behalf, for well over eight year’s now, from the initial purchase of what was then our ‘Bolt Hole’ property back in April 2015, setting up a ‘Power of Attorney’ so that they could act on our behalf in obtaining our NIE certificates, registering our ownership of the property with the local council, opening our On-Line Bank Account, setting up our Utilities and Direct Debit payments, arranging our Spanish Wills, preparing and submitting our annual non-residents tax returns and now, much more recently, assisting us with obtaining our residency permit here in Spain.

Our Tax Specialist confirmed, and re-assured us, that they were very conversant with the ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’, how it related to us, as British Citizens living permanently here in Spain and in receipt of UK sourced ‘Government’ Pension incomes. The bottom line was that our Pension Incomes ‘would’ actually remain being taxed in the UK, as I had originally understood that they would, and they, our Tax Consultants, would, on our behalf, prepare and submit our Annual Spanish Tax Returns, and apply for the necessary ‘Exemption Certificates’ for the both of us, from paying Spanish Tax on these pension incomes. They also confirmed that we would no longer pay the annual ‘Non-residents’ property tax. So, in the end I think that it would be reasonable to conclude that, I knew, and fully understood how the ‘No Double Tax Agreement’ works, our Tax Consultant, and the Spanish Tax Authority, know and fully understand how the ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ works, leaving the only people that do not have a bloody clue as to how it works being the UK Tax Authority themselves. It really is no wonder that the UK is in such a mess, both economically and otherwise, it appears that whilst ‘Boris Le Clune’ may have already left the building, the rest of the dysfunctional and shambolic circus remain. Now we do not need to do anything else until April next year, when our Tax Specialist will contact us again just to collate some information in order for them to prepare and submit our Tax Forms on our behalf for the 2023 Tax period.

As we are now on our Winter lifestyle schedule, meaning that we now ‘occasionally’ go out to enjoy afternoon Lunches’, rather than going out in the evening for ‘Dinners’ and, with it now being relatively quiet during weekdays, we much prefer to go out for those lunches at weekends when there are more people out and about, the ambience is so much better, as are the ‘people watching’ opportunities 😁 We do however still go on our regular walks through the week, but at weekends, when we are eating out, we do not stop for our more usual ‘Cafe con Leche and Tostado’ at our little Spanish Cafe.

Now I know that it can perhaps become a little tiresome for you to keep having to read about the weather that we enjoy over here in the Winter months, but I do feel the need to have to mention it yet again, certainly not to gloat, but because, as with most parts of the world, this Climate Change business is seriously messing around with the more usual seasonal temperatures and weather conditions, and that is very evident this year in this part of Spain. Whilst it is generally always very much warmer down this part of the world, than in the more Northerly European countries, the daytime temperatures here are currently remaining consistently higher than would be normal, we should, generally speaking, now be experiencing very variable weather conditions, with daytime temperatures alternating between perhaps 14 degrees(c) one day, then perhaps 22 degrees(c) on another, warm sunshine one day and grey overcast ones the next, with periods of drizzle and rain becoming ever more frequent as the Winter months move on. However, we are still enjoying day after day of brilliant sunshine, clear blue skies and the daily temperatures are ‘constantly’ in the mid-twenties. However, another major weather discrepancy for us this year, is in the strength of the wind, now we have always experienced quite windy conditions along this part of the Costa del Sol coastline, more so during the Autumn and Winter months, something to do with being located close to the Gibraltar Strait, the narrow channel of water where the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean collide, so we are used to it generally being a little blustery along this coastline, but again, currently we are experiencing wind strengths that are only between 2-5mph, which are nothing more than a light breeze, and not the more usual 15-20mph with gusts of 30-40mph, so this unusual weather is making for rather more consistently pleasant warm days, which you would think we should be very happy about.

As a temporary seasonal tourist here, this certainly is something to be enjoyed, but actually for permanent residents here, a category in which we now fall under, it is becoming rather worrying, as the severe lack of rainfall, starting from as far back as last Winter, right through the Spring and Summer and into this Winter, has created major water shortage issues, although personally speaking, we have been pretty fortunate up to now, with no shortages or restrictions to our domestic water supply as their has been in other Provinces and Regions of Spain, only our communal facilities, such as use of the swimming pool, have been affected. However, over recent weeks, reading our local Spanish media reports, and speaking with several of our Spanish neighbours, the water levels in the reservoirs all around the country have not been this low for a great number of years and, there is a real fear that if this unseasonably very warm weather and lack of rain does not change very soon, it will be ‘Stand Pipes’ in the streets, or bottled water (whilst supplies last), being the only access to drinking water, something that has previously been experienced here. However, if things do get to that state, then it is not just the domestic supplies that get effected, there will also be a much wider impact, obviously within all aspects relating to the Agricultural and Food industries, but also the Tourism industry, just imagine if hotels, holiday rental accommodations, campsites and motor home Aires, cannot provide access to water for paying visitor’s, that would have a major impact financially, as people return home early, or even cancel advance bookings. So yes, whilst I do regularly tell you that the weather here is very nice, especially for this time of year, there will almost certainly be a severe price to pay for it, if things do not change, and soon 😲 So perhaps suffering the cold and wet Autumns and Winters when we were in the UK, may be something that we often used to moan about, but there are always differing Pro’s and Con’s in this life 🤔 However, sticking with my usual philosophy of not wasting time, or energy, on things that I have personally no power to influence or change, so lack of rain or not, our new retirement lifestyle philosophy is to just continue to enjoy each and every day whilst we still can, we will deal with what tomorrow brings, tomorrow 😉

I look back on it now, and I have to say that it does seem a little strange that, during the height of this past Summer, we actually only went down and spent a few hours on the beach once, that was when the grandchildren were out on holiday, but here we are now, in the Winter, a time when sitting on the beach would normally be a rare opportunity, rather than a daily occurrence, but here we are, spending lots of our days just enjoying picnic lunches, and hour’s on our favourite beach. Anyone would think that we had paid to be on a Winter Sun holiday 🤷‍♂️

Shazza, as usual, when we come down to the beach, will generally get stuck into reading a book on her Kindle device and do some solar basting, yes it is still that warm, whereas I, as usual, just enjoy sitting, under the shade of my beach umbrella, listening to the tranquil ripples of the gentle waves lapping slowly, and rhythmically, onto the shoreline, now it wasn’t quite as flat as a proverbial mill pond, but very nearly, with the crystal clear water sparkling in the sunshine, everything being just so peaceful. There were none of the more usual intrusive beach noises, no hoards of people sandwiched very close together, only half a dozen, at most, just doing much the very same as us, there were no children splashing around noisily in the water, or making excited screaming noises, it was I have to say, complete and utter bliss. The only loud sudden sound that did startle me at one point, was the noise of someone suddenly letting out a very loud snore, however, it was a good job that there were not the usual hoards on the beach, as I discovered that that loud snoring noise had actually emanated from myself 😲 I cannot even remember closing my eyes to have that particular period of ‘Personal Contemplation’. Shazza looked across at me and laughed, “Wake yourself up did you ?”

A lot of times, if you are patient enough to just sit and watch, things will sometimes just materialise in front of you, things that not only visually attract your attention but can sometimes also lead to a bit of curiosity. I had seen the bow end of one of the small fishing boats, from our Marina, suddenly appear from the seaward side of the outer harbour wall, nothing unusual in that you may say, but it appeared to be drifting rather than motoring, and it was exceptionally close to the large boulders that project into the sea to protect the harbour wall, the small boat was rolling gently from side to side in tune with the motion of the very slight sea swell. From where I was sat, it was just a little too far away to see, in any great detail, what was going on but my eyes remained fixed on it. Gradually the full length of the small boat became visible, I could make out two people on the front deck looking over the bow, they didn’t appear to be in any sort of panic but they were in discussion about something, I had brought my pocket camera out with me and so used the zoom lens to take a closer look.

I really had no clue as to what was going on, so sat watching with no information to go on, there was no alternative, from the visual evidence before me, I had to make up my own version of events, which went something like this………they had been out checking, or laying out, their fishing nets when something had become entangled on or underneath the hull of their boat, I knew that the stretches of beaches nearby, and the harbour wall, was a very popular location for the Line Fisherman to stand and fish, we see them on a regular basis, so perhaps one of their lines had snapped when they were reeling in a fish, or perhaps there was some other sort of debris that had been floating in the water that was causing them concern. Anyway, as the boat turned I got a good view of the Stern and could see the three of them engaged in some sort of activity, perhaps they could see the fishing line, or other debris, and were then able to release it from where it had become attached to their boat. It certainly cannot have been anything too serious as not long afterwards they chugged off out of sight, oh well it had passed a good fifteen minutes of my day 😁

Now if I thought that that was enough intrigue and entertainment for one afternoon, I was to be proved wrong. Shazza, who lets be honest here, does not normally take very much interest in what is going on out on the water, unless I spot a pod of dolphins, and especially if any sort of activity is out of her normal vision range, on the horizon, but it was she that had noticed a weird looking long, but also tall, looking shape way out on the horizon, which I have to say, looked nothing like the normal freighters that we see, and we are quite used to seeing all vessel shapes and sizes. What added to the mystery was that this shape was blurred in the heat haze, it was certainly moving away from us and not towards us. I called my small pocket camera into action once again, however, I was not convinced that my zoom lens would extend to that distance, but I gave it a go anyway.

When we returned home shortly afterwards, I looked out from the balcony to see wether the strange looking vessel was still visible, if it had been, then I may have been able to see it better with my binoculars, however, it had completely disappeared from sight, so it must have been travelling East, down towards the channel that divides the Southern Italian coastline and the Northern African coastline, and not passing through the Gibraltar Strait into the Atlantic, where I would still have had a very good view of it and at a bit closer quarters, so it will have to just remain one of those mysteries that I will never uncover, I will try though not to lose any sleep over it 😁

We took advantage of being able to spend more warm days, both walking and being down at the beach and, as you will already know by now, when you put Shazza near a large body of water, she just has to get into it and have a swim, she soon regretted that this time though 😂

”The Water Is Lovely, Come On In” she shouted to me, now I am not saying that I mistrust my beloved, or that I do not believe what she tells me without question, but I do know that at times she can have a wicked sense of humour, so I have learnt, over the years and through past experience, that it is best to sometimes not be too trusting of her 🤔

A little later, once she had returned from her ice bath and I was satisfied that she had defrosted without going into hypothermic shock, I, somewhat rather stupidly now that I come to think about it, became a little too curious as to just how cold the sea temperature really was, so I dared to venture in myself, now it took about twenty-minutes for me to only get in as far as waist height, there were other’s on the beach watching, so I couldn’t race straight out again screaming like a small child, I had a ‘Hasselhoff Bay Watch’ macho man image to protect, but when I realised that I could not feel any of my submerged bodily organs or limbs I came running out, screaming like a small child 🥶 Thereafter, I was more than content to just sit in my beach chair, enjoying my picnic lunches, passing my time engaging in my favourite pastimes of people and boat watching, although it wasn’t really particularly busy with either, but as previously said, just be patient, give it time and you will always see something.

On another day, as a bit of a change from the beach and our more usual promenade walk, we chose to go through and along the ‘Reserva Ecologica’. We started off in the usual sunshine and cloudless blue sky, however, when we got down to the beach we couldn’t see a thing out to sea, as there was a thick ‘Sea Fret’, it was already rolling in landwards, it reminded us of some of the Autumnal walks we used to take in the UK, the difference being that here it was currently 23 degrees(c) and, along with the Sea Fret, came a sticky humidity.

This Chiringuito is open all year and is on one of our other favourite stretches of beach, although it was a lot busier than we have ever seen it before, with lots of people enjoying lunch, lots of cyclists also stop here and their bicycles, which were of all shapes and sizes, and from what we could see, probably matched the riders 😁 their bicycles all lined up against the wooden decked rails. We had already eaten our lunch before we left home, but the aroma of the ‘Chicken’ and ‘Ribs’ was still very tempting 😋 however, I managed to not succumb. Now normally we would sit here and look out at all the water activities going on, it is a popular place for both snorkelling, scuba diving, kayakers and Paddle boarders but not today, due to the thick mist, however, if you are patient and sit and wait and watch………………………..

Later that afternoon, more early evening really, I was sat on the balcony, whilst Shazza was in the kitchen preparing a ‘Paella’ for our evening meal, I had been engaged in a lengthy text conversation with my daughter in Germany, who was quite excited about us going over to spend Christmas with them, when I looked up out of the French windows to discover that the Sea Fret had now crept silently up our hill. I stared out upon a thick greyness, which had totally blocked out the sunshine, I could physically feel a sudden drop in the temperature, whereas earlier, on our walk, the rise in the humidity level had been the result of the grey mist, but now it had brought a damp chill with it. It was time to get changed out of my shorts and short-sleeved shirt and to put on something a little warmer, and my slippers as my feet were getting chilled too 😲 However, I was not getting too excited about this sudden change in the weather, it didn’t mean that the normal Winter conditions were finally on their way, as we regularly get these ‘Sea Frets’ during the height of the Summer as well.

So yes, we have had a relatively easy and relaxed week, but we do have to keep reminding ourselves that this is the new normal for us now, we are not on an annual holiday, or on a ninety-day travel time restriction, where we used to feel the need to get as much done as we could within a certain timeframe. We do, truly, both feel very fortunate that we now find ourselves actually living permanently in a place where other’s choose to come to, in both the summer and winter months, for their annual holiday, so we do have to occasionally remind ourselves that we need to just enjoy being ‘here’, and not feel the need to always be somewhere else.

One of my regular blog subscribers recently told me about a new ‘Michael Portillo’ programme, currently being broadcast on TV in the UK, where he was travelling around Andalusia, of course we know of Michael Portillo, and his other travel adventures, but we had not realised that he was himself half Spanish or, that he had family who had lived in this region for year’s, and has many that still do. We have now watched the first couple of episodes and that programme just reminded us that we now live in a fantastic, and very historical and culturally rich area of Spain, with some fantastic Cities, Granada (that we yet still have to visit) Malaga, Seville, Cordoba and Cadiz (all of which we have already visited), let alone the numerous other coastal, and inland, towns and villages, which as you probably now know, we are beginning to visit and explore more of them ourselves now. So whilst there are other Countries in the world that we certainly do still want to visit, there is just so much more of Spain, and not just Andalusia, that, as yet, for us, still lay undiscovered, and so we aim to put that right. One of our initial retirement ambitions back in 2013, was to travel throughout Europe, some of which we did manage to do, but certainly nowhere near as much as we had hoped to do, and although now we will no longer be able to continue to do that in a motor home, it still remains one of our ambitions on our future travel itinerary. We do still get quite excited when we sit and talk to each other about the things we still want to do, the places we still want to visit, but our priorities, and our attentions, have more recently been directed towards getting settled here into our new home and country, and lets face it, we have after all only been here for five months, but the dust from those processes and procedures are now finally beginning to settle, so we are very much looking forward to now putting that excitement and travel desires into action, and I hope that you will also continue to enjoy those journey’s with us, as and when we go on them.

Wherever you may be reading this latest ramble, take good care of yourselves, and each other, and until my next ramble………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida es Buena 😉