Sod's law...

My appointment was for 11.30am, arrived at 11.10. queued up to get a ticket, according to my ticket number there were 29 people in front of me. My turn arrived, and guess what, the man in the ticket office had given me a ticket for 'cars' not 'licences', my ticket number should have been one of the 500 series, however, all was not lost, the man at window 2 told me to go to window number 8 and the lady would deal with my query.

I had taken every piece of paper I could think of that might be wanted, passport, plus copy, Residencia, plus copy, passport photos x 2, bank details, car details, Denuncia and application form.

All that was required was my passport and my residencia, she typed in my NIE number and up came all my details on the screen, including a copy of my licence. I paid the 19.80 euros, she gave me a receipt and told me I could collect my licence in 3 months from Trafico, why on earth she couldn't print it out there and then is a mystery, it was on the computer screen. So after queuing for 40 minutes to be told I had the wrong number, it only took 10 minutes to do the paperwork for my duplicate and we were on our way.

Not having my licence has had a 'knock on' effect to my travels to the UK in a couple of weeks time. I had done car hire, and I had put me down as the nominated driver. So I phoned the car hire company to be told there was a £37 cancellation fee, 'but I don't want to cancel' said I. I want to change the drivers name. No go, I had to cancel the original contract and rebook a new one in Roys name, how stupid is that. So I have complained to their Customer Services Dept, explaining the reason for the change of driver name, maybe they will be sympathetic (I doubt it).