KGM Actyon. Credit: KMG

By Charlie Mullins

I’VE no regrets about relocating to Spain a year ago, but there are times when it really hits home that you’re squatting in someone else’s country where you don’t get to make the rules.

It’s a bit like post-Brexit Britain, except – whatever the politics of it – the UK can’t just up sticks and move.

We still need to trade with the EU, but now we don’t get a say on the rules. Genius!

Where I’m going with this is the bonkers idea from Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez to slap a whopping 100% tax on non-Spanish, non-EU citizens buying property.

Utter madness if you ask me, and I’m told it’s got a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming law.

Clearly, Señor Sanchez is trying to calm the anti-tourist, anti-second-home crowd by showing he’s on their side.

The good news is that, unlike Brits in 2016, Spanish voters won’t rise up against foreigners… they know which side of their pan rebanado the olive oil is drizzled on!

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Speaking of housing problems, I couldn’t believe what happened to one Scandinavian expat woman recently – some crafty scammers managed to swipe her flat out from under her. The first she heard of it was when she started getting threatening letters ordering her to leave. Talk about bad news in the post.

What I don’t get is how a forged Colombian legal document can allow gangsters to flog your place from under you! If you buy a stolen car you don’t get to keep it, so why is it different when it’s a flat?

It does sometimes feel like expats get second-rate service from the local authorities; meanwhile, back in the UK, it seems the government bends over backwards to help immigrants – the more illegal, the more help, or so it often appears.

I suppose some of us might do better out here if we made more effort to learn the language, but Spanglish does the job well enough for me. Strangely, I hear that back in the UK, Labour are trying to bring in a new law making immigrants take an English test before they can get any sort of visa to stay.

Who knows how that’s going to work. Will the Royal Navy start handing out test papers to illegals on the small boats – and if they fail, it’s a one-way ticket back to France? Next thing you know, Keir Starmer’s Labour lot will be paying to send private English tutors into asylum hotels, just to make sure the illegal immigrants living on the taxpayer’s pound are up to snuff – so they can apply for more benefits!

DID you know that Spain’s constant good weather is attributable to an Atlantic Ocean patch of high air pressure?

It’s true.

We fall within the “Azores High”. Long may it continue!

We’re in June, with gorgeous blue skies above us, so let’s talk about death.

There are some interesting differences between the British and Spanish ways of death.

Lung cancer is much more prevalent in Spain (25,000 people a year die of it, compared to half that number in the UK). It’s almost certainly because of smoking.

Today, a lot of Spanish people still reach for their fag packet in the middle of a conversation. The Spanish idea of ‘cutting down’ is to switch from Marlboro to a cheaper brand, like Ducados.

Thirty years ago, EVERYBODY smoked. All the time. On trains, in lifts, in bed. And that is still showing up in the mortality statistics.

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Another thing – the Spanish don’t feel our social embarrassment. When they hear that your Uncle George bought the farm last week, they simply say “Pesame mucho” (‘it weighs heavily on me’) and go on talking about the Barcelona match.

The Irish tradition of the ‘wake’ used to happen in Britain, too. People used to die at home, and family members would sit through the night, keeping “Death Watch” over granny, laid out on the kitchen table.

A very shy insect bores into the timbers of cottages. Its mating-call is a soft clicking noise, not normally audible. But in the wee hours, when you’re sitting alone with the body, you hear it.

That’s why it’s called the Death Watch Beetle.

They still have the custom in Spain, but now it takes place in the “Tanatorio” – the death house.

If a Spanish friend or neighbour passes, it is only polite to show up at the tanatorio, say “pesame mucho”, and spend an hour chatting with the other mourners.

British funerals often occur a week or even a fortnight after the person dies. We feel that relatives should be given time to make travel arrangements.

Spain is loyal to its Arabic past – the funeral happens the very next day. There is no refrigeration. The body has to be disposed of as fast as possible. No-one sees the haste as disrespectful.

Mourning, on the other hand, is more elaborate in Spain. It’s not as severe as it was 50 years ago, but you still see elderly widows who wear black every day – and will do so for the rest of their lives.

In Britain, we might invite someone who is suffering a bereavement to take a sympathy drink in the pub. Such an invitation would cause offence here. Mourners don’t go out and have fun.

If you go to a funeral, brace yourself for some surprises. Almost everyone is buried in a niche in the wall (a ‘nicho’) and cemetery workers might well show up while you’re standing there.

They’ve got a bucket of wet plaster, and they want to seal the grave before the lunch break. To us, it seems jarring that these workers chat together – but why shouldn’t they? This is their office space!

Also disconcerting is the way mourners burst into applause as the coffin passes – but it’s just their custom.

Spanish Funeral

All joy had fled these pinched, wintry alleys.

The sun had slouched away

to die somewhere alone,

like a poisoned cat.

Across the steep valley,

chestnut trees stood stoic and erect,

terracotta warriors, undecked,

their green bled out.

Damp was the only regular

that now attended the village church.

Plaster was bulbing out, like gout

or arthritic knuckles,

and paintings of rustic saints

were wrinkling out of their frames,

unloved, unnoticed, flecked

with fungus, freckle-frowned.

The coffin yawed and lurched,

coming out into the drizzle.

No-one’s buried in the ground

in Spain. They slot you in a wall.

We mourners, with murrains and galls,

and racking coughs and limps,

were huddled, waiting.

We saw them hoist the pall

to offer it to its slot.

I was appalled. What I got

was a glimpse, to my distress,

of something claustrophobically small,

so dismal, comfortless –

the interior of her “plot”,

that niche that’s waiting for us all.