Dawn

Dawn

Monday, March 06, 2017

Pontevedra Pensées: 6.3.17

Here's a bit of comforting news for we expats here in Spain. I wonder what the criteria are and how they're weighted.

When I was about to switch on the washing machine at midday yesterday, I vaguely recalled reading that, here in Spain (assuming anyone understands anything about how your bill is calculated), what you pay for your electricity depends on the price in the energy market at the time you consume it. So, the advice was to use it at non-peak hours, when the demand would be less and the price lower. Maybe. Anyway, back in the UK I had two meters, one for peak periods and one for off-peak periods but I doubt they do that any more there. The question is . . . Can anyone in Spain or Galicia confirm that one benefits from using machines at, say, midnight? Or is that a peak hour in Spain? If so, when isn't? 4pm??

Talking of prices . . . . That old bugbear – car insurance in Pontevedra province. Not, it seems, the highest in Spain. But almost. If a driver lives in Pontevedra, the premium would come out at a typical €439 a year for third-party cover - €229 more than the same policy for the same driver living in the southern Aragón province of Teruel, where motor insurance is the cheapest in the whole of Spain. Click here for more on this. But not for an explanation of why we are shafted.

And here's another question for those living in Spain – Ever heard of Amazon Premium? No, neither had I until I saw a €20 debit to my credit card this morning. As of now, I can find no evidence that I signed up for this. 

When it comes to speaking Welsh, there's a major divide  between North and South Wales. In the former, it's widespread – as I know from spending many summer holidays there – but in the anglicised latter much less so. Need I say that the Welsh nationalists – understandably – want to change this and have made the learning of the language - in various degrees - compulsory throughout the country. Even for the kids of those (Welsh) parents who don't want this for them. Their only way to stop this is to vote in the party who says they'll reverse the law. And then the issue of language will become a political potato for this party. And things will go backwards and forwards every 5 to 10 years. Just as it does here in Galicia. One wonders how the kids gain from this.

A final question . . . Do young un-castrated cats disappear for days on end? I'm a bit annoyed that - after I went to the trouble of putting in a cat door for the one who adopted me months ago – he now seems to have pissed off.

Finally . . . This is a foto of the window of the supermarket in which last year I used to buy the turrón they had left over from Xmas 2015. It cost either €1.80 or €1.90, depending on the wind. But now I see it's only €1.00. So, which Xmas is this lot left over from, I ask myself.

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