The filthy colds continued, so little of consequence; but by Sunday we felt up to a comfort kids' sized roast at Rosie's, so that we could do an early mornong run to Puerto del Rosario to tie up loose ends!
At Rosie's we had bumped into Sally, Sean, Nigel & Brenda so we had a few new insights into residency, etc etc - these being the bugbears of the moment! They said the queue at the police station could be bad by 8.30, so it was the 8.00 bus for us!
Hence - at the port where we get the bus we saw an unusual sight:- both ferries docked at once!
At said police station the queue was already halfway round the block! The doors opened at 9.00 and we were confident that the simple process of showing the white sheets and passports would give us the green ones irrespective of the numbers waiting! As we got nearer the door we saw the officer handing out slips to angry people. The Swedish woman two ahead of us threw an impressive tantrum in Spanish worse than ours! We reached the door! He gave us a chit with an appointment for 25th! - Not a lot of use!!
Undaunted, we went to the Social Security office, got a ticket and waited 25 minutes. A very nice man said we could have SS numbers even tho' we aren't at state retirement age, said all would be well and wished us well! Two steps forward! Round to the others side of the building and another queue! No! we can't have health care without form E121 and we can't have that until we get UK state pensions. One step back!! - Later we found the E106 might help a bit - but that's another story!
It being a rather nice day we got off the bus at the beach, where the green flag was unusually flying and spent the afternoon there, returning to the port bus stop well before sunset for a few hours on the internet discovering just how many ex-pat early-retired Brits there are who are wrestling with the Es and the ludicrous non-reciprocal arrangements!!!! Grrr!
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