Life in Cartagena

Parking in Spain is odd. I've said so before . Most car parks in town centres, for supermarkets, for blocks of flats and the like are underground and very  labyrinthine . Only the big new shopping centres regularly have surface or multi storey car parks. The standard construction method for Spanish buildings is to build a frame from concrete pillars and then brick in between these weight bearing columns. The columns, logically enough, extend (or is it start) in the underground space. The spacing and placement of the columns is dependant on the form of the building above and the result is an interesting maze of very hefty obstacles for the parking motorist. Lots and lots of times the access is tortuous to say the least. Scratch marks along the concrete and the armoured protection for the ticket machines show that lots of motorists don't get it right. Purpose built car parks, in the sense of places offering paid for parking, usually have gently sloping access roads to lul...

Despite her tender years Maggie has seniority. She took up residence in Spain on 21 August 2004. I was with her then but I had to return to the UK and didn't finally arrive in Spain, along with Mary the cat and the MGB, for good, until 7 October 2004. We bought the house in Culebrón on 10 January 2005. My diary for that day says, as we turned the key in the lock for the first time: "I didn't feel elated, I didn't feel doubtful. I didn't think we'd made a dreadful mistake. I didn't think we'd got a bargain. I'm not sure what we've got and I'm not sure how it will all pan out when the dust has settled." Yesterday we signed the contract on our new rented flat in Cartagena, that's the fifth flat we've rented here since we started our Spanish adventure back in 2004. This time we're slap bang in the centre of town, within yards of Puertas de Murcia one of the streets with the big chain clothes stores on it. We expect it to b...