Sunday, 14 January
YESTERDAY, Nicky stopped by with a stack of English language newspapers. Nicky, along with her partner Phil, is the owner of a bed and breakfast in Alpandeire where they do creative holidays, painting instruction, therapeutic holidays or plain B&B. Nicky is helping this new publication, called the Olive Press, by taking it around for distribution in the upper valley. The publisher is an Englishman who has worked for a couple of the English dailies and is now starting this one here in the Ronda area for the English speaking community. Nice idea.
NICKY also enquired about the Jazz Festival and how it was going. I told her that as I had not had any responses except one to the last email I sent out there for a meeting and apparently there was not much interest; as it is now January, it is a bit late to get a festival organised for the coming May. She told me that Phil had responded to my mail with some suggestions and that they are interested in attending participating... I did not receive that email. So I think I need to reignite the whole idea for next spring. Since apparently there are people with an interest, I think it would be a good idea to try again to get it organised.
YESTERDAY, we also had a reporter stop by called Lola. She is writing the article for Geo magazine, the same magazine I mentioned in an earlier entry when the photographer came by. She told me the magazine has a circulation of about 30,000 in Spain and she did not think the article would appear in other European issues of Geo but one can hope. So Ivan and I sat with her and her husband for a while and talked about being here in Juzcar, local activities, the valley, the hotel and what it was like building this business.
IVAN sold another cake yesterday to a village person. It looked yummy, I must say.
OF the two TVs I took to the technical shop for repair the other day, one is for the bin and the other one works. I simply don't understand these TVs... I've had problems with them before where a guest complains the TV is not functioning. I have exchanged TVs between rooms and it seems to work. This time that did not happen with one of them as the technician told me it would cost 70 Euros to repair and I can buy one new for about 100 Euros so he recommended tossing it. The other one did not function for me or Francisco but the technician said it functions so back to the room with it. And now I need to purchase a new TV for the room. Or perhaps I should take the over sized TV I purchased months ago for our bedroom at home (I was not thinking clearly at the time of purchase obviously as it won't fit in our bedroom and so is still in its box) and put it in Room 11 and take that small TV and put it in our bedroom.... now that would work! All I need to get is a TV stand big enough for this TV.
ONE more thing to mention today. We had an unpleasant experience with a hotel guest this morning who stayed for the last two nights with us. She was clearly not all there in the head from the start. On Friday evening, Ivan came to me here in reception from the bar to say someone enquired about a single room. He also said she was acting strangely as she was laughing out loud to herself alone in the bar. When she came to reception, she said all she wanted was a bottle of Baileys and wanted to pay right away for the night, all the while smoking.
THE next morning, yesterday, she came to the bar about 12.00 and stood in same place in front of the bar with two packs of cigarettes, smoking, staring into space with two glasses of wine in front of her that she did not drink. Eventually she went onto the terrace for a bite to eat, food she ordered and then did not eat. She came back into the bar in the evening and did the same thing, stand at the bar and smoke.
THIS morning when I arrived in the reception area, I found my computer unplugged, disconnected from everything, reception desk disorganised, answering machine unplugged, radiator cover off, sign on the dining room door attached backwards, lamps unplugged, floor lamp in the middle of the floor, and this woman stretched out on a sofa in the salon, smoking with an electric radiator going next to her. I said to her "what are you doing here?" She said the heat in her room did not work (not true as I checked it last night and it did work). I told her she had to pay and leave right away as I was not impressed with her actions at all. She then broke into song when she noticed a Tarot book in my bookcase. I grabbed the book from her and told her to stop singing and to go wait in the bar. She yelled at me, "In the street?!? In the bar!??" I said go to the bar and followed her.
SHE finally paid me in cash after speaking to me in bad French and acting very, very strangely. I went and checked her room and found that the tub had been filled with water and teabags she had requested the day before. The room stank of tobacco and the ashtray was full ( I opened the windows of course). It was later when I was checking over my PC and putting it back together that I noticed my computer mouse was missing. She took it I assume as it was there last night when I closed up. I did not even know if the PC would function as she had apparently opened the tower as well so who knows what she was doing. Clearly all was well or else I would not be writing this blog entry now. Hopefully, we won't have another experience like that one, ever! But that is the problem when one has a public business such as ours.... you never know who you will encounter. Poor thing, she should not be let out alone as clearly she has issues or perhaps she is not taking her meds regularly!!
WEATHER today, not so nice, overcast and cool. Feels a bit damp too but it has not rained here in weeks and I think we could use the water. I spent some time on the terrace yesterday watering all the potted plants as they were all dry.
YESTERDAY, Nicky stopped by with a stack of English language newspapers. Nicky, along with her partner Phil, is the owner of a bed and breakfast in Alpandeire where they do creative holidays, painting instruction, therapeutic holidays or plain B&B. Nicky is helping this new publication, called the Olive Press, by taking it around for distribution in the upper valley. The publisher is an Englishman who has worked for a couple of the English dailies and is now starting this one here in the Ronda area for the English speaking community. Nice idea.
NICKY also enquired about the Jazz Festival and how it was going. I told her that as I had not had any responses except one to the last email I sent out there for a meeting and apparently there was not much interest; as it is now January, it is a bit late to get a festival organised for the coming May. She told me that Phil had responded to my mail with some suggestions and that they are interested in attending participating... I did not receive that email. So I think I need to reignite the whole idea for next spring. Since apparently there are people with an interest, I think it would be a good idea to try again to get it organised.
YESTERDAY, we also had a reporter stop by called Lola. She is writing the article for Geo magazine, the same magazine I mentioned in an earlier entry when the photographer came by. She told me the magazine has a circulation of about 30,000 in Spain and she did not think the article would appear in other European issues of Geo but one can hope. So Ivan and I sat with her and her husband for a while and talked about being here in Juzcar, local activities, the valley, the hotel and what it was like building this business.
IVAN sold another cake yesterday to a village person. It looked yummy, I must say.
OF the two TVs I took to the technical shop for repair the other day, one is for the bin and the other one works. I simply don't understand these TVs... I've had problems with them before where a guest complains the TV is not functioning. I have exchanged TVs between rooms and it seems to work. This time that did not happen with one of them as the technician told me it would cost 70 Euros to repair and I can buy one new for about 100 Euros so he recommended tossing it. The other one did not function for me or Francisco but the technician said it functions so back to the room with it. And now I need to purchase a new TV for the room. Or perhaps I should take the over sized TV I purchased months ago for our bedroom at home (I was not thinking clearly at the time of purchase obviously as it won't fit in our bedroom and so is still in its box) and put it in Room 11 and take that small TV and put it in our bedroom.... now that would work! All I need to get is a TV stand big enough for this TV.
ONE more thing to mention today. We had an unpleasant experience with a hotel guest this morning who stayed for the last two nights with us. She was clearly not all there in the head from the start. On Friday evening, Ivan came to me here in reception from the bar to say someone enquired about a single room. He also said she was acting strangely as she was laughing out loud to herself alone in the bar. When she came to reception, she said all she wanted was a bottle of Baileys and wanted to pay right away for the night, all the while smoking.
THE next morning, yesterday, she came to the bar about 12.00 and stood in same place in front of the bar with two packs of cigarettes, smoking, staring into space with two glasses of wine in front of her that she did not drink. Eventually she went onto the terrace for a bite to eat, food she ordered and then did not eat. She came back into the bar in the evening and did the same thing, stand at the bar and smoke.
THIS morning when I arrived in the reception area, I found my computer unplugged, disconnected from everything, reception desk disorganised, answering machine unplugged, radiator cover off, sign on the dining room door attached backwards, lamps unplugged, floor lamp in the middle of the floor, and this woman stretched out on a sofa in the salon, smoking with an electric radiator going next to her. I said to her "what are you doing here?" She said the heat in her room did not work (not true as I checked it last night and it did work). I told her she had to pay and leave right away as I was not impressed with her actions at all. She then broke into song when she noticed a Tarot book in my bookcase. I grabbed the book from her and told her to stop singing and to go wait in the bar. She yelled at me, "In the street?!? In the bar!??" I said go to the bar and followed her.
SHE finally paid me in cash after speaking to me in bad French and acting very, very strangely. I went and checked her room and found that the tub had been filled with water and teabags she had requested the day before. The room stank of tobacco and the ashtray was full ( I opened the windows of course). It was later when I was checking over my PC and putting it back together that I noticed my computer mouse was missing. She took it I assume as it was there last night when I closed up. I did not even know if the PC would function as she had apparently opened the tower as well so who knows what she was doing. Clearly all was well or else I would not be writing this blog entry now. Hopefully, we won't have another experience like that one, ever! But that is the problem when one has a public business such as ours.... you never know who you will encounter. Poor thing, she should not be let out alone as clearly she has issues or perhaps she is not taking her meds regularly!!
WEATHER today, not so nice, overcast and cool. Feels a bit damp too but it has not rained here in weeks and I think we could use the water. I spent some time on the terrace yesterday watering all the potted plants as they were all dry.
