Another week in Malaga

Well, the promised replacement SIM card to go with my replacement phone didn't turn up until today's post. After an afternoon in the office on Monday, I visited the EE shop in Grand Arcade and bought a new Samsung Galaxy SIII Mini, the same size as my lost phone but a lot quicker and easier to read, with an improved brighter sharper screen. My account details and number were transferred to the SIM in the new phone and I was told it would be active in four hours. I went to bed at midnight and it was still impossible to use as a phone, although it was useable via wi-fi to access the internet, and most of my contact details and phone numbers were added from the Samsung Kies backup programme. A pity the backup was several months old, so a few newer numbers needed adding by hand. A fiddly job.

Tuesday morning fifteen hours after purchase, still no phone, and my Orange internet account told me that it was still blocked. So I borrowed Clare's phone to ring up, and within minutes a helpful call centre guy had unblocked the account and made sure that all was in order. So, the guy who sold me the phone in the EE shop thought that he'd done all the right things, but seems to have missed something decisive in the complex procedure. Funnily enough the same thing happened last time I bought a phone. It's not a good advertisement for the service. Oh yes, and the SIM card mailed to me arrived on Tuesday. Should I now send it back?

With an evening flight to Malaga again, I had a leisurely day to prepare. Strangely for me, I packed most of what I intended to take on Tuesday evening, yet when I arrived at Bristol Airport I remembered that I'd not packed a toothbrush, or the Spanish grammar and phrase books. The more relaxed I get about travel, it seems the more careless about the detail I get - like forgetting to add Fr Geoff's mobile number to my new phone so that I could text him to say I was on my way. I had the bright idea as I was sitting in the very back row of the aeroplane waiting to be told to switch off everything electronic, of texting Clare and asking her to ring him before he left home to go to the airport. She did, but had no luck getting through. 

Thankfully Fr Geoff trusted that all was well though we hadn't spoken for a while. He and Carol were there to meet me. Being in the back row was not only the most uncomfortable flight I can recall, as the seat space is a little smaller in the corner, I was also one of the last off the plane, then there was a fifteen minute queue to get through passport control, and a long walk to the arrivals gate. By the time we sank into armchairs with a late night beer in the Vicarage at Nerja it was quarter to one, with a good hour's more catchup talk before surrendering to sleep.