Stress, Troubles and Pitfalls Of A Travelling Retiree - Part 2

Hello Silver Bloggers and Hivers!

Welcome to the 2nd Part of my journey here in Southern Spain. Well my friends, my stress did not end when we arrived home in Andalusia as there were more troubles ahead on that day we arrived at the airport. I pity my friend Sergio who picked us up from the airport in Malaga. He owns a taxi business and we´ve been friends for years and he´s been a big help ever since. In my email I forgot to tell him our flight number as well as the port the plane was coming from....I only gave the time of arrival . We had a layover in Frankfurt and he thought we were coming directly from Vienna. We used to have direct flights but this time a stopover was made in Frankfurt because we need to change the plane. He sent an e-mail asking for the flight number but I didn´t see it because my phone was turned off. Good gracious he patiently waited.

First Things First....

If you live on the mountain far away from the town, the most important thing you want to have is a car. It was the utmost thing we did when we arrived to check the status of the vehicle. Surely, the battery was empty after 22 months of not being here despite its disconnection from the slots. And so we called our Spanish friend Javier who owns a car repair shop and the following morning he came by and put in a new battery. The following week he picked-up the car for servicing preparing it for inspection at the ITUV, the Spanish inspecting authority for vehicles. We got the car sticker for 2022 and thanks to Javier´s team, the car is now in good condition.

House Interior....

I was so shocked seeing the ants on the kitchen floor and I wondered where they came from. There was no food around. There were canned goods in the pantry and everything seemed alright as they didn´t have any leakages. We eradicated the ants completely after three days with insect spray.

The Clogged Gutter...

The huge trouble had been the house drainage on the wall located at the east side of the house. We forgot to put a net around them to prevent the birds from nesting inside the drainpipe. We abruptly left Spain when the pandemic begun in January 2020. When it rained, the rainwater could not pass through and stagnated on the terrace surface which caused humidity inside the two bedrooms.

We cleaned the two ceramic pipes, we´re astonished to see the nesting materials that included bird feathers. Below image is the aftermath of the cleaned pipes. And now, we need to get a mason that would do the repair.

Change of Bank...

While we were still in Vienna, we were thinking all the time about our electricity. The German bank we have where the automatic remittances are done , closed-down the three branches near us. The trouble is, we could not reach their main office in Malaga. There were no replies to our phone calls and emails. We were nervous all the time because if the electricity bills were unpaid (bills are only for the meter rent and no consumption), we won´t have water nor energy to cook when we arrive in the house because all are run by electric power.

Thank God that was not the case. Last week we opened a new bank account in Torre del Mar and all went smoothly because we arranged the processing of all papers while we were still in Vienna.

I was so hungry because the bank processing took time until we got the IBAN , it was mid day already. We decided to go to the main office of the German bank in Malaga which is about 40 Km away from Torre del Mar.... so the best thing we did was to take a taxi since the parking at the Port Area was difficult. But before that, I went to the coffee shop vis a vis the Bank and got me Churros, best churros I have ever eaten in Southern Spain.

We had to hurry up because the German bank was closing at 1:30 PM... While inside the taxi, we ate the churros even without the chocolate sauce. The taxi waited while we were in the bank. We found out that the German bank was firing about 10K personnel worldwide. We got our account confirmation and the balance of about 2K Euros will soon be transferred to the new bank account we opened that day. This made our day!

Many thanks for reading.... until next time, see you around!

GIF by @gremayo

Original text and images are owned by me, @mers