A Spanish lifestyle with British deadlines

This article appeared in The Guardian newspaper on 25 November 2005. Click here to read it as published.


When I left Britain I'm sure many of the people I worked for expected me to miss deadlines as I succumbed to the attractions of party island Ibiza. I hoped for a little more in the way of sun, sea and siestas, but without the missed deadlines.

To achieve my aim I thought all I needed to do was work a little more efficiently and reduce my reliance on the almost infinite number of displacement activities offered by an internet-connected computer. There'd always be another website to be checked. What if something really important was happening in the world? Ping. There's another email. It could be vital.

But in order to earn a living in Spain I still need my broadband, so none of those distractions have disappeared. Now I feel guilty, not just about putting off work, but putting off pleasure as well.

My personal productivity is challenged in other ways. There's a totally different rhythm of life here. The US-led "live to work" mentality hasn't got the grip it has in Britain. Work here remains a means to an end. It doesn't even define who you are in the same way as it does in the UK.

At the same time working life isn't organised solely for the benefit of the customer. Most shops, including garden centres and hardware stores, don't open on Sunday. Many are closed on Saturdays as well. And forget trying to do anything during the afternoon siesta. Even after you've been here a while this lack of customer focus can catch you by surprise.

This attitude is contagious which doesn't necessarily go down too well if, like me, you do most of your work for UK businesses. Everybody's supposed to be in favour of an improved work-life balance. In theory.

In practice, most of my British paymasters seem to think I'm on holiday all the time anyway. The fact that I always meet my deadlines does nothing to diminish this belief. And that is all the more frustrating because it's actually quite difficult to take a holiday. Every time I've left the island it's been for a hectic round of business meetings interspersed with the odd family visit and wedding. I wouldn't get much sympathy if I took a break away from them and Ibiza.

An added difficulty is the distinctly two-tone nature of the Ibizan year. From November to April there are no flights at all to anywhere outside Spain. Getting back to Scotland, where many of my clients are based, is an expensive, multi-hour nightmare. It's often quicker and cheaper getting from there to the States or Australia. The advantage is that this gives you half the year free of visitors to get on with your work undisturbed. You hope.

But the winter is also the time when you see your local friends. The chances are, along with 80% of the population, they'll be directly reliant on tourism for their income and a season which peaks for a few short weeks around August. Some make enough to head for Thailand, Goa or Brazil. The rest eke out the chilly winter nights with cheap red wine and home-grown herbs. There's no work, but it's still a sociable time.

Summer or winter, though, one unexpected bonus has saved my working life on numerous occasions. There's a one-hour time difference which means that if I stagger down the hall from my bedroom to my computer at 11am it's still the mildly more respectable 10am in the UK. An extra hour on a deadline or for sleep is just enough for that little bit of depravity on the side.