Game of cards

It's past midnight and my blood pressure is higher than Keith Richards in 1968. There's got to be a knack to all of this, I'm sure of it. Having prepared all of the shortcuts mastered as a result of the previous days' crushing disappointments, I'm visualising and rehearsing the exact finger-jabbing motions I'll employ in their precise order. Finally, I've assumed the appropriate posture, coiled like a viper ready to strike at its prey. Then I pounce ...click, click, click, click... doh!

Yes, it's time to renew my TIE (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero) residency card again. This somewhat frustrating affair involves gathering together my passport, my old TIE card, a photocopy of my passport, a photocopy of my old TIE card, a couple of downloaded official forms that nobody in the history of Spain has ever filled in correctly at the first - or possibly even twenty-first - attempt, pre-payment at a bank, the corresponding pre-payment at a bank stamped receipt and some rather fetching passport-size photos before dancing the Macarena on the steps of the local police station (I may or may not have made one of those up).

However, the successful presentation of all of these prerequisites is wholly dependent on being able to get an appointment at the main police station here in Malaga. This is why I'm sitting at ten past twelve at night in front of a computer, fiendishly stabbing my index finger at the keyboard hoping against hope that I'll be given a time and date to present this armful of documents which will, one would hope, lead to me receiving the new TIE card in short order. So far, so unlucky.

Having read the 'there are no appointments currently available' message in Spanish so many times, I'm starting to doubt if it's grammatically correct and if that might give me some kind of loophole to exploit.

Consequently, I'm so shocked to see a drop-down box actually saying 'appointment available' (albeit in four weeks' time) that my battered index finger hesitates for a second or two in disbelief.

Yes! Yes! Yes! I'll take it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The fact that the appointment's in Fuengirola has done little to dampen my elation. In fact, I'll take advantage of the situation and go somewhere afterwards for full English breakfast (still, incredibly, unavailable in any half-decent form in Malaga) and a couple of pints. Life doesn't get any better than this.

How does it go again? 'Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena, tum tee tum tee tum..'

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