The city has certain advantages

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In 1965 I was 21 and, for my birthday, my parents bought me an Omega Seamaster watch. It cost the enormous sum of £68 and it finally gave up the ghost in 2003. Luckily for me my 50th birthday was just around the corner and Maggie splashed out £500 to buy me a Tag Heuer which has been on my wrist, more or less without break, ever since.

I needed a new battery for the Tag just after we got here. We had to travel from Culebrón down to Alicante to get it. Not a lot of fancy jewellers in Culebrón. 120kms and a couple of hours travel on top of the time to replace the battery.

Today, as I was teaching, there was an exercise where the students had 10 seconds to complete a task. I glanced at my watch and the second hand was jerking rather than running smoothly.

On my way home I popped into el Corte Inglés to get the battery changed. It took fewer than 10 minutes.

It's peaceful in Culebrón, the garden is smashing, the furniture is ours - all in all a great place to live. But cities have certain advantages.

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