Pushing my luck and my temper

WARNING This will probably be a long post, so make a cup of tea first.

There are issues with residency permits for Brits living in Spain. Basically the Spanish authorities stopped supplying European residents with photo ID cards a while ago and replaced them with non-photo certificates of residency. So what do I use as photo ID? Driving license? No. I have a Spanish "foreigner's" driving licence and the photo is only stapled to the card (cheap-skates) which makes it unusable as official ID. I can't reapply for a UK licence because I don't have an address there. I had two options, either carry my passport wherever I go or simply refuse to renew my residency card when it expired. The card expired two years ago and I've been using it constantly ever since as photo ID...and to all the unobservant shop assistants throughout Andalucia, I thank you from the heart of my bottom.

In the meantime I wrote to the British Ambassador and asked for an explanation as to why I was expected to carry my passport around (I know, I lied, it's bad and I deserve to be spanked) wherever I go. It transpires that the Spanish government are in fact playing by the rules (at this point Andaloo is rolling his eyes and doing that lemon sucking thing with his face) and doing the right thing. They (the Spanish government) are allowing European nationals resident in Spain to use the photo ID cards from their birth country in Spain instead of using a Spanish one. Problem solved? No. The UK don't have photo ID cards so we have nothing to use as a substitute other than our passports.

So, back to my situation. I decided not to renew my expired residency card and push my luck. I knew that one day I'd need to do something official and my luck would be up, but until then I'd keep on pushing. Well, my luck ran out. As I mentioned I've been doing some work. OK stop smirking, you've had this long intro so it's obvious what's coming...but I didn't. Yup, I got a call to say my residency had expired and unless I renew it they can't pay me. Now that's what I call motivation! So, on Friday I trotted off to the Big Smoke along with some new staff at school to be processed. I'm still angry and frustrated at the number of hoops I had to jump through to get this all new and improved certificate of residency, but that's another post, this one's already too long. The bottom line is I got it. What's interesting (or ironic) is, the others I went with all got photo ID cards. Why? Well, one is Canadian, two are Americans and the third is from Lebanon. It's absolutely BONKERS!