Wednesday 23 January 2008

Yet another warm, bright, sunny day. Yesterday, the temperatures were around 20C here in the valley, a bit lower in Ronda. Very unseasonably warm.

All the wild almond trees are now in bloom, which is about the right timing. Every year since we have been here, these trees have started to bloom in January, so now is about the time. There are small purple crocuses as well dotting the mountainsides; quite lovely.

The renovation work across the road from the hotel on the lookout is just about finished. I'll have to snap a photo and install here for readers to see.

We have been busy redecorating a bit in the last few days. Ivan has painted a couple of the rooms; one wall in each room with a different color than the plain white which we've had since day one. Yes, the white is traditional and perhaps rustic, but a splash of color will make the rooms more distinctive and hopefully more cosy. I've been finishing the shelves we bought to put in the rooms and also am re-painting the hanging sign we had with the name of the hotel. The sign had become very difficult to read the hotel name, defeating the whole point of having a sign out there.

Once we have our pool completed, which we are hoping will be in early April, we will also install the name of the hotel above the pool, in tiles that we had made quite a while back. These tiles were just sitting in a box for the longest time so I finally removed them to have a look. There was some minor adjustments we wanted to make which we've now done. Once the pool is completed, the tiles will go up adding more color on the building than has been there. The whole hotel is white WHITE and it is a bit too much.... we were trying to find a way to make it less so and colors and plants will make the difference. I have to get some geraniums in early March as the ones I had have dried up and died so there is no color there, just empty pots hanging in the walls (I've now removed them). Anyway, many things to keep us occupied in these quiet times with no clients.