Dawn

Dawn

Friday, January 21, 2005

For those unversed in Spanish ways, it bears repeating that matters here can be very, very local. And that personal contacts are everything. This is a prelude to the second chapter in the saga of getting a social security number and health card for my daughter.

In short, it’s quite possible that things were successfully concluded this morning, in that she’s been given additional paper and a doctor's appointment for next week. However, she reached this point in Madrid before things went very awry.

The morning got off to an excellent start. My daughter presented all yesterday’s papers, the clerk accepted her application and then immediately began to complete the next form. As ever, this demanded details of her address, down from province, through township and district to parish. Here he stopped and pointed out it wasn't in Pontevedra but in a township across the river, all of 750 metres away from the health centre. This, he said, precluded her from seeing a doctor in Pontevedra itself. Happily, my daughter had the presence of mind to say ‘Yes, but our neighbour's a doctor here and she wants to see me’. The immediate response to this was “Well, in that case, no problem whatsoever’. And the appointment was duly given. The funny thing, though, is that the clerk didn’t ask for the name of our neighbour but gave my daughter an appointment with a different doctor. So it seems that merely the muttering of the magic words – I've got a friend here – did the trick. If you’ve read yesterday’s blog, you'll know I'd been hoping this would be our trump card. I must now steel myself to use it every time things start to become problematical.

Meanwhile, we must be getting near the weekend as C. de E hits to my blog have rocketed up.

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