Last week we took the ferry from Benalmadena to Fuengirola.

An enjoyable trip made in good company

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Thanks to Jennifer for pointing me in the direction of this article from Liz Parry, which I have reproduced below as personal reassurance that it does not only happen to me :)

I’VE BEEN QUEUEING NOW FOR YEARS..

BY LIZ PARRY

Anybody who has been here for any length of time at all will have spent a morning or two. or several, queuing for information. The “Trafico” queues are legendary, the “Residencia” offices are not big enough to house a normal morning’s queue, and as I discovered this week, the “Seguridad Social convenios con otros paises” office, where I went to find out if Spain has a deal regarding contributions paid towards a pension in the UK, you need to have considerable stamina just to get to the desk where they give you a number to wait your turn. That was after I’d been to two offices in another building to try and rectify some erroneous information “they” had about me and get a security certificate so that I can do all this business online, and before I went to yet another to try and sort put a different, but still social security-related query. At one desk I visited there was a form inviting me to fill in my assessment of the service offered in all these offices, but no envelope was supplied and it had to be posted, not Just left lying around.... You need to be tough for a morning’s official business in Malaga. In a masochistic sort of way, though, I was pleased that nothing much has changed ‘ since I used to queue for a “permanencia” - regularly - many moons ago. The same unsmiling “funcionaria” sent me from pillar to post, and another told me about the shop over the road where I could get my photocopies made. And of course, I still have to go back “manana” for the answer to one of my queries, and some time when I can face the queue again to sort out the pension question....  

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It seems that the police have eventually taken exception to the illegal (but accepted) gambling that takes place in many of the bars on this coast. It appears that they have "sat in" in plain clothes and watched the bets being placed before announcing themselves. Almost 9,000 € and 100 pounds in cash have been seized, along with 59 television sets, two computers, 15 satellite decoders, betting slips and promotional material. The law which has been ignored in the past can apparently bring fines of up to € 300,000. Bars in Benalmadena, Torremolinos, and Fuengirola were visited

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