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 ...

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...