Ragtag Tuesday: Migration difficulties

We’ve been on the move since my last post: firstly to friends near Laroque, then to Emily and Miquel in Barcelona.  England – France – Spain – France and back to England again: passports required to get out of and back into England.

The trouble is, returning to England may prove tricky.  No passports.

The first thing we did in Barcelona was to go and meet Emily and Miquel from their flight from Seville.  I left Malcolm while I went to link up with them.  A man wheeling a luggage trolley veered into the car, and so Malcolm jumped out to have words with him.

We were duped.  As he did that, Luggage Trolley Man’s accomplice whipped my handbag out of the car.  So …. no handbag, no purse, no credit cards, no camera with some 140 shots on it, some of which I wanted to share with you,  no keys and NO PASSPORTS.

Thanks to Emily and Miquel, we’ve reported the whole thing to the Police, and since then we’ve applied online to the British Consulate for emergency travel documents. We’ve done every single piece of work towards getting these, and for a single-use piece of paper, we’ve been charged £100 each.  New passports will be £75 each.  Temporary migration for us was incredibly easy.  Immigration – less so.

All the same, we’re having a high old time.  We are neither political nor economic migrants.  We need to keep things in perspective, and put it down to experience.

This week’s Ragtag Challenge is ‘migration’.

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

46 thoughts on “Ragtag Tuesday: Migration difficulties”

  1. Oh no … I’m so sorry 😦 I often hear about scams like this happening in Barcelona but never think it could happen to anyone I know. Glad you’re managing to have a good time regardless though. I’d expect nothing less of the two of you! xx

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    1. So stupid of us. We thought we were pretty clued up. But the scammers are always one ahead. Really resent the £100 charge for a one off document though. And we didn’t give you the pear and apple spread we had lugged all the way from England for you. So … we’re really not very bright. xx

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  2. Oh dear Margaret, what a shame. Vaguely I can remember reading about this sort of scam but that was quite a while back. However, I didn’t realise the UK government was resorting to crime in order to keep ‘remainers’ out of the country…

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      1. Where would we go? Some of us over a certain age don’t have the skills to open the doors of many countries. Does the world need more politicians, even honest ones like me? I have long joked about buying an island, perhaps the time has come…….

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  4. Much sympathy, I have been mugged in Spain and my sister had her handbag stolen from her lap by a man with a knife in France when we had stopped at a roundabout. At least he put her passport in a postbox and the police returned it to her before we had to leave. So sorry it had to happen to you too.

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    1. At least we had no threat of violence – so sorry about both of you. And to have passports returned is astonishing. They are so often stolen in their own right. I wish the thieves would send back my photos of a special Saturday which I shan’t now be blogging about.

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  5. At least you’re both ok physically. What a dreadful thing to happen. On the upside you’ll have 10 years on your European passports. We’ve all got 8 on ours but I was contemplating losing mine to ensure maximum possible time on a maroon one. Since this summer 2 of our grandchildren have got German passports in addition to their UK ones – lucky them!

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  7. Oh my goodness Margaret. So sorry to hear this. Some very nasty people around. Glad you are both dealing with all the practicalities. Lots of travellers tales to share when we get together. Xx

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  11. So sorry to read you got caught. And, a double whammy with unreasonable UK charges. Can’t see that getting any better with the much heralded return of the glorious ‘blue’ passport – can only see massive price hikes across the board, passports included. Still hoping against hope for an eleventh hour about turn on Brexit.

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  12. OMG that is so unfortunate. What a scam! Glad you’re taking a philosophical view of it but even so!!! We’re just waiting in the queue at Portsmouth to board the ferry to Bilbao.
    I think I’ll keep my handbag round my neck at all times lol
    Love from J & J x

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  13. Sadly, you are only two more having been duped – it happened to my sis & bro-in-law in Annecy, where they parked their car with all their gear and stuff for a 10 days in France (they returned the same evening to Switzerland as they had NOTHING left to go on with….), it happened to a couple of well-travelled friends with excellent French knowledge, who got robbed out of their rental car they took at Nice Airport, I had my wallet stolen out of my rucksack on my back between the débarcadaire & the other side of the road in Cannes, an unsuspecting friend got ‘rid’ of his suitcase, passport money belt and pride in a spanish airport too…. it has got nothing to do with being naive, stupid and everything with the general ‘condition’ of today’s world. We may no longer go trustworthy our ways and that’s a sad thing. I refuse to become too conspicuous and risk to be ‘pulled over the table’ from time to time. I got taken to the cleaners several times by ppl I thought had pure intentions but I never bought anything from a phone-dealer 😉
    I DO hope that this experience isn’t leaving you in a state of fear in your further travels. It is what happened (a bit) to my little sister, and even though I send her a post card every time I pass at Lac Annecy she does not want to go back there, ever…

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  14. You have my sympathies. I was duped in Madrid a few years back – my own stupid fault but so much worse because it wasn’t my belongings that were taken. It sounds like the good experiences are outweighing the bad one – I certainly hope so!

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  16. For ‘aggravating’, read ‘expensive’. Thank goodness for Emily and Miquel, ringing the police, taking us there… Emily is rather used to it. Her guests specialise in being robbed.

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  20. Also part of the club Margaret as my handbag was stolen in Mexico, by someone I have a photograph of . I felt so annoyed with myself, but had to let it go, as you are doing, and look on the bright side. I too thought I was being vigilant. 😦 I am sorry you had this end to your adventure. x x

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  21. So sorry to hear about the scam. We’ve two sets of friends who’ve been mugged on station platforms in Barcelona. Others duped by ‘well-meaning’ locals in Rome, when they’d been doused in urine from a nearby apartment window. Hope you’re both feeling okay – I wasn’t surprised to see you blogging again, the very next day! Looking forward to catching up soon.

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  22. Oh Margaret! How very unfortunate! Reading your comments, I am shocked to see how common this is; and so expensive to deal with too! It seems I am in the minority in never having been mugged or scammed…..yet 😮

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