I have been thinking of a name for the car and I think I might have it ….Christine….yes I think the car is haunted. Oooooooooooo

I got up this morning ready for the trip to Cadiz and got in the car, turned the key….nothing!!!! I tried again and again…dead. Must be a flat battery, I thought, it had all the hallmarks. I must have left the lights on. I checked the lights and they were off and hold on there’s plenty of life in the battery. So what happened overnight????  What with the rear view mirror on the floor the other morning and now this there is definitely something a foot. What does the car get up to during the night?

Christine it is…….

"I'll drive"

I looked under the bonnet and all the leads were in situ. I was stumped. I resigned myself to another day on the internet trying to diagnose the problem. Obviously electrical so it’s a major problem.

Then on my way to the café I was thinking what it could be, what could it be, then, I had a ‘House’ moment. I just stopped and it came to me. The last thing I did was take a broken screw out that was holding up the front console. That in itself wasn’t the problem but I remember seeing that the back of the front console was pushing on a connector. I remember thinking that should not be pushing on those.

I stopped, returned to the car, found that the back of the console had in fact loosed the nut holding a couple of connectors. I tightened it up, and turned the key…..Brrrrruuuummm brruuuummmm. YES!!  Good old Christine was up and running again. 

"His Big Ends gone?"...."No,no,no you idiot"....

All the plans were back on. The trip to Cadiz was on, albeit a little later than expected, but still on. I got changed again and jumped in Christine and off we went to Cadiz. Christine although still a little jerky around town once on the open road she ghosted along well and I even got it up to 66.6mph per hour. Seems that that’s the top speed. That’s the spirit I thought.

I arrived at the department de Traffico and there was no queue to speak of, fantastic, I thought, all going well. I approached my designated window and handed over the first of my documents including the ‘new’ document from the police station.

Initially I thought the guy had a really bad cold, but then I realised he was just slow. Not slow as in precise, diligent and meticulous. But slow as in thick as two short planks.  

After every document I gave to him, he went and asked someone about it. Slowly. On one occasion he was transposing my ID number to a form he was filling out. It’s an 8 digit number with two letters. He looked at my ID number, not looked but studied, I thought hello he is taking longer to look at my number because he is going to memorise the whole thing and right it down in one go. Impressive I thought. He was using a red ball point pen, that should have given me a clue. After studying my number for well over a minute, he moved to his form and wrote down the first number, …AND THAT WAS IT! He went back to my ID number and studied it again, then another number….MY GOD how did this guy get a job. And so it continued..Until the last two numbers which, in all fairness, he managed to do in one go. Bravo.

"Have you got a pen I can borrow?"

Then the fun started

After looking at the ‘new’ Police ID document he went away again and came back and said

“This is the wrong document”….

Well that went down well with me.

“You need ‘this’ document” he showed me the same photocopy of a document that his colleague had shown me last week

“You have to go to the department of foreigners to get it” (See yesterday explanation…blog)

“I have been there and they told me that, ‘that’ document doesn’t exist anymore and that the one I just gave you is the correct one” I replied

Off he went again to ask someone about it. He came back a few minutes later…

“No you need this one” he said

“NO…that one is non-existent, it is an ex document, it ceases to be…..its dead! and that one….” I point at the new one sitting in front of him  “.. is from the Police high Commission in Jerez and is the correct one”. I said.

Off he went again. And returned two minutes later and proceeded to fill out the forms.

I’ve done it I thought. Not quite as it turned out.

 “We will investigate and see if you are allowed to change the papers” he said

“Why’s that?” I said

“We have to contact the Department for Foreigners to check” he said

“Well ‘ponte las pillas’ (this is a great Spanish saying and literally means ‘put your batteries in’, it’s a little bit like ‘pull your finger out’…one uses it quite a lot over here) and give them a call” I said

“Oh we will do that tomorrow” he said

At that point, I decided I needed a large cold beer and get out of here. Good choice.

I did pop into the department of foreigners whilst I was there (still open) and the Police station and both said what I had given them was correct and Traffico were thick bastards. They didn’t actually say that but I did.

I wondered down to Cadiz beach and saw all the beachgoers frolicking in the surf it looked great and hot. I didn’t know but you can see part of the old wall of Cadiz just under the surface of the sea about 10 meters from the beach. Makes for dangerous diving. I imagined if you didn’t know about the rocks and diving in to the sea with your mouth open laughing and smashing your teeth on the rocks. I bet that would hurt.

"What do they look like?"..."Like teeth"

I found a bar and got stuck into the beer. Ahhhhh

After an hour I jumped back into Christine and off we set back home. She went like a dream and I was back in Jerez in no time.The hooter still doesn’t work, there is a slight oil leak and I need a pair of windscreen wipers and that’s it. All fixable.