05 April -
Today is the first day of the long weekend. There has been a bit of noise out there in the streets of Juzcar as the fiesta starts with bangers going off (scaring all the dogs in the village) and car horns blaring. The hotel will be full tomorrow and Saturday which is good news. We still have a couple of rooms available for tonight; the phone keeps ringing with enquiries but they all want more than one night and we only have tonight available. C'est la vie.
We had four very nice ladies from Belgium depart today after three nights with us. I asked them to sign our guest book but forgot to take their photo. We also have a German family of four with us until tomorrow as well as our clients from Barcelona who have now booked for the month of August, same as last year.
We had one cancellation this afternoon for tonight which was a one night booking. I just had a feeling this reservation would not materialise and I made the mistake of not taking a credit card number to charge them as is our policy with cancellations, especially for this holiday period. Occasionally, there are bookings that just don't sound legitimate and this Montse was one of them. She called and said she had enormous problems and could not come. Well, this is a mistake I will not make again as someone else did the same thing to me a few days ago. I am rather annoyed about that and want to move toward only taking bookings with a credit card for confirmation; that way I can always charge the card when they don't turn up or cancel at the last minute which is outlined in our policy.
We did not have many tables for lunch today which was disappointing but we are hopeful for much more business tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. Ivan has prepared lots of food which will keep if we don't sell most of it this weekend but there is a lot of money invested in that food and it would be nice to see it move. If nothing else, we do have a group of 21 bikers coming for lunch tomorrow. Some have been here back in October including the organiser. They were a group of 53 back then. They should have a very nice meal tomorrow. Ivan's mother has made leche fritas and torrijas, which is a traditional Easter dessert.
We had a very nice couple from England staying next door earlier in the week and they have already booked for their 20th anniversary in June 2009 with us. Gavin had an iPod as well so he let me copy his music collection so now I have another music file to go through. I still have not finished going through the music that Din from NYC gave to me back in January 2006 not to mention Alberto's from August 2005. Lots of tracks to go through and decide if I want them. Anyway, Gavin and Linda were very happy to have discovered this area and the hotel bar. They were very complementary and we do look forward to seeing them again, our first booking for 2009. So now we have bookings for two years ahead of time which is fantastic!! Now if we can only get this year's book filled to at least 50 percent capacity everything would be dandy!!
We had Lolita's father here this week as Bandit had gone into heat. Otto, as he is called, stayed with us for three nights but it was too much work for a holiday week so we sent him packing back to his owner's place on Tuesday. We hope that the work that needed to be done got done; the timing was just unfortunate. We shall see if we have more pups after 7 weeks or so.
Thanks to one of our clients recently, I am going to be on the radio on 24 April, as I mentioned in my blog entry from 26 March. This radio station down in San Pedro on the coast called REM-FM which stands for Radio Europa Mediteraneo broadcasts to the Costa de Luz, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Mallorca, Menorca and the Canary Islands. It is an English language talk radio station covering various topics about things happening in Spain. As I mentioned in my 26 March entry, I contacted them at the suggestion of Campbell who stayed in the hotel recently. They spoke with him as well and then made a date with me. It will about 15 minutes and I need to put together a list of talking points about the Genal Valley and the hotel. Ivan and I will both go ... so that is kind of exciting!
The weather so far this week has been very disappointing. I am sitting here writing this entry with cold feet under the table and wearing a sweater. It's been cold and cloudy outside as well as slightly damp which does not help. I was told by a Norwegian client that dropped in last week that their daughter was sitting out on a terrace with short sleeves last week in Oslo[!!] while we are cold with fires going and this being the start of April in southern Spain!! The forecast is not so bright either and those folks that told me the weather would improve by today were obviously wrong! This weather is so unpredictable... after all that warmth we had back in January and February. I know I should just enjoy the cool temps now because when it heats up, it will be scolding but it's hard to think of that now with cold feet, sabes!!
Well, I'm going to relax for a while with an episode of Grey's Anatomy so ciao for now.
Today is the first day of the long weekend. There has been a bit of noise out there in the streets of Juzcar as the fiesta starts with bangers going off (scaring all the dogs in the village) and car horns blaring. The hotel will be full tomorrow and Saturday which is good news. We still have a couple of rooms available for tonight; the phone keeps ringing with enquiries but they all want more than one night and we only have tonight available. C'est la vie.
We had four very nice ladies from Belgium depart today after three nights with us. I asked them to sign our guest book but forgot to take their photo. We also have a German family of four with us until tomorrow as well as our clients from Barcelona who have now booked for the month of August, same as last year.
We had one cancellation this afternoon for tonight which was a one night booking. I just had a feeling this reservation would not materialise and I made the mistake of not taking a credit card number to charge them as is our policy with cancellations, especially for this holiday period. Occasionally, there are bookings that just don't sound legitimate and this Montse was one of them. She called and said she had enormous problems and could not come. Well, this is a mistake I will not make again as someone else did the same thing to me a few days ago. I am rather annoyed about that and want to move toward only taking bookings with a credit card for confirmation; that way I can always charge the card when they don't turn up or cancel at the last minute which is outlined in our policy.
We did not have many tables for lunch today which was disappointing but we are hopeful for much more business tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. Ivan has prepared lots of food which will keep if we don't sell most of it this weekend but there is a lot of money invested in that food and it would be nice to see it move. If nothing else, we do have a group of 21 bikers coming for lunch tomorrow. Some have been here back in October including the organiser. They were a group of 53 back then. They should have a very nice meal tomorrow. Ivan's mother has made leche fritas and torrijas, which is a traditional Easter dessert.
We had a very nice couple from England staying next door earlier in the week and they have already booked for their 20th anniversary in June 2009 with us. Gavin had an iPod as well so he let me copy his music collection so now I have another music file to go through. I still have not finished going through the music that Din from NYC gave to me back in January 2006 not to mention Alberto's from August 2005. Lots of tracks to go through and decide if I want them. Anyway, Gavin and Linda were very happy to have discovered this area and the hotel bar. They were very complementary and we do look forward to seeing them again, our first booking for 2009. So now we have bookings for two years ahead of time which is fantastic!! Now if we can only get this year's book filled to at least 50 percent capacity everything would be dandy!!
We had Lolita's father here this week as Bandit had gone into heat. Otto, as he is called, stayed with us for three nights but it was too much work for a holiday week so we sent him packing back to his owner's place on Tuesday. We hope that the work that needed to be done got done; the timing was just unfortunate. We shall see if we have more pups after 7 weeks or so.
Thanks to one of our clients recently, I am going to be on the radio on 24 April, as I mentioned in my blog entry from 26 March. This radio station down in San Pedro on the coast called REM-FM which stands for Radio Europa Mediteraneo broadcasts to the Costa de Luz, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Mallorca, Menorca and the Canary Islands. It is an English language talk radio station covering various topics about things happening in Spain. As I mentioned in my 26 March entry, I contacted them at the suggestion of Campbell who stayed in the hotel recently. They spoke with him as well and then made a date with me. It will about 15 minutes and I need to put together a list of talking points about the Genal Valley and the hotel. Ivan and I will both go ... so that is kind of exciting!
The weather so far this week has been very disappointing. I am sitting here writing this entry with cold feet under the table and wearing a sweater. It's been cold and cloudy outside as well as slightly damp which does not help. I was told by a Norwegian client that dropped in last week that their daughter was sitting out on a terrace with short sleeves last week in Oslo[!!] while we are cold with fires going and this being the start of April in southern Spain!! The forecast is not so bright either and those folks that told me the weather would improve by today were obviously wrong! This weather is so unpredictable... after all that warmth we had back in January and February. I know I should just enjoy the cool temps now because when it heats up, it will be scolding but it's hard to think of that now with cold feet, sabes!!
Well, I'm going to relax for a while with an episode of Grey's Anatomy so ciao for now.
