We applied for my wife’s residence permit for Spain on February 14th. 2017, although we had been working on it for a year before that. When we left Thailand in May 2016, the Spanish Embassy had assured us that we had all the paperwork we needed for my wife to obtain her five-year residency card.
So, we set off for Spain. Our tactic was for me to get my residency permit first, as that would be easy for a Brit, and sure enough, I did get mine, although it took eleven weeks. My wife was told that she had the wrong visa (a visitor’s visa, not one declaring that she was the wife of an EU citizen).
So, we returned to Thailand, spent five months getting the correct papers, translations and visa and came back to Spain in January, as I said above.
The wait has been horrific! There is no more we can do but wait, but in a way, that is the problem. Now, the waiting is almost over. The five-year residence permit, in the form of a bio-metric card will be ready for collection sometime ‘after August 24th.’.
However, the stress that we have been trying so hard not to let each other see is getting to us. I feel really ill and can hardly walk from backache, and my wife has lost ten kilos. She is pretending to be pleased that she has lost the weight, and I’m sure that she is, but I wish that she had lost it through dieting or exercising, not from worry.
She is now insisting that we check the police station for her permit on Tuesday – she cannot wait until Thursday. That proves to me that she is anxious about it, but we will go and look, despite the fact that it is a thirty-minute walk and I don’t know whether I can do it.
Anything to stop this agonising waiting though.
** UPDATE ** My wife received her five-year residency permit on the Tuesday – Whoopee for women’s intuition 🙂
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I have never noticed a lot of Belize visitors to this blog before. In fact, I can’t remember ever having seen any reference to Belize in my logs before.
However, in the first twelve days of October, people from Belize have become my third most active readers after Americans and the British!
The stats for the first twelve days are as follows:
01] United States us 21,581
02] Great Britain gb 6,066
03] Belize bz 2,995
04] Germany de 2,538
05] Slovak Republic sk 2,041
06] France fr 1,299
07] Russian Federation ru 853
08] Ukraine ua 784
09] Spain es 754
10] Thailand th 252
Normally, Spain is number three.
Strange behaviour, but you are welcome, my new Belize visitors, keep it up!
It was Liverpool vs Real Madrid in some football cup final or other in our local pub in Fuengirola this evening. Well, I suppose it was in nearly everybody’s local too. I am not really into football. However, many of my friends are at various levels from professional to fanatic, so I try to take an interest in the most important games.
People started to arrive early to ensure a good seat and the tension was rising ever higher as it filled. Normally, the clientele is predominantly British and Spanish, but this night it was French and Spanish, although they were split fairly evenly in their support. However, more people seemed to be talking about the game than watching it as far as I could see.
There was never a hint of animosity, even though the noise level was quite deafening once the game got going. By the second half, I think that everyone was supporting the Spanish team as I didn’t notice any sad faces when the game was over.
Football and Me
The Liverpool vs Real Madrid match was the first football match that I remember watching in the last five years, so, as usual, I didn’t really know what was going on. However, I do enjoy the atmosphere, and the Spanish really love their sport, so watching any football game in Spain is a flight of emotion. There were fans of all ages and both sexes in the bar and everybody was shouting their team on.
Free food and cheap drinks ensured that everybody had a wonderful time. I would be watching again, but it was the last game of the season, so I’m told. It seems that I catch on too slowly.
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Mariscal and Abogados phoned me today, or to say it correctly, Mariscal y Abogados, since I am in Spain. By the way, ‘mariscal’ means ‘marshal’ and ‘abogados’ means ‘solicitors’ (‘y’ is Spanish for ‘and’). Anyway, I had been looking on line for advice on Spanish employment law, came across the above named firm and left them a message.
You see, I suspect that my wife’s ex-employer has been taking advantage of her. This would be easily done since she is Thai and I am British and neither of us know anything about the law here.
I suspect that many unscrupulous employers take advantage of foreign workers because they don’t know the law, don’t have money to use the law and or are frightened to cause a stir.
However, I am European, if not Spanish, and have a sense of what is an what is not legal in Europe.
My suspicions were aroused when it took six weeks to get her contract of employment, and it expired days after she received it. She was never told how much or when she would be paid either.
You can think that you would not have started work under those conditions, but we were desperate… on our bones.
It was when they kept her on for another month and paid her in dribs and drabs that I went on line.
I found Mariscal y Abogados, an international company of lawyers, and there was a free questions and answers facility. I entered my story and thought nothing more about it.
Then today, I got that call.
A very pleasant young man, who spoke perfect English, talked me through my concerns and recommended a course of action. He even agreed to call me back later to see whether my wife had been laid off correctly.
He put my mind at ease with helpful advice, and I am very grateful for that. It can be overwhelming being a foreigner.
Anyway, if you have a problem and cannot see a way out, you could do a lot worse than speak to Mariscal y Abogados.
By the way, this is a completely voluntary account of my experience with Mariscal and Abogados
For those of you who have been following the eighteen-month epic story of our, and in particular, my Thai wife’s, quest for residency in Spain, we had to go to the police station again today for what I thought was the final time. Just to fill in quickly for those of you with a bad memory or those who just came in on this saga:
We have already:
1) satisfied the Spanish Embassy in Bangkok with all the proof that ‘anyone in Europe could ever expect’ (their words)
2) satisfied the police in Malaga with a load more papers and
3) satisfied the local ‘National Police’ in Fuengirola, where we live with seven more sets of papers including photos and proof of payment of the fee of €10.30. At least, the delivery of these last papers and the donation of fingerprints, were the point of today’s visit.
Monday is the worst day to visit official places, but we had been told to be there on Monday, for an appointment between ten thirty and noon. We arrived at ten thirty-three and there were a hundred people in a queue, which I knew from previous visits was unlikely to be hours – we had been where those poor sods were several times over the past year, but we had progressed to a different level.
So, I tried to ask what I had to do. After all, I knew that I had an appointment.
The first guard pointed at a counter on the wall and told me to take a ticket, but when I asked him where from, he didn’t know. I asked two more, but they didn’t speak English. I could see people being fingerprinted in a room, so guessed that we had to be in there, but when I entered, I was told to get out.
After thirty minutes, someone took pity on me, and said that if I had an appointment, then I already had a number. I found it, but it was 29 and they were dealing with number 33.
I entered the fingerprinting room again with my number, but was told to get out again. The helpful desk sergeant from before told me that I was now number 40, so, happy at last, we sat down and awaited our new turn.
It came forty-five minutes later and we entered the fingerprinting room again, but legitimately this time. Everything was going well as he checked our papers, and then he said something I didn’t understand, but he bundled us our papers and led us out of the door to a woman who spoke English.
‘The price of the Spanish Residency card has gone up’, she said.
‘Ok,’ I asked bewildered, ‘by how much? I’ll pay it now’.
“Eleven cents,” she replied smiling, “but we do not take money here you have to go to a bank’. She scribbled something in Spanish on a piece of paper, saying, ‘Give this to the printers a few doors down, they will know what to do. Take the paper from them to the bank, pay it and report back here to your happy policemen before twelve. Next!’
I looked at my phone, it was eleven twenty, and the nearest bank was ten minutes walk. We hurried to the printers, but it was ‘closed for holidays’. We went to my friendly estate agent, George, but he couldn’t seem to get it printed. We went as fast as I can to our solicitor’s, and she printed out the form for us. Then it was off to the bank which was now between us and the police station. They charged us €10.30 to pay the eleven cents, and Neem, my wife, had to run to the police station leaving me to catch her up.
When I arrived, they were almost done. ‘It’s funny,’ laughed the woman from before… it happens every year!’ I didn’t think it was funny at all. ‘Still, it’s all over now. Your wife can pick up her card some time after 45 days… between one and two pm. Bye-bye’.
This might not sound like a big deal to you, but if we had missed today’s appointment, we wouldn’t have got another appointment for at least three weeks and probably six, by which time some of our papers might have expired.
Neem is now in the clear and we are so grateful for that.
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Update: it rained heavily from Thursday evening until late Saturday night, so we didn’t leave our apartment for two days. This morning, I was aroused from my zombie-like state, induced by my daily advertising routine, by a passing band, so we went outside to see what was ascertaining. It was part of the Dutch contingent of the Fair of the Peoples in Fuengirola, so we followed it up onto the market place where the fair is being held.
It was about a hundred times busier than when we were there on Thursday afternoon!
My wife loves that sort of thing – music of different kinds blaring from every doorway, hundreds of smells of different cuisines, and thousands of people milling around seemingly lost, because most people were in small groups that took three steps forward, two steps backward and then stopped suddenly to debate for five minutes where to go next.
In an effort to give my wife something physical to remember the fair by, I suggested she try a bratwurstfrom the German site.The bratwurst kiosk was outside the bar, so we took a place at one of the counters. There was about 45 foot of selling counter and it was three-four people deep. There were two guys cooking hundreds of sausages at two six-foot diameter woks or skillets, two others opening boxes of bread rolls and sausages and about four more serving, and still they could not keep up with the demand. It was incredible, but the six or seven-inch bratwurst in eight-inch rolls were such good value at 4€ that they could have doubled their sales team and still not have been able to cope.
We waited fifteen minutes and left – sadly without having come even close to being served.
It was a nightmare for me. I cannot understand how any living beings except swarming insects, pick-pockets or drunken teenage boys can find any pleasure in it.
However, that is my problem, and I wish for my wife’s sake that I was able to enjoy it with her, because she has no-one else here to go with, but it is beyond me. I get angry and stroppy – it is a failing, I know, and I am trying to deal with it.
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Circumstances have forced us to move again! That will be five different places in less than six months in Fuengirola! It is becoming tedious, but let’s hope that this will be our last move for the foreseeable future.
We have had to move again because the rent where we are now will rise to 2,000€ a month in July (and 2,500€ in August), but also because we can’t register with the council if the contract on our apartment is for less than six months, and no registration means no right to residency for my wife, meaning that she would be deported in a few weeks.
Getting a residency permit for a spouse from outside Europe is so difficult… far too difficult, unless you have money. It seems that you are only allowed to marry the one you love if you can afford it. Poor people are supposed to choose domestic spouses, foreign ones are only for the wealthy!
One law for them and another one for us…
Yet, when I tell people this, there are very, very few who are aware of the problem. Most people think that you can just take your beloved home. Unfortunately, that is very far from the truth for most people. The government’s response is that you have to be earning at least the average wage, about £25,000, to be able to bring your spouse into Britain to live with you, but we all know that most people earn far less than £25k!
It is a fantasy figure, conjured up to make successive governments look good. Try cutting out everyone who earns more than £50,000 or even £75,000 a year. What would the average be then? £15,000? £16,000?
Most people would not qualify, that is for sure!
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We awoke at nine a.m. on St. David’s Day 2017, March 1st., in Fuengirola, Spain. It had been a late night saying ‘Goodbye’ to friends, but we had to get up, finish our packing and leave the luxury apartment as per our contract. Neither of us were in the mood for this, but the lure of an even better, three-bed-roomed penthouse suite for the same price was attractive. We hadn’t seen it yet, but we had to be in the estate agent’s office by noon..
We made it on time exhausted with all our luggage; paid the next month’s rent and handed over our keys. We were passed another set of keys, and a contract to sign.
‘The penthouse suite is not ready yet – the walls are still wet and mouldy, but we have another three-bedder for you. Sorry. However, it is perfect for a writer – very quiet’.
So, we set off for the new apartment, which was not far, feeling rather cheated out of the luxury, front-line penthouse that we had been looking forward to with great excitement for the past four weeks.
It turned out to be a nice, typically Spanish townhouse apartment on the first floor. It is large-ish and with two extra bedrooms that we have no use for. There is no Internet and no foreign-language TV, but it is only a hundred metres from the sea. It is quite a significant downgrade and disappointment really, and not at all quiet – there is renovation work going on all around us. I will never trust an estate agent again, AND we have to move out on June 30th with nowhere else to go!.
Look for a review of AMC Inmobiliaria (estate agency) elsewhere on this blog.
That afternoon, we went exploring the ‘new area’. We are a hundred metres from a brilliant, local, Spanish restaurant-cafe-bar, that is cheap and comes with Wi-Fi. It is a great compensation, so we had lunch there and went ‘home’.
In the evening, we went out again looking for a bar that might be sending out the Wi-Fi signal called ‘Costa del Sur’. Our first find was an Irish bar, but they didn’t have Internet, so we had a pint, picked up some local knowledge and moved on. One of the things we learned was that an English bar nearby was having a Welsh night for St. David’s Day, so we moved over there, promising to return to watch the Wales-Ireland rugby match on Saturday.
The English bar, Her Majesty’s was friendly and we met lots of expats, two of whom, a Welsh couple, had produced a buffet of British food with a Welsh bias, including bara brith and Welsh cakes. My wife and I were impressed and had a great time there although Neem was dog-tired after lugging one of our bags that morning. Halfway home, I realised that I no longer had my writing pack, which I take everywhere with me, but still often lose.
I wanted to return to Her Majesty’s to look, but Neem suggested checking the Irish Bar first, although it wasn’t the closer of the two.
However, she was right, as usual, and after retrieving my writing case we went home.
Our St. David’s Day 2017, had started off in a disappointing manner, but by the end of the day, we had found three new local establishments, which were full of friendly people, who would make the following few months more enjoyable.
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The Sultan Kebab shop is situated in Calle Jacinto Benavente, which is the street running to the beach opposite the bus station in Fuengirola, but is at the beach end, fifty metres from beach road, opposite the Zig-Zag Bar, which I have written about elsewhere on this blog.
The lady we see working there most often is named Couta, and she is from Morocco. She is one of the most friendly Arab women that I have ever met – she took to my wife instantly, although they do not speak each other’s language.
They try to get by in English and have fun doing that, but she taught me some Moroccan (Arabic?) too.
‘Beslemma’, which means something like ‘Until the next time’.
The Sultan Kebab does not offer a lot of choice, but we have tried the beef and the chicken kebabs and they were large and filling. The best kebabs I have ever eaten, and far better than the Turkish kebabs back home, which seem to be made from pressed meat, perhaps lamb, that more resembles reclaimed scraps.
If you are staying in Fuengirola, you could do a lot worse than have an evening out in the Zig-Zag bar, and then cross the road to buy a couple of kebabs to take home.
If you do, tell Couta that you read about The Sultan Kebab on this website.
The Sultan Kebab Shop, Calle Jacinto Benavente, Fuengirola.
I know that one is supposed to say, and with much justification, that the happiest day of one’s life was the day they got married or had a child, the latter of which I have never experienced, but the happiest day of my life was yesterday and I will tell you why, if you will bear with me.
I got married to a Thai lady eight years ago, although we lived together in her remote village in Thailand for four years before that, and ever since the day that we moved in with each other, I have worried about us being split up by our governments through their use of visas, which are used to give privilege to people with money. For those of you who have never needed a long-term visa, the first or second question one is asked is about finances.
As an unknown full-time writer, I always knew that one day my savings would run out and my visa in Thailand would no longer be extended. Moving to Britain was also problematic, as for a spouse from outside the European Community to quantify for a residence visa there, the spouse has to be earning at least £25,000 per annum, which excludes most writers, including myself.
EU Directive 38 is a lifeline in this respect, but it is not an easy route to follow and with Britain’s exit from the EU looming, it would soon no longer be an option.
However, it was the only hope we had so we went for it.
I obtained my ‘residencia’ in Spain last year, but my wife’s visa expired before we could apply for hers, so we had to return to Thailand. We returned to Spain this year to try again. We had done a lot of leg-work in Thailand before coming back, but I was still not confident, because people told us their experiences and what we would need to qualify for my wife’s residencia.
We went to our appointment with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Malaga yesterday. We sat waiting for our turn with no expectation of success because, despite the two kilos of paperwork I had with me, I did not have everything that people had told me we needed.
I told my wife and myself not to get our hopes up, but that by the end of the day, we would know exactly what we did need. That was enough for us, another step forward, however small it be.
After waiting an hour for our turn and sitting through a twenty-minute interview, the man handed my wife two sheets of paper. He didn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Spanish, but he indicated that the session was over. We didn’t understand, but he persevered and pointed out my wife’s NIE on the letter, which gives her the right to stay and work in Spain.
I was stunned – I just could not believe it.
“How about residency?” I asked cheekily.
“This is residency too”, he tried to explain. I could see that he was becoming frustrated, so I wished him a happy St. Valentine’s Day, which it was, he smiled, and we left quickly.
A friend read the letter just now and confirmed that my wife has the right to live, work and reside in Spain in perpetuity (almost).
I am over the Moon! All my fears and nightmares of twelve years have vanished, although we still have to get her the same privilege in the UK, but we have crossed the widest river now, and the likelihood that we will be parted by visas is minimal now.
That is why yesterday was the happiest day of my life!
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We had been in Fuengirola, on the Costa del Sol in Spain, for three weeks and in our fantastic apartment for half of that time and we were loving it. However, it was time to presson with our primary task of getting my wife, Neem, her residency papers. So, we went to the National Police station to find out how to go about it.
Apparently, the process starts in Malaga for non-EU citizens, so we went to a friendly bar near our tower block, the Zig Zag, to ask someone to make the call for an appointment for us. Neem’s phone was dead, and our friend’s was broken! So, at one thirty, Neem went to charge her phone for fifteen minutes, as almost everything stops here at two pm. She returned at one fifty-six, and we were told to phone back another day.
We tried to use the online appointment app, but it wouldn’t accept Neem’s passport number.
The following morning, at ten thirty, we started out for the Zig Zag Bar to try again. The second I pulled the apartment door closed behind us and heard the latch click, I knew that something was wrong, but I held my hand out for the key to lock the door anyway.
“Didn’t you take it out of the lock?” asked Neem.
“No, didn’t you?” I replied, “I saw you open the door with it”.
“No, I left it for you… you always lock the door”.
We were locked out!
So, we walked the fifty metres to the Zig Zag to make the appointment with the police and think. Rose, the manager of the bar, served us and asked for Neem’s phone to make the call. Neem rumaged in her bag, and looked up forlornly.
“It’s in the apartment”, she whispered.
We walked around to the letting agent and explained the situation. They phoned the landlord, who luckily lived nearby and she had a spare key. Everyone was happy, but i still had my reservations – after all, the key was in the lock.
We tried the spare, and the landlord even came with us, but it was no good. We were well and truly locked out in Fuengirola, a town where we knew nobody!
“Sorry, I cannot help you…” said the landlord, but she did phone the letting agent for us. The woman there who had been so helpful thirty minutes before, said, “Sorry, but i have done all I can. This is your problem not ours”.
We were locked out of our apartment in a country where we had no friends, could not speak the language, and had no phone.
We returned to the Zig Zag bar for a beer and another think. I looked at the clock on the wall: it was two oh three on Friday, and here many small businesses do not reopen after the siesta on Friday – it is the start of the weekend!
This was rapidly becoming very serious, which usually means very expensive.
A beer did the trick and I remembered a company nearby called Bars in the Sun, where a friend had worked, so we walked the thirty metres to it, and I explained our predicament. The two owners listened sympathetically and then phoned a subcontractor called Steve. He couldn’t get to us until five, but he knew the Zig Zag, so we arranged to meet there, which was good news for us, as it was starting to get cold and we had dressed for a whole day out. We had expected to be back home within the hour.
Steve arrived on time, so i took him and his mate to the apartment. Both of them tried every which way to get in, but the lock was very secure. They did, however, notice a sticker from a Spanish locksmith on our lock, something we had all missed before.
When i said that we didn’t have a phone, they rang the number for me, but it was now after five on Friday evening and the number was a land line. The chances were slim… very slim.
Eventually, the locksmith picked up and arranged to meet us at seven, but he would not look for us in the Zig Zag; he insisted on meeting us outside the apartment block. I asked Steve for the bill, but he refused to take any money. I offered a few beers, but they refused that too. If you need a good tradesman on the Costa del Sol, phone Steve, he’s a thoroughly nice guy and very competent tradesman, according to the guys at Bars in the Sun.
(Further details below).
Anyway, at six fifty, we left the bar to stand on the pavement outside our apartment block in the cold, rain and darkness. It was bitter. We were dressed in short sleeves, while everyone else wore gloves, hats and jackets or coats. We hugged each other for warmth, as passers-by eyed us suspiciously.
Thirty minutes later, when a man asked us if we were the ones locked out of our apartment, it seemed like a pointless question, but what else could he ask. We were shivering badly by now.
We hurried up gto our floor, and were inside within three minutes.
“The lock is broken”, he said in fairly good English. “There is a fifty-fifty chance that you will not be able to get back in, every time you lock the door”. He called the landlady to explain the broken lock, but she wasn’t interested. The bill was eighty Euros, but Steve had suggested that the cost would be a hundred and twenty, and we were just glad to be back in the warm again, so we paid it gratefully. However, our day was not over yet.
We returned to the Zig Zag bar to thank them for all the help and support they had given us, and have a brandy and coffee to warm up.
Needless to say, it was great to be back in our apartment thirty minutes later, and now, two days later, we still haven’t left the place again yet – I even missed the Wales v England rugby game on Saturday!
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All the best,
Owen
Podcast: Locked Out in Fuengirola
Zig Zag Bar: Calle Jacinto Benahavente, Fuengirola (the street between the bus station and the beach)
We arrived at our hotel, the Reyesol, Calle Marbella, in Fuengirola at ten past midnight on Saturday. I had been hoping for a beer when we arrived, since leaving my sister-in-law’s place in Bangkok at six a.m. the previous morning. However, I was out of luck – everything had closed between eleven thirty and midnight.
The receptionist offered to find me a tin of Coke, but I decided I would prefer sleep. My wife was dog-tired anyway, and only wanted to go to bed.
The Reyesol is comfortable, well-situated, and includes an excellent cold breakfast, after which we went flat-hunting. Last year, we had been told that the summer was the wrong time to look for accommodation, and we were told exactly the same this time, although it is January. ‘Business is three times heavier than usual!’ estate agents told us wherever we went.
Despite that, we did find one that suited us at Kasa Coast, but they refused to answer my text messages and emails confirming the deal. So, we walked up there this morning, only to be told that we could have the flat, ‘if my employer would guarantee my job’. I told them that I am a writer of novels and have no boss. They shook their heads. ‘Do you receive a pension?’, asked one of them. ‘No, too young’, I replied. ‘Can you pay a year’s rent up front?’ asked another. ‘I could, but I’m not prepared to’, I answered.
They promised to call me later, but haven’t.
On our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags, as our stay there could not be extended either, we called in to see an estate agent called George, next door to the Reyesol. He had nothing either, but he phoned around his competitors and found a hopeful. That turned into reality, and we just secured the nicest apartment I have ever been in in Spain for five hundred a month all in!
We can stay there until July when the price quadruples and then quintuples in August as the property is almost on the beach (15 metres). However, another, brand-new penthouse apartment comes free on March 1st (St. David’s Day), and we can have that for a year at four fifty a month plus bills. It is front line and on the fourteenth floor.
We can move in today too, but in a panic last night, I booked into a hotel for three nights, which I now have to honour. A small price to pay for peace of mind, I suppose, but the flat is luxurious compared to the hotel.
So, our first five days in Fuengirola started off disappointing, then became hopeful, but only to be dashed by unreasonable requirements from the estate agents and landlords, but the lovely George went that extra mile for us and got us the best deal I have ever been offered in Spain, because he was willing to take a chance on me and his friends trusted his judgement.
Hallelujah for sensible people!
If you are looking for somewhere to stay on the Costa del Sol, you can contact George here:
Yesterday, we received an email from the Spanish Embassy to say that my wife’s passport was ‘ready for collection’. No mention of whether she had been granted a visa or not. Last year, this caused us considerable concern for twenty-four hours until we picked it up, but this year I simply told my wife that her visa was ready, because she gets very worried about things like that.
So, at nine thirty, after the morning rush hour in Bangkok, we embarked on the two-hour taxi ride to the Spanish Embassy, which is located in a swish, modern building called Lake Rajida – the rush hour is never quite over in Bangkok.
When we got to the Spanish Embassy on the twenty-third floor, there was only a young woman and her Spanish father in front of us, but we were dealt with and on our way back to the ground floor within ten minutes.
The official’s advice was replaying in my mind.
‘Don’t forget’, he had said in a friendly manner, ‘the papers I have just returned to you are adequate to obtain a residency card in Spain. Should your wife wish to go down that route, she cannot leave Spain until after the acceptance, rejection or appeal have been finalised, or you will have to start the whole process again from here’.
That visa and those papers were the result of a year’s research and preparation; 35,000 km of travel and about £10,000
I’m sure that it could have been brought about in a far quicker and far cheaper fashion, but it is easy to make mistakes (and we made many), and advice, even official advice, is not always correct.
I have booked the nineteen hour flights from Bangkok to Malaga for Friday morning, so we will be in Andalucia before midnight.
The only fly in the ointment, is that I am now an illegal alien, and as such am obliged to leave the country as soon as possible, but my wife’s daughter’s graduation ceremony from university is in two weeks. All three of us would have dearly liked us to be there.
You can’t have everything, I suppose, but it is still very sad.
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My doctor put me on Seratonin about fifteen years ago. I had had armed robbers tie me up in my own house, our family firm had gone through and my father had died all within a short space of time, and I thought I was depressed. Seratonin induces the production of endorphins, which are the hormone (or chemical) that is credited with creating happy feelings in the brain.
I was rather ashamed that the doctor thought I couldn’t cope on my own, but after a few days, I told the half a dozen friends I drank with in the local pub.
“I thought you were already on them”, said one, “we all are and our wives… and most of our friends. Great, aren’t they? I look forward to my happy pill every morning!”
I had never heard of them before, but it seemed that I was the last to know.
I stopped taking them after a week, and a television documentary appeared a few days after that condemning them.
Anyway, the feeling that the Seratonin gave me is what I feel now – a slight buzz of happiness even when it is irrational.
I am happy to be going to Spain next week, but I am no longer under the illusion that being there will solve all our problems, which is what I did think last May.
Spain is/was supposed to be our springboard back into the UK, but it is far from as easy as the rulebook says it is, or as I thought it would be.
And then there’s Brexit. That could put the mockers on my wife getting into the UK completely. If Brexit puts a block on my taking my wife to the UK to live, she will need a sponsor. However, I have lost touch with all my friends after being in Thailand for thirteen years, and my I can’t rely on my family to help.
We will get to Spain, but there is a dark cloud hanging over the future further ahead than that.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know – we’re desperate.
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All the best,
Owen
PS: there are probably errors in relation to Seratonin (serotonin) in this piece, but the basic message is the same.
When we were in the Spanish Embassy in Bangkok a couple of days ago, a man that I think was in charge of the visa section, said to us: “I am prepared to grant you a ninety-day visa.”
I asked when, he asked when we wanted to leave – the 23rd of January – and he replied, “I can’t see a problem with that”.
We were elated, naturally, after all the hoops we have had to jump through. So, with any luck, we will be flying out in eight days’ time, and we will arrive in Malaga on the 24th to start a new life… like we tried to do there in May, last year. There is a difference though.
Last year, my wife was full of excitement, but when her visa ran out, and she still didn’t have time to apply for residency, she became despondent, and had a nervous breakdown. She is frightened that that is going to happen again this year. She has begged me to stay here.
However, that is not possible, and she knows it. Sometimes, I think I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t want to go through all the stress and indignation of not getting residency again, and I don’t blame her. However, if we don’t try again now, my funds will be exhausted, and we will have to live 5,000 miles apart, and neither of us wants that either.
So, I am confident that she will get a visa, but beyond that the future is still far from certain.
In the meantime, we will stay in the village until Neem is called to Bangkok to collect her visa, and then we will stay with her sister, who lives a mile or two from Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
We both know that the time will fly now, and I share Neem’s anxiety about saying ‘Goodbye’ to everyone, and not forgetting anything essential, because I hope we won’t be coming back again this year.
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If you have not been following this tale of abject misery, it started in December 2015, with no emails to the Spanish Embassy in Bangkok receiving an answer. In May 2016, an embassy official told us not to bother going for the 180-day Schengen visa (for spouses of EU citizens), but just to apply for residency when we got there.
That didn’t work, and my wife had to leave, suffering a nervous breakdown in the process. Anyway, we tried again in November, for the same visa, and were told that we were ‘missing a few documents’. It has taken us two months to get them, so I applied for an interview yesterday. I was told that short-term visas of 90 days’ duration were available from a subcontractor. ‘No’, I replied, ‘I want the long one’.
Their reply was: ‘We don’t know what you want, and don’t think you do either’.
How sodding rude is that?
They added that they can only grant 90-day visas, but that is not what they said in May and November last year. It seems like they are just trying to wear us down until we give up. However, if that happens, or our money runs out trying, my wife and I will be separated by 11,500 km… and perhaps for ever.
It has made both of us cry several times, and, as I said before, affected my wife’s mental health. If it wasn’t so important for one of us to maintain a grip, I would go over the edge soon as well.
So, we have an appointment for the twelfth, and processing takes ten to fifteen days. My visa, which cannot be extended again, expires on the 23rd, which gives us a day’s grace.
I’m afraid that the future is not looking rosy and I am worried that that might push my wife over the edge again.
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I have entered this book into a competition for a publishing contract – the first time I have tried such a thing. You can help me to get that contract by voting for my book.
It is important for me that you know that I am not asking you to lie. I am the only person in the world who has read this book, I am asking you to say that you might like to read it too.
That’s all.
You can read the first 5,000 words on Amazon’s site, where you can also cast your vote.
Please help, it could change the lives of me and all my family, and you don’t get an opportunity to do something like that often, do you?
This is from the back cover.
When malice results from good intentions!
When Frank, a staid, middle-aged, confirmed bachelor takes his diplomat Thai wife to a friend’s apartment on the Cost del Sol for their dream honeymoon, they are in Nirvana… until the ghouls of a secret Scandinavian society torment the superstitious young woman to the point of seeking death to end her suffering. The Ghouls of Calle Goya is the perplexing story of how Evil can result from the happiest of circumstances and good intentions, and how madness can be the result. Based on a true story
Daisy’s Chain, my latest novel, will be released soon, but I want your opinion on which cover you prefer. I’ll give you some of the story to help you decide.
Daisy is the daughter, 22 years of age by the end of the book, of a rich exat, ex-London gangster and his Spanish wife, who live on the Costa del Sol near Marbella. Her father, John, has not been involved in any violence since the day that Daisy was born, but she got to hear of his reputation from other children at school.
When she left university, she went back to Spain to help him run his businesses there. She was anxious to impress him, and caused many problems while doing so, including death and suffering.
Daisy’s Chain is the story of her coming of age, accepting who she is and stopping trying to impress others by doing what she thinks they want her to do.
Please indicate your preference for a cover in the comments box below, or email me in ‘Contact’.
