Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Paperwork

Long gap between blog entries, I know. We were away in September and writing about sitting on the beach would be dull and braggardly. Another reason is that I've actually been working, so have, instead of wasting my time writing monologues or watching dog rescue videos on YouTube, been using the computer to work. (I say instead of, I mean as well as, of course. It's those sad doggy eyes, you see - they keep pulling me back in...)

Yes, working. The idea was to come to enjoy the Galician p&q with our feet up, having a servant fan us from a corner of the room while we waited for the valet to bring us the afternoon's first cocktail. I may be slightly overselling the likely lifestyle after leaving London behind but the general plan wasn't to work Monday to Friday any more, and we're certainly not doing that. But the extra beer money is extremely welcome, and it keeps my eye in should I ever find myself in the unthinkable position of having to let the valet go and get back to work properly.

Having an actual contract has meant I've been, finally, able to get the Spanish equivalent of an NI number. This required three trips to Ourense, about an hour's drive away, due to them twice refusing to issue me with this number because I hadn't presented the right paperwork. But I've got it now, so I've been able to register as autonomo - freelancer. More paperwork. That means I could get a social security number. Another bit of paper.

I've said to friends here that Spanish culture has a great deal to commend, but its bureaucracy is most certainly not one of them. So much is still done on paper, having to present things in person at offices of council, government, the medical centre, wherever. So much of the stuff that we take for granted as being doable on the internet in Britain just can't be done so here. You step into a bank, for example, and though you may just have checked your balance on their app, the branch is still heaving with paper files, floor to ceiling.

Some of the administration you have to get done is so time consuming, so labyrinthine, so inexplicable that even the most patient or time-rich person will give up. For anybody working full time there's little option but to place many of these routine tasks in the hands of a gestoria. These offices, literally 'management', can be found in every city, town or village of any size in Spain, and could exist only in a place where the bureaucracy is so overwhelming. They, and the asesoria, 'advisory', for higher and more complex issues, are paperwork professionals. Some functions have to go through them, but they also take on tasks that people could undertake themselves but simply don't have the time, energy or inclination, to do so, and they make a full-time living doing it.

So many of the processes remaining paper-based is exacerbated by the fact that all the agencies are separate and don't talk to each other. It's up to you to do all the legwork yourself, passing on information between them which in Britain would be shared automatically. So to get my partner's car registered in Spain, for example, was a six-month slog of paperwork. Repeated visits to various entirely separate agencies in Valladolid, some 2.5 hours' drive away, two different MOT tests after being given wrong information before the first one, and an inch-thick stack of paper which fills a ring binder of its own.

One moment in particular stands out from the odyssey that getting my personal paperwork done became. Confused by the conflicting stories we were getting about what was and wasn't necessary, we went to the police station, to the extrangeria, the bit where foreigners' affairs are dealt with. Valladoild being a large city - it was Madrid's capital early in the 17th Century - of some 400,000 people, this place was busy. Directed to do so by a police officer greeting and directing people as they arrived, we took a number from the machine and sat to wait our turn. After some time we get to our turn, take our seats at the desk, and on explaining what we want, are told we're at the wrong desk.

Which desk is it, then? Can't tell you. Ask the police officer. Right. So we go back to the police officer, tell him we just need information on the process of so-and-so, and he tells us which desk it should have been. Another number taken, another wait. We come to our turn at the desk - literally right next to the first one we'd sat at, I mean right next to it, the first agent could have just told us where we needed to be - and our next 'helper' promptly gets up and goes out for lunch as soon as we sit down.

Frustrated now, we're looking round for a bit of help. Do we have to just wait for the agent to come back? Have we wasted our time completely? Seeing our predicament, the meet-and-greet police officer sits down at our table and gives us the information we need, which we'd already told him was what we were there for, in less than thirty seconds. Leaving the building some 45 minutes after we'd entered it, we commented on how comical a circumstance it was, but neither of us were laughing.

This was some two years ago, and it's taken 'til now, with a contract of work, to be able to actually get all that stuff done. I'm very happy to have all this stuff in place now - it makes a post-Brexit future for me, as an immigrant, a much less uncertain prospect. But plan A (you know, fan bloke in corner, valet. Perhaps a butler for larger entertainment occasions, strictly on an ad hoc basis. That plan.) would have been a lot less trouble.

Life imitating comedy

I've spent the last 10 days in Spain, of which more in another post. The first seven or so of those ten I'd spent in some discomfort, let's say pain in fact, with what felt like a trapped nerve in my shoulder. Therefore, as part of a couple of days spent in Valladolid, the old capital of the country in the days of Felipe II, it was arranged that I see a physiotherapist who'd helped my girlfriend's mum when she'd been rendered all but unable to walk with a similar problem in her hip.

My girlfriend came in with me, to translate, should it be necessary. As it turned out, my pidgin Spanish (and, OK, his flawless English) saw us cope alright – she needn't have been there. That made her all the more pleased to have remained in the room given what followed. I'd had my shirt removed, of course, not a pleasant sight as it is, so I'd been variously sitting on the edge of the table, laying face down, laying face up as instructed, in such a state while he worked his arcane stuff.

About 40 minutes in, I was invited to stand up, move to the end of the table and then sit down astride it with my back to him. I'd rather lost the inhibition inherent in sitting with no shirt on because I was already starting to feel the benefit of his work, so I sat down confidently, directly facing my girlfriend at the other end of the room.

There followed what can only be described as the sit-com sound of the loud ripping of my jeans, as they split in farcical fashion, right across what would delicately be called the nether regions. I looked up in shock at my girlfriend, who was unable to breathe, absolutely helpless with mirth, mainly at the face I was evidently pulling, the memory of which it seems will sustain her for some time if she needs a laugh.

Now here's the thing. I'm a fairly reserved individual, easily given to embarrassment at my own public misfortunes. So this is something I can easily believe reddened my face considerably. But what was actually running through my mind was that I had on, basically, a pair of comedy underpants. Let me explain. We're fortunate in having a house in a beautiful part of Spain, in a small village in the Galician mountains overlooking a lake, in a region not unlike the Lake District. There are few people there, so there are few shops. The market comes twice a month and it's a major event, with everybody from the area around the village coming to shop, to exchange gossip, to sell their home-grown food.

This is where many people buy their clothes. I do not take many clothes out there when we go, preferring to travel as light as possible and keep clothes in the house, but this compels me in some cases to buy clothes at the market. Carnaby Street it ain't. The clothes are not there to satisfy the whims of the fashion conscious. I had been unable to buy my preferred plain, black boxer shorts, so had instead assembled a stock of garish, multi-linear, multi-coloured boxer shorts of varying degrees of tastelessness, because that's pretty much all there's been available out there when the market has come.

Therefore, on leaving the physio's premises, I had to walk the busy streets of Valladolid with my coat held in front of my body to hide my shame, and find a menswear supplier who could outfit me with replacement trousers.

I shall, I think, check in a bag next time we go and, take a stock of black clothes out there with me. I will, after all, have to hold a funeral for my stone-dead pride anyway.