Dawn Punter

(Life sometimes gives you the most diverse material to write about – welcome to my weekend musings😀)

Yesterday was one of those days where you begin to suspect you’ve accidentally wandered into an alternative reality where nobody knows anything, every answer contradicts the previous answer, and your car was put on this earth just to torment you.

To understand how we got here, we need to go back to the beginning of winter. To the rats that exist in the countryside here and the rain, of which we had plenty.

Yes, rats.

At some point during the cold and very wet weather, one or possibly a whole family of industrious rodents decided our engine bay looked warm, comfortable and perhaps available rent free. They moved in, renovated, and decided to rewire the place. Then they upped and left, vanishing into the Andalusian countryside leaving us with repair bills and one mysteriously non-functioning parking sensor.

After trying nearly every local garage, multiple repairs, and a steadily emptying wallet, we finally decided to contact our insurance company. We’ve never made a claim in 13 years, so naturally we assumed this would be straightforward. I know, I know, never assume!

This was our first mistake.

Thus began what I can only describe as:
The Great Car Marathon of 2026.

The first chapter, of this very long story , is the local stage of the marathon: assessors arriving before garages even opened. Receptionists informing people the car was already repaired when it definitely wasn’t. Weeks passing. Contradictory information. More waiting. More phone calls. More “we’ll contact you.” “Bring it in.” “Nope sorry we didn’t get around to it today.” Bring it back again …”

Eventually we were told the ONLY place able to guarantee the repair was the VW dealership in Granada. Hooray 🎉

Fine, on to the next chapter.

The car went to Granada.
The assessor saw the car.
Photos were taken.
Time passed.

Then finally, three weeks later, my husband received written confirmation from the insurance company that they had approved the claim and would pay for the repair. More hoorays 🎉 🎉

Reader please note, we nearly cried with relief. Hope springs eternal! 🙏🏼

Yesterday morning, at 8:20am, only five or six months after the original rat invasion, we delivered the car to Granada for the final repair.

At 2:15pm, my husband had a feeling we should check on it earlier than planned, especially as it’s Friday and they close earlier for the weekend.

Thank God we did.

Nothing had been done. The car was sat in the parking bay looking unloved and miserable. We’d not received a single phone call.

The lead mechanic explained the insurance company “would not pay for the car to be dismantled more than once.”

To this day, we still do not know what this sentence really means.

This is where things began descending rapidly into a vast rabbit hole 🐇 and reality started to bend wildly into morphed shapes and multiple dimensions.

But, before I continue, I should explain that many years ago, for my sins, I managed a small call centre for a year (only 50 staff). I know how stressful those jobs are. I know about targets, queues, scripted responses, impossible KPIs, and yes, limited and timed toilet breaks really are a thing. 🤦🏼‍♀️

So I always respect, and encourage others to respect, call centre staff.

Howeve, as manager, I also had two rules:

1. Never invent an answer or a story if you don’t know what’s happening. It just makes things harder for your colleagues moving forward.
2. Never insult the customer.

Anyway.

The call centre agent informed us:

– the assessor had seen the car locally in Salobreña (impossible seeing as the car was at home with us)
– the assessor had NOT seen the car in Granada (he had, as we were there at the time 3 weeks ago)
– the insurance company had NOT approved cost of the repair, despite us having confirmation in our hands at that very moment
– and anyway, said written confirmation (that seconds ago she said didn’t exist)  “didn’t mean anything” because it was “an automated computer-generated message”. WTF? 🤷🏼‍♀️

At this point my husband, to his enormous credit, remained calm and simply asked two apparently catastrophic questions:

“What is happening?”
(as we don’t understand)
And…
“Why?”

This, it turns out, was the conversational equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull.

Because suddenly we were told:

“You are not in England now. You are in our country, Spain. You do things the way they are done here. You can’t expect it to be done as it is in your country.”

WTF x 2 😳😧

And to be honest, after everything yesterday…

That’s the part that has upset me most.

Not the dismantled car.
Not the lack of information.
Not desperately  trying to resolve things with dying phone batteries and no transport home.

Those few
cold, aggressive sentences.

Because in 13 years living here, I’ve never felt unwelcome. Spain is home to me. I’ve embraced the culture, the pace of life, the differences, the humour, the bureaucracy, the beauty (& sometimes frustration) of it all.

And suddenly, over one confused insurance claim about a hilariously rat-infested engine and a parking sensor, I felt like an unwelcome outsider. The immigrant that I am.

Anyway. Back to the chaos.

By 4pm we were standing in Granada train station trying to collect a hire car arranged by the insurance company.

Except:

– the reservation didn’t exist
– the insurance company had given us the wrong reference
– then when hope prevailed, Enterprise wouldn’t accept our bank card (despite happy to accept all other debit cards).

We, trudged around the station area and tried eight more hire companies. By now, late afternoon, we were greeted with:

– two only took credit cards, not debit
– four had no cars left for the weekend
– Linea Directa didn’t partner with the rest
– the insurance company would only contribute €30 a day toward companies they didn’t partner with, while most rentals were around €130 a day

To summarise, our car was in pieces, we had no transport, no solution, no idea of timeframes, rapidly dying phone batteries, and the day’s nutritional intake of two coffees, half a tostada con tomate, and a Moroccan tea and biscuit.

Luckily, sensing the direction this tragedy was heading, I had already booked the last two bus tickets, on the only remaining bus back to the coast.

So instead of driving home, we wandered Granada for an hour exhausted, ate a salad tapa and drank water and non alcoholic beer, like survivors emerging from the desert.

Two taxis and a bus later, after a trip passing the beautiful Lecrín Valley at sunset, we finally arrived home.

My husband immediately started repairing the sun blinds that had blown loose in the wind and triggered the house alarm earlier in the day. Because apparently the universe felt the story lacked structure and I needed to be dealing with security company calls whilst my husband had his hands full.

By 10:30pm we were finally ready for bed.
Too tired to sleep.
Too wired to relax.
Scrolling our phones trying to mentally detox from the day.

And now it’s 5am.

The birds are starting outside, I’m drinking tea, and our car remains dismantled on the floor of a dealership 68km away.

We still have no idea what happens next.

But in amongst the chaos, I  always try to find moments of positivity:
Bright red poppies beneath the Alhambra walls,
mint tea in a Moroccan tetería,
the view across the reservoirs from the bus,
and the humour that dwell in the rabbit holes of life. Even the ‘stressful days’ can somehow still contain something beautiful.

So perhaps that’s the real story after all.
Not the rats.
Not the insurance company.
Not even the parking sensor.

Just the reality of building a life somewhere overseas:
sometimes hilarious,
sometimes exhausting,
sometimes unbelievable being belief,
but still … Life ❤️