Glass half empty?

I was just reading my comments in my last post and found that I had naively written the following; “As we approach our fifth anniversary of living in Spain it’s safe to say that, these days, we are rarely surprised by tardiness or bureaucracy, and my blood doesn’t boil like it used to, so I guess we’re finally becoming accustomed.” Well what do you know? Our resolve has been tested once or twice and what follows below will pretty much be a rant about ‘bad luck’ and ‘poor service’, with a few bad decisions of my own thrown in of course. It’s all very tongue in cheek however – the glass is certainly half full and the sun continues to shine.

When we first moved into this house we struggled to find a company that could provide internet, due to our location, but eventually found a satellite service. A big, ugly dish bolted to the side of the house, not particularly cheap and terribly slow, but we persevered as there seemed to be no viable alternative. When it started getting even slower and less stable I was forced to start looking elsewhere. By chance our neighbours had recently had new internet installed and, although they were rarely there, seemed happy with it’s performance. Additionally it was a local company aimed at providing internet to the more remote locations so I signed up eagerly and was told that Friday 18th August would be the installation date.

Friday 18th August arrives with a telephone call saying “Sorry we can’t come today we’ll come on Monday.” Okay, disappointing but these things happen and thankfully I hadn’t cancelled our existing satellite provider ‘just in case’. ‘Good decision’ I thought to myself. Monday arrives and as promised a technician comes after lunch and does his thing – ladder up to the roof with boxes and cables and gadgets. Bad news – he can’t get a signal due to the surrounding trees - it needs an extension pole. “Did you not bring one?” I ask him, thinking that would be pretty useful as everyone around here is living in a pine forest. So he has to call the office to explain, gather all of his equipment back into the van, with the promise that somebody will be back tomorrow. ‘Oh, and by the way you have to pay extra for the extension pole’. That was no great surprise, and understandable, but not long after moving in I had taken down and thrown out such a pole that had been supporting an old style TV aerial! “Won’t be needing that” I had thought, “Who watches TV through one of those anymore?!” ‘Bad decision’ I thought to myself.

Tuesday afternoon and a different technician arrives proudly producing the extension pole from the van and off up to the roof he goes. Within moments he’s back down the ladder looking thoroughly confused and asks me, “Where’s the receiver and the cables?” Already I’m sensing another delay in this installation… “The other guy took it all with him.” He followed this up with some choice Spanish swear words and an angry phone call to the office. It transpired that yesterday’s technician had indicated that he had connected everything, router, receiver and all, and all that remained was to erect the pole and mount the receiver. Meanwhile I’m thinking ‘So you’ve come out here with just a pole in your van?? You should share vans with the other guy!’

So ultimately another day wasted. I later received a phone call from the office to say that nobody was available tomorrow, but somebody would definitely be there on Thursday morning, first thing, to finish the installation. Hmmm. Although I was generally philosophical about it all, with the comedy of errors thus far, I was also mildly concerned about the fact that we were due to leave for a long weekend in Girona first thing on Friday morning, a treat for Selena’s recent 40th birthday. Surely nothing else could jinx us…

Thursday morning and I receive a phone call from the office telling me that the technician due to come to our house today is at hospital, having suffered heatstroke from working on a roof all day yesterday! You couldn’t make it up. To be fair it was insane to even consider working all day on exposed full sun rooftops in the August heat (most businesses here shut down for the complete month), so maybe that was the problem, none of them wanted to be up there.

Anyway the lady on the phone apologised profusely and promised that the team would be with me first thing in the morning and would be done in an hour, no problem, so we could get away on our four and a half hour car journey to Girona in good time. ‘Try telling that to Selena’ I thought to myself, fully aware of the response I was going to get when she got home.

Friday morning, one week after the intended installation, and we are packed and raring to go, having wanted to leave at 8am. Sure enough two technicians arrive at 9 and get to work. Selena’s in an obvious rage but remains indoors while I watch on nervously trying to stay out of everybody’s way. 10am and the two guys come down from the roof and say “We’re off to eat”……..!!

Don’t ever forget the almuerzo ritual. Nothing will get in its way! They didn’t even walk up to the bar on our doorstep, they drove off in their van and arrived back at around 11.30!! Unbelievable but very, very Valencian! Eventually the installation was complete and we were able to hit the road at around 1pm without being able to test or appreciate our brand new internet connection. Girona was great thankfully.

I can’t beat that tale of woe but I do have a sizeable list of breakdowns, delays and misunderstandings that would make the most sanguine person shake his fist at the sky in a Basil Fawlty style.

To begin: In March my motorbike broke down. Thankfully I wasn’t far away from home and was able to get it back at a crawl with a clutch or gearbox problem. Off it went to the Yamaha garage on a low loader and I awaited the diagnosis. Thankfully it was an inexpensive and easy fix but embarrassingly the bike was simply out of clutch fluid. That’s something I could have identified and resolved myself surely. Fast forward to October and whilst riding to meet a friend for almuerzo the same thing happened. Unable to change gear all of a sudden and then, to make matters worse, no power / no ignition. The silver lining was that this happened directly outside of a bar so we were able to enjoy our Friday brunch and come up with a plan. I called the Yamaha garage to explain my disappointment and predicament. They told me that they no longer have their own recovery vehicle and couldn’t possibly accept the bike today as they were overrun with work and had no room for my bike. Maybe in a few days’ time they would be able to help me. With no way to ride the bike home and not being keen on leaving it at the side of the road in an industrial estate I called my ‘low loader’ friend Vicente who told me his break down truck was in the garage being repaired so it would have to stay where it was. Brilliant. The next morning my almuerzo companion told me that he had spoken to the bar owner about my situation and he had said that I could leave the bike in his garage. Result! The ‘garage’ turned out to be the function room to the bar, so by moving tables and chairs we were able to create enough space for my beloved bike. I was acutely aware of the liberty I was taking in accepting the kindness of this landlord that I’d never met before but he assured me it was no problem. The bike had broken down on Friday 24th October and it was moved into the bar on Saturday 25th. After some badgering the Yamaha garage finally agreed to take it in on Monday 6th November. So ‘a day or two’ had turned into two weeks. In the end the landlord called me saying the bike had to be removed on Sunday 5th as they had a function planned. I resisted the urge to to tell him he was being unreasonable….

So off to the Yamaha garage on Vicente’s newly repaired low loader for another repair, this time aware that there must be a leak of clutch fluid somewhere. It remained there until December 15th! Nearly six weeks. This time the bill wasn’t as well received but fingers crossed all is resolved.

Heading into summer I also noticed that the swimming pool automated cleaning system wasn’t working properly and we were experiencing a steady build up of algae in the tile grouting. The pool company tried a couple of things with the electronics but were unable to get to the bottom of the problem. They suggested we manage the various levels manually (salt, PH, etc) until after the summer, as the next step would be to remove the main computer system, allowing it to be sent off for diagnosis / repair, thereby leaving us without a usable pool for the summer. There followed a few days of frantic underwater manual cleaning getting the pool ready literally the day before our house-sitters arrived.

The pool survived the summer and in October the company that installed it removed the ‘computer’ and sent it back to the manufacturer for repair. Six weeks later it was returned and reinstalled but with a sizeable invoice that needed paying. ‘Well just a minute these thing have a three year warranty’ I thought, somewhat in shock. The pool had been completed in December 2020 and although although the part hadn’t been removed until October I had been in discussion with the company about the problem since May of 2023. Unfortunately I was told that the new models have a three year warranty but the pre 2021 models only have a two year warranty! What luck!

Another summer of ’23 stroke of luck related to the purchase of a new family tent in July which I ordered online from Decathlon and collected in store. We quickly booked our first trip for early October at a campsite near the beach at Alcossebre. On arrival the campsite seemed as good as we had expected, having been recommended to us, and we began the process of making camp. Now everybody knows that pitching a tent as a family invariably ends up with cross words being spoken but we were determined to stay calm and respectful. On opening the bag and folding out the tent it was apparent that the inner had already been attached to the outer which was a surprise. According to the instructions they would be separate. We had of course watched a YouTube video beforehand to prepare ourselves and minimise the risk of arguments. ‘Well at least that will save some time’ we thought. But on erecting the tent we noticed….. Bird shit and pine needles!! The tent had obviously been used before, without question, and once the night arrived we could also see a couple of small holes in the roof. Unbelievable and very disappointing. There was no choice but to remain for the weekend as planned so we took some photos and I had the pleasure of returning to the Decathlon store on Monday.

Now the obvious mistake, as many have pointed out, was that I didn’t check the tent after collecting it. I opened the bag, checked that the poles and pegs were there but didn’t put it up. Life’s too short isn’t it? A brand new tent from a huge store such as Decathlon? What are the chances!?

Monday morning and I am back at Decathlon. ‘You bought this tent in July and now you want to return it and want us to believe you didn’t cause the damage!?’ I was not looking forward to the reaction from the staff. In true sod’s law fashion there was a sizeable queue forming inside and by the time I reached the lucky member of staff I was already hot under the collar with several onlookers behind me. As anticipated he didn’t appear convinced with my story and told me that as more than six weeks had passed they were unable to offer a refund or exchange (fair enough). I persisted despite the embarrassment, my standpoint being ‘Why would I put myself through this and why would I lie about such a thing?’ His supervisor was summoned and he wandered off to call the originating depot in Madrid. Incidentally whilst I was waiting an elderly man then confronted the first staff member with a drinks bottle that he said wouldn’t let the water out, and proceeded to demonstrate by raising the bottle above his head and trying to shake drips into his mouth…. It had an in built straw so he was told to hold it normally and suck…. He was having none of it! Hilarious. I’m sure those Decathlon staff have had better days!

The supervisor returned and told me that Madrid had said that it was absolutely impossible that a tent would have been sent out pre-used. There’s no way that could happen. Well that’s exactly what DID happen! My only options were to accept it and take it home or to send the tent off. If it turned out to be a manufacturing defect it would be repaired or replaced free of charge. If not I would need to pay if I wanted it fixed. I knew full well that it wouldn’t be deemed a manufacturing fault (especially as it was also covered in bird poop and pine needles!) but I left it there and later sent an email to head office explaining all of the details. Within a day I had a phone call from head office who told me it would be taken care of, followed by an email from the local store manager offering me a replacement tent! So against all my expectations the email complaint did the trick! In Spain emails are routinely ignored. A few weeks later, having already collected the replacement, I had an automated email from Decathlon saying that the original tent was ready for collection in store…… Tempting though it was I ignored that one.

That’s pretty much it in terms of venting my frustrations and trying to garner sympathy for the terrible life we’re having to endure here…. (you know I’m not serious!) but I’ll leave you with these two snippets. I have many times bemoaned the horrendous postal system here and it hasn’t got any better although we’ve been trying to find ways of improving our chances of a successful delivery.

I’m still awaiting the arrival of an air fryer ordered in October!! I got excited in November when I was told it was at my local post office awaiting my collection but when I arrived there like an excited child it wasn’t there. It was at a post office in bloody Tenerife!! That saga continues, as it never found it’s way to me, but I may have to take the blame for that one. If an offer looks too good to be true it probably is…. especially if it’s coming from China.

We were generously gifted an early Christmas present in the form of an Ooni pizza oven. I was even more excited about receiving that one!! After some failed delivery attempts (translate that as ‘non attempts’ they just couldn’t be bothered to drive to our house) I changed to have it delivered to a local shop which worked well as it arrived there the next day. I sped over the hill to the local shop in record time to be handed a box the size of a dinner plate! Very obviously not a pizza oven!! Long story short, these were the accessories and the actual oven had been misplaced and arrived at home a week or so later. It arrived while I was away, late one evening, and was passed over the gate to Selena in her dressing gown and slippers who had to struggle getting this huge 20kg box into the garage. Priceless.

I could also bore you with the story of when I fell through the floor in the garden, legs dangling into the chasm below, shocked and bloody, fearing I had broken my femur…..

Okay, I’m sure that will do. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. How much ‘misfortune’ can anybody take?!