Some days start waaay too early – and some are technically still actually the middle of the night. Alarms ringing before 5 are most definitely in this category. The girls barely seemed to wake as we bundled them into the car in their pyjamas, and then found all the entrances and gates locked at Mum and Stephen’s hotel. Eventually we got in, hopefully without waking the entire building, and deposited the girls with them (Mum thought they might all go back to sleep – yeah right!), then the two of us headed off to Alicante.
We reached the airport just after 7:30, where we met Lynn and Jo from ‘NIE in 1 day’ – a firm specialising in getting you that all important ‘Numero de Identidad de Extranjero’, which is similar to a National Insurance number for foreigners, but far more widely required – for example, we can’t get a mobile phone, put utilities in our own names, set up a business, open a bank account, register as residents etc etc etc without it. The cash cost is actually quite low but the grief costs we have heard about are shocking – hours of queueing, waiting for numbers, coming back tomorrow or next week or next year etc etc… we had had this service recommended to us and decided this was one occasion to throw money at a problem to make it go away.
And the early start would have been required whatever! Essentially we sat in a café for nearly an hour whilst Jo stood in the cold to be first in line for when the police station opened at 9. Between them they got all our forms filled in and signed and checked and checked over etc, and hustled us through to the front of the queue when the doors opened. Sure enough we got the first 3 numbers, but when called to the desk we learned (through our agents) that the procedure had changed and we had to first go to the bank and pay the tax charge before the forms would be stamped (apparently exact opposite of last 3 years), and the price had gone up – just as of that morning, no advance notice etc. Never mind! Our lovely ladies whipped us over the road to be first in the bank queue too, and took care of that business, then we were back in the Oficina at the nick getting things stamped and sealed and accepted. Then it was done! As it’s a bank holiday tomorrow they planned to collect our numbers on Wednesday, email them asap, then post on the final documents. By now the sun had risen over Alicante (which we’d only ever really seen from the airport or bypass, seemed a nice lively city), and we had accomplished a really major ‘ to do’ off our list, or so we hoped. I am sure we could have figured it out and sorted it ourselves, eventually, but god knows how long it would have taken.
On the way back to Javea we made a quick detour… the big electrodomesticos shop in Benissa DID sell (a limited range of highly priced) kettles! They didn’t have bags for our vacuum cleaner, but at least we can now make a quick cup of coffee.
Richard picked up the hotel team, turned out no one had had any more sleep, but it appears good value had been made by our girls when it came to the hotel breakfast buffet. It was actually a lovely day, and I sat on the roof terrace for a while watching the rooftops and palm trees, and wondering at our luck in simply being here!
Having been disappointed and frustrated by the weather on her birthday, Cassie could not be denied any longer the opportunity to test out the swimming pool. Undeterred by feeble arguments such as ‘its January you nutter’, she hoiked on her wetsuit, hurried to the water’s edge…and then stopped, with one foot in, when she suddenly realised it was a tiny bit freezing. I told her the clock was now running, she would be in a warm shower in 5 minutes come what may, and it was up to her – she sat on the side for a minute or two, finally jumped in, swam about 2 strokes out to the other side then clambered out gasping. I bundled her into her birthday ‘Bob Esponja’ beachtowel and quickly inside to get warm and dry. Hopefully that is now out of her system until spring and more suitable weather! But that’s my Cass, the thought of living with a swimming pool outside and NOT plunging in was just too, too much to bear…
Leaving Lara napping, Mum Stephen and I set off to walk into Javea again – this time continuing on past the Arenal and all the way down towards the Port, a good long hike, in beautiful weather. Sunglasses on and coats off as our stroll picked up speed, the bay looked beautiful, and I had another ‘can’t believe we’re really here’ moment as we made our way along the shingle.
Once we reached the port, we found the restaurant Stephen had spotted in a guidebook closed – a lot of places close Mondays round here, and tomorrow is a fiesta bank holiday anyway. We walked along the Esplanade and found a café on the end that had tables still in the sunshine, and Richard met us there with the girls and we ordered a load of tapas. Cassie climbed over the wall to the beach and threw pebbles in the sea, but before the food arrived the sun went in behind the row of buildings and suddenly it was January cold again – so we moved inside to eat. Outside we watched the preparations going on for the ‘Three Kings’ parade, but staff in the restaurant were unsure when the parade would reach them, so once we were all done we walked down to the harbour itself where crowds were gathering. Sitting on the chilly wall we watched groups of costumed revellers convening – Kings attendants, marching bands, Nativity characters, angels with a star, and donkeys pulling carts laden with presents. Finally the ‘Kings’ arrived, via a big motor yacht in the harbour, and climbed ashore and onto large horses, from which they joined the parade and waved regally to all the children. The attendants threw sweets, and Cassie didn’t do badly at elbowing to the front and grabbing her share. It was all enthusiastic and happy, and being taken quite seriously/done thoroughly, despite the smallish crowd (which seemed to be mainly Spanish families rather than expats or tourists) and the cold evening weather.
After the parade Richard drove Lara and her grandparents back to the house, and Cassie and I started walking back – mainly to keep warm, though we did turn and watch the fireworks on the square when they started going off as darkness fell. Richard made it back to get us by the time we reached the Parador and we all headed back to the house. I couldn’t understand why I felt so tired, then I remembered the 4:45 alarm, the miles of walking and getting chilled through! Girls were off to bed nice and early, whilst grownups didn’t seem to want much to eat – does over-ordering on tapas pass with experience or is it part of the culture I wonder? So we had a quite last evening with M+S before an overdue early night.
