Today is the last day of the best February I think we have had, in terms of our business. We had a group booking in the first weekend of the month for two nights which filled the hotel. Then we were full for Valentine's day, for the first time. Last weekend was the only one (this month) where we had no clients staying in the hotel and little to no passing trade for lunch. But this weekend, there were 3 rooms last night (2 were Finnish couples) and 6 rooms today; we had a group of Danes that booked in for lunch today and we have another group booking for lunch tomorrow, technically, a different month. So all in all, we are happy with our flow of business and it continues to improve, despite this economic climate.
We were written up in a Costa del Sol based Finnish newspaper this month and so we have started receiving queries and reservations from Finnish people. We have previously had many Swedes and Danes and been included in a couple of issues of coastal Danish magazines as well. This is the photo of us published in the article in which we are told there is a good review of Ivan's cooking and the hotel.
Espanjan Sanomat - Febrero 2009 - Nº107
We had the windows finished in our new apartment last week. One of the new doors was installed as well, without the large piece of glass which will be installed when the second door is in place. We started painting the flat as well so it is really starting to take good shape. I'm hoping to be sleeping in there by the end of March!! The complete move of all our belonging may take longer than that as we will not have the benefit of a moving company to assist with that so "poco a poco" as they say here.
The weather has been bright and warm of late although today it is cloudy and raining. We're hoping that the cold weather has relatively little time left to run as we are ready for the milder temps of spring and the blossoms of wild flowers bursting with colour everywhere. Already the cherry blossoms are out in spectacular pink as usual and there are several other small flowers appearing in the countryside, yellows, purples, blues, whites, it is very lovely and should be gearing up very shortly as we move into the month of March.
We have a new bird cage that Ivan built, it is rather large and red and has 3 birds in it. Fred and Ginger have been relocated to this cage and a new male canary which Ivan would like to breed. He bought a new female canary but she was not very well from the start and died a couple of days later so we are now waiting for a new one.
We are expecting Ivan's parents to come for a visit for Semana Santa. Semana Santa starts this year on 3 April. We already have several booking for this week but still have plenty of availability so if you're interested in booking, now is the time to do so as the queries will increase in the coming days as people have a eye to arranging a break from all the bad news about these days.
I'm working on revising the website a wee bit. I have finally decided on the new format of the website making a wider which is more suitable to the contemporary sizes of computer screen. It will be more or less the same, the content will remain the same but the format will change. I still have not figured out how to incorporate PHP into my website as I am not sure how it functions and I am not a professional webmaster so I do not have lots of literature at my finger tips to do some research, even with the internet available. I know PHP would help me in reducing the amount of time I have to change some things on my website. When I've finished revising it, it will look nicer and be a bit easier to navigate. This will definitely take some time to do as I have so many pages in my site now and want to add one or two more.
I'm also trying to get a brochure for the rooms completed but I have been working on that for more than a year now and it is still not finished. I'm not a big procrastinator like my friend Andy in Los Angeles (sorry Andy) but it is just a slow process, deciding on the content, the form, and then putting it together.
I can say that I have procrastinated like my friend Andy in LA in terms of getting a disk of photos of my wedding to my sisters. The wedding was in May and here we are in March and still no disk. I have at least finished compiling the photos which I want to include and they are in the proper order but yet to be burned to a disk. This week I hope as I am not being held down to doing any accounting this week!!! I finished that last week.
Well more later. Ta ta amigos.
