Spontaneous adventures at a DIY store

Apologies for not updating this as much as I’d like – perhaps a little refreshing? Each day has been taken up by DIY right into the night, so not exactly the usual humorous happenings. With the exception of yesterday. As it’s the bank holiday, it’s unspoken law to spend four days feng shuing your home.

8:30am: “I’m waking you up because I have our day planned and I don’t want you sleeping in until noon. Honey? Are you listening to me? Let me open the blinds…” *blinding stream of sunlight burns hole in my face*

10:00am: arrived at the DIY store (such fun) to buy the entire store. Stocked up on necessities for the weekend. Actually, this wasn’t quite the ‘I have a list so let’s just pop in, get what we need and leave, it’ll only take ten minutes’ trip I was expecting. First stop? The paint. Excruciating is a word I use infrequently, however I feel it sums up this experience perfectly. Word of warning; don’t ever hand Mother a colour chart.  Approaching Miguel-Angel, Mother requests his assistance in explaining exactly what kind of paint there is, what exactly is in these paints, which brand is considered the premium brand (crucial, obviously) and finally “do you have one of those things with all the colours on them?”.

11:30am: literally one entire hour later Mother has eliminated 286 cards and is pondering over the final three. They all look completely the same.

11:50am: “hmm, I’m just not sure – this one has more of a rose-tint doesn’t it, darling?”

“It’s the same as the first one. They are the same colour. Please just pick one.”

“It has to be right, you know? *turns to Miguel* what do you think?”

12:10pm: dragged Mother away from the paint section (paint pot in hand, thankfully) and headed to the screws and fixings. This DIY store has smartly assigned a knowledgeable sales assistant to each department – therefore avoiding the British; “I dunno about shower heads you’ll have to ask Dave” scenarios. Browsing through the pick-n-mix nails and Mother decides help is most definitely needed. I suggest asking the nice young girl four feet away but Mother looks at me in horror, hisses “no!” and not-so-subtly slides all the way to the end of the aisle to grab young, tanned Fernando. As it happens, Fernando was gay.

14:00pm: more house-y shopping – rugs this time. With little optimism we slump over to the rug section of a homeware store and suddenly; “OH MY GOD! I FOUND IT I’M ONE HUNDRED PERCENT THIS ONE’S RIGHT OMG HONEY THIS IS THE ONE!”

14:05pm: a pleasant conversation with Maria, the sales assistant. “I’d like to buy this rug please!”

“Ok, yes. Mañana?”

“No, today please. I want to take it home today”

“Ah, we can’t do that. We have none left”

“Oh rats. Well alright, I guess I’ll have to have the display one.”

“Perdona?”

“I’ll take this one”

“No you can’t have this one madam”

“Why not?!”

“We need for stock check madam… storage?”

*we embark on a pen to paper translation*

We then attempt to order the rug. Not as easy as you’d think; “Si, claro! But mañana.”

“I don’t want it mañana, I want it today.”

“We cannot unfortunately have orders today, I’m sorry”

“What? No, no, this won’t do. I’ll take this one on the wall. It’s quite simple, Maria. You just count one less. You see? I’ve taken this one, so there’s one less. Surely it’s better for the store to sell me one *dramatic hand gestures again* than for it to sit in the stock room just to be counted?! Just count one less! You understand, yes?”

“Uhh –“

“This is precisely why Spain is in a crisis!”

“Haha, yes – I know, I know!” (Poor Maria’s cheeks were turning rosa the longer this went on but she remained lovely and polite)

“Can you please ask your manager to let me take this rug? I will get it myself. Where are the step ladders? I shall unhook it myself.”

Quite a long time later Maria comes back carrying a set of ladders with a beaming smile (showing entire relief) and Mother turns to me with an extraordinarily smug look on her face. We now have the rug. Of course.

16:00pm: mattress hunting, with the help of Jose. Trying every single bed in the store was barely a challenge for Mother and she continued to experiment in the second bed store. However it became siesta time and regrettably she found the best bed right in the window. Yes, Mother took a short siesta in the display window.

19:00pm: So the quick morning of collecting supplies turned out to be a day. Essential stop at Alcampo for a bottle of wine (or three) before finally heading home. At the checkout and we’re loading the conveyer belt with our shopping when suddenly a strike of bad luck; the conveyer belt jerks forward and a bottle of wine rolls towards the edge… and smashes straight onto the floor, magically missing the cashier’s head. I turn to Mother but perhaps a second too late as I see she has already scooted off for a replacement bottle.

So I guess you could say it was a productive day all around? 

Charlotte-Elizabeth xoxo

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Pt 1.

They say bad things come in threes. Well, not in Spain it would seem. Actually, bad things come in barrels of 3000. Of course, you’re all saying; “but you’re in Spain! It’s sunny – enjoy it!” However, Spain is not the holiday destination you imagine. It is, in fact, a disguised third world country. We have yet to complete the simplest of tasks hassle-free. I couldn’t bear to start at the very beginning (it would take a lot of typing and a lot of reading) but I shall begin at Monday – the day we moved into the new apartment.

Up bright and early to meet Britannia Removals and watched as they unloaded our belongings. Only two thirds though. They split our consignment. So many of our things are quite possibly floating about in Cuba for all we know. Including Mother’s very important computer containing vital fancy shmancy work documents. So plenty of angry phone calls have been overheard by our now-nervous, new neighbours. “Yes madam, I understand – it’s completely our fault… although have you perhaps considered that there is currently six inches of snow in the UK so…”

Problem number two begins at our highly-frequented DIY store. All our lights had to be newly fitted (because Spain’s policy entitles the builders to leave wires hanging from the ceiling and no lighting arrangements… “That’s normal in Spain”. This country is clearly backwards but we paddle on, optimistic. (I must mention that we were utterly prepared for snags like this, however these ‘snags’ are actually whopping great black holes in unexpected places.) Spending several hours (half a day) discussing light fittings with the expert and we settle for the most simple, discreet fixtures – ‘safe’ being the best, let’s not complicate matters with fans and whistles. The lights arrive home, along with the installer. Oh dear – the lovely man at the store has wrongly informed us that the spotlights shine warm amarillo. In fact, a harsh blue laser beams from the ceiling like a UFO. No worries, we shall just simply remove the bulbs and exchange them (bulb removal again more difficult than usual; wonky springs, terrible Spanish connections and complicated metal sticks?!) Oh no, you can’t return the lights without the box. Right, we shall have to purchase the correct bulbs ourselves and balance on ladders at midnight in the pitch black trying to assemble a crazy contraption on the ceiling. “Ah, it’s alright! Mañana, mañana! Sit in the sun! Have some paella, Señoritas!”

More general functioning problems. Mainly, that we can’t actually function. All of our kitchen utensils are still in a foreign country on a truck somewhere mingling with other people’s furniture. What on earth should we do?! Ok. Compensation from Britannia. We shall need to either eat out or purchase knives, forks, spoons, a chopping board, chopping knives, cups, glasses, plates, bowls, pots, pans, trays, a can opener, scissors… “We’ll give you £50 for the inconvenience. Terribly sorry.” Good, that’ll get us a tenth of the way to civilisation, thank you. Right, we’ll have frozen meals then. It won’t be for long. So we totter home with our delightful Spanish meals and switch on the oven. Suddenly it’s pitch black. Good, the oven has blown the electrics. Because Spain cannot build a Lego Darth Vader so there’s really no hope for any sort of decent construction. Alright, we’ll use this nice new microwave oven. Nope. It turns out they’ve labelled it incorrectly (really?!) – it’s actually a microwave/grill. So we’ll just microwave the frozen pizza and hope we don’t die of food poisoning? Yes. 60 seconds later we’re in complete darkness again. The microwave has tripped the electricity too. Excellent. Giving up on nutrition we retire to sleep at 1am (this works).

Have I mentioned the internet and the complete mess the Spanish have made of it? Quite possibly. It’s taken us weeks of figuring out how to even find internet but eventually we consulted the most popular provider. Aha! A problem! They can’t find our address on the system. Our home doesn’t exist, apparently. Spain creates an address that is so, utterly complicated for no reason at all. Firstly, our postcode covers half the country. Secondly, we don’t actually live on the road our address states. Thirdly, there are several ‘No.4’s on this street.

More exciting issues; the Sahara sand storm has coated our red car in a delightful terracotta dust. So we opt for a car wash while we visit the DIY store (again). One hour later we return to a broken hydraulic hinge. “No, no! Not us… Is coincidence!” Also, brake light is broken. An extraordinarily long process ensued, arguments and a lot of questionable translation; “Honey! Quickly! What is this man saying?! I DON’T UNDERSTAND – NO COMPRENDO! Oh god, tell the man they’ve broken my car! – NO ES COINCIDENCE! YOU BREAK CAR!”

Yesterday we had the lovely locksmith install bolts on the windows because apparently gates, grills, alarms and metal blinds are not quite enough. So we joined our neighbours and ventured into the highest security (so now it’s become quite a lengthy process to even leave the house). Lovely ex-army Dave steps in with his tools. Actually, before any of us were able to ‘step in’ he had to magically unlock our door with no keys as we skilfully managed to lock ourselves out. Onto the bolts. Crackkkk. Ah, Dave has cracked the glass doors. Why not add that to our to-do list? Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle in the kitchen and all of a sudden Dave looks up at the lights and his hand edges towards the ceiling… “DON’T TOUCH THOSE!!!!” shrieks Mother but it’s sadly too late and disaster strikes again. The precariously placed spring bounces off and the spotlight gleefully bungees out of the ceiling. “Cor blimey, this place is a death trap, eh?!” (Liverpudlian – although Mother made the almighty sin of suggesting he was from Manchester. I backed away.)

Many more obstacles to overcome and then rant about on here (naturally) but perhaps I shall save them for Pt 2? Such fun :p

Medical mayhem

An involuntary trip to the hospital. Apparently Europe’s most advanced hospital. I woke up to a loud bang and “HELP! HELP! HELP!” resonating from Mother’s bedroom; she had slipped and fallen in the shower – her head creating a smashed dent in the tiles (which obviously provoked a wave of nausea for me, delightful drama at 8am). Rushed to the hospital with the helping hand of our neighbour, who seems to have been our guardian angel since we arrived. Terrifying experience trying to suppress the panic within me whilst communicating with the Spanish-English nurses but managed to get Mother seen quickly. The health service in Spain is extremely efficient, making hospitals in England a chaotic riot in comparison. The worry passed as I noted Mother’s attempt to continue working from the waiting room, indicating that she was still conscious and hadn’t yet gone completely loopy; “Oh god, I need to ring that man from that company! Honey, get my phone will you? I must talk to him, it’s 9:30am over there! They’ve started work already! For god’s sake I need to work I don’t have time for this nonsense!”