The John Griff column: When a change isn’t as good as a rest

Last week Lois and I took a break away from home. It had been since before Christmas that we had holidayed, so a few days of relaxation in the southern Spanish sunshine really appealed. But, as it would turn out, relaxation isn’t really what we achieved. Instead, although there was indeed sunshine, there was work to be done and almost all of it thrust upon us without warning.

Things had started out well. Flying into Malaga airport late on the Sunday night before last, I had been intrigued to see what the new Entry/Exit System might have in store for me. Lois had experienced it in February, amid dark warnings of delays from aviation experts. Aimed at streamlining the traditional border control processes of EU countries, Britain had signed up to it in the hope of reducing delays for its citizens. The system has to learn about each user from facial and fingerprint scans, as well as the presentation of a passport before the system will permit a user to pass through. When first introduced elsewhere, long queues developed simply through the learning process alone. I had covered the story on N-Live Radio myself, being warned of delays of anything up to two hours at peak times. In the event though, I sailed through the entire process in under two minutes, thanks in part to a very helpful member of Spanish border control, plus the fact that on a Sunday night at just after eleven thirty there was virtually nobody flying in. Registration is a one-off act – I’m now part of it and passage through any EU country’s borders should be the same breeze as it used to be pre-Brexit. Undoubtedly there will be delays later in the year – Greece has already postponed the introduction of the EES until after summer with other countries apparently considering similar action. But if there are delays it won’t be because of a fault in the system. Instead it’ll be a matter of lots of people travelling at the same time to the same places. Take a flight arriving outside peak times and you’ll do your holiday plans a massive favour.

From that positive start though, things nose-dived. The morning after arriving, it became clear that our water pressure was decidedly low. Lois’ parents bought a holiday home just over thirty years ago, close to one of Spain’s developing golf complexes. In their haste, the builders hadn’t endowed the complex with much by way of mains plumbing. Now, that plumbing was failing and to allow repairs, the water had to be cut off after the morning rush hour, then be restored for the evening before being cut off again overnight. Irritating though it was, we had encountered this before, so were versed in running baths of cold water to provide for our own needs in toilets etc.

After a couple of days and with the mains plumbing restored, the workmen turned the water back on and left. Everyone settled back into their domestic routines, as did we. An hour or so later though, Lois realised that she could hear a rhythmic ticking sound coming from inside the flue cavity which served our fireplace on the ground floor of the building. As we stared into the fireplace, we realised that it’s concrete surround was darkening – and becoming wet. Rapidly we deduced that the ticking sound was actually the dripping of water from the duplex penthouse above us. The water was also dripping out of our bathroom electrical fittings upstairs. Water will always find a way out and it was doing precisely this now. Mercifully, the owners of the penthouse were in at the time but unaware of the damage being caused. After some discussion, they turned off their water, and called in the plumbers and  insurers while I spent until 2 am the following morning mopping up the remaining water which continued to leech out of the walls. The upstairs neighbours now have a huge hole in the floor/ceiling between their levels. We think that when the mains water was switched back on, it was at full pressure and might have burst an internal domestic joint.      

We made the best of things and in truth had a pretty good time – but we didn’t do much relaxing. We bought a fair amount of flatpack furniture to replace some of the more time-ravaged items of the last century. Somehow I developed a cold which wreaked a certain revenge on my own plumbing – and then, the day before we were due to return to the UK, the downstairs loo stopped working. A trip to Spain’s equivalent of B&Q sourced a replacement valve assembly, and as I cleared up the tools after fitting it, Lois cleared up the house and we headed for the airport again.

We’re due back there in October. Home from home? Yes – but before then I need a holiday from my holiday!