Life in Cartagena

Crisis, it's said like kreesys here, everywhere, all the time. bad news rolling in, wave after wave lapping on the shore. The news is full of it. On the radio today I've listened  to stories about Local Authorities, unable to pay their creditors, being bailed out by Central Government to stop the businesses they owe money to going belly up. In Catalonia they're going to start charging everyone a euro for every prescription. The pay of Local Government workers is being cut at the same time as working hours are being increased. Another hike in VAT is on the cards.There will be a General Strike on the 29th of this month. And so on. The news is one thing though and personal experience is another. In our house, from this week Maggie has been expected to work two hours more per week than she has been up to now. A pay cut or a work increase sliding under the wire. I teach English to a bunch of people in a local business. It's a strategic industry and, as such affected ...

An old friend sent me a message the other day enquiring after a job that I'd mentioned in an email. Just so you know I have now signed a contract to start with the Wall Street Institute in Cartagena as a teacher of English from the beginning of September this year. The place is only about 10 minutes walk from home and, I'll be doing just 15 hours a week in the first place, generally from 7 till 10 in the evening. I won't get rich from the pay but it will be nice to be out and about again. Rather an amazing thing for those of you who know me and my record at interviews. I'm not sure I've ever got a job before from an interview where there haven't been other factors working in my favour. An interview done totally in Spanish come to that.

We were just passing that rough looking bunch of houses, close to the "Open University" when my mobile phone went off. Being on the bus I was able to answer. It was SERVEF, the Employment people, the ones I'm registered as unemployed with. The bloke said they had a job offer for a teacher of English in Elche which is miles from here and a reasonable distance from Culebrón. He wasn't sure whether it was full time or part time or how much it paid but we both agreed it was worth going for an interview and taking it from there. He needed my CV and amazingly he not only seemed to understand my spelling of my email address but his message was waiting for me when I got home. As I was dealing with his email I got a text message from the same SERVEF about a job so I added a little addendum to my message asking the SERVEF man if this was the same or a different job. He replied within minutes saying it was the same job. Nothing to do then. It was about 7.30pm. This morning, ...

Maggie isn't taking to Cartagena. I think it's the sticky weather more than anything but our new flat isn't very comfy either. Part of that is the lack of those bits and bats we take for granted - pegs, kitchen bins, hooks etc. More than that though we're living in a city, not a provincial town nor the countryside, so there is the noise of traffic roaring past all the time and, well, 210,000 people packed into a smallish sort of space. Watching the telly is a bit of a juggling act between being able to hear it at all and risking the neighbours banging on the ceiling with a stick!. I'm sure it will all improve as we settle in and get ourselves organised. We shall see. Yesterday some people, a couple of young English women called Kate and Jane, interviewed me about working for them in their langauge school doing a few hours each week. The contact came through one of Maggie's teaching colleagues. It would suit me down to the ground and it sounded like straightforw...