This is something new for me, trying out a video in my blog space. This is a clip I made of our waiter one afternoon a few weeks ago.

We went for a drive through the hills the other, something we have not done enough of since we have been here. Exploring the mountains is fun... driving along these narrow dirt tracks trying to find your way somewhere you're not sure of. Here is a photo I took of the view from one of the points we arrived at.

You can see Juzcar to the right of the photo and the village of Farajan to the left. We were in amongst a gorgeous pine forest with summer forest fragrance, pine and orange blossoms. It was quite warm as well as you might see from the photo... to me, it looks hot.

Here is another photo of the chestnut trees now in full flower, a bit later than normal but they are pretty stunning to see. This photo only shows the canopy of the trees in flower but that is what I think looks so impressive.

The weather has gone hot now although there is a bit of cloud today, the temps are still quite warm. Yesterday in Ronda, after we delivered the wedding cake Ivan made, the temperature there in the car registered at 45C!! Not the real temp but close... a hot day yesterday.

Ivan made a three tiered wedding cake for an English wedding which took place a the Hotel Molino del Puente in Ronda. That hotel is run by an English couple and they get a lot of wedding business. Elaine, one half of the couple, is recommending us to her clients for the wedding cakes as she was not impressed with the cakes she has seen in Ronda. We are now waiting the feedback after the event but here is a photo of the cake:

Ivan is now finishing off a couple of communion cakes to be delivered for 1.00-ish today for a couple of families in the village of Farajan. We seem to do a lot of cakes for the people of Farajan and almost nothing for the people of Juzcar! Funny that... the village we live in does not give us much custom at all while the other villages are better patrons to us!

We have a couple from Madrid with us for a few nights as well as a family from Copenhagen. The hotel is almost full tonight which is very good because June is the second worst month of the year... July being the worst (slowest). That said, we have some offers on.... all rooms available in the hotel for only 55 Euros per night including continental breakfast and tax for two!! What an offer, eh?

Then next week, I am taking a few days to go to New York and catch up with a few friends and family. I've not been home since my Mom died a couple of years back (already)! I think I will be busy as I want to see quite a few people and I've only got 10 days. Plus I will be cycling with my nephew down that bike trail along the west side of Manhattan, something I am really looking forward to. Ivan's parents arrive tomorrow to be here to keep him company and help out while I am away... isn't that so very nice of them to come and be here so I could go to NY for a few days. Paz, Ivan's mom, is not a fan of the heat at all but she'll be here for a couple of weeks anyway.

Then in July, as it is the slowest month of the year, we are closing for a long weekend and going to Ivan's town up in Avila for the first couple of nights of the town's annual fiesta! That will be a nice break from here as well and it won't be as hot up there as it is here so another break from the heat for a couple of days. I really enjoy the heat as long as it is dry heat.

Please tell a friend about our offers for June and July as the pool is just perfect now.

I helped Ivan make marmalade yesterday. He's been making strawberry marmalade for the last couple of weeks. He made black cherry marmalade as well and it is very delicious... I had some on toast this morning. Yesterday morning, I was standing there in the kitchen for some 2.5 hours pitting the black cherries while Ivan and Antonio were cleaning up from the painting upstairs on the terraces.

Ivan and Antonio, our waiter, painted the exterior of the hotel in the last couple of weeks , a job that needed to be done and a big one at that. We had the idea of painting the chimney pots different colours matching the rooms that they corresponded to and did... they are now violet, blue, green, yellow and orange and BOY, what a difference it makes. The hotel looks almost like a different place. So here are a couple of photos and a photo of our bougainvillea that has sprung into colour in the last few days and appears to be quite healthy.

The weather has been up and down these last couple of weeks in terms of temps... April and early May were beautiful but these last couple of weeks could have been better; but today it seems like summer has arrived as it is quite warm out there today.

Bookings have slowed right down now; we were quite busy for a few weeks with the hotel continuously having guests. But from 18 May, the reservation booked has a lot of blank pages. We have an English guest at the moment who is a client of our friends from Butterfly Adventures. She is here for walking and relaxation on 5 day relaxing break having booked a couple of massage treatments as well.

Tomorrow the hotel will be full with a group of tour operators looking at promoting the Genal Valley but we don't have much to do with that thanks to the president of our association; I think he forgets that there are members of our association that he should be involving in these kinds of events but he is quite busy promoting the village, he forgets that others might have an interest as well. Not to worry though as the hotel will be full for a night with dinner provided as well.

We recently had a returning group of clients from Malton England; four gentlemen (well 3 from the previous time) who were here a couple of years back; they were here for a week and had a very enjoyable week of walking especially in the Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park Reserve. I think they were a pleasantly surprised at the fantastic walks they had there in the park but they were not surprised at all by the wonderful meals Ivan prepared for them.

We had to replace a hot water heater and deposit a couple of months back unexpectedly. Last night one of the motors on the walk-in frig decided to stop working so now we have another unexpected expense of that to sort out. Francisco got it working provisionally this morning but we need to get a new motor. There is always something that comes up unexpectedly/ un-planned for in running a business like this... there is never a time to just sit back and enjoy and let it roll with no problems arising for some time.

Ivan will be starting flamenco dancing lesson tomorrow in Ronda while I continue with my driving test preparations.... a story for another day. Ciao for now.

The photos will say everything for me this time.

These are a few photos I took of Juzcar yesterday, 07 May 2009. It was a glorious day and the photos say it all, including the wild flowers in the lower village near a picnic area.

Juzcar with Pujerra village in the distance

Juzcar

Juzcar, Hotel Bandolero second to
last building on the right,
(it's long).

Juzcar with glorious big sky above!


Wild flowers

Wild flowers

Scottish Flags flying at the
Hotel Bandolero, 01 May 2009

Things have been moving along here at the Hotel Bandolero. We've been fairly busy since Easter with few days free to rest and do the work around here to keep the place up. So far we have been having a much better spring than we did last year.

For example, this last weekend was a long holiday weekend in Spain as it was in many other European countries for May Day. We had a special offer on because of one of our clients, Fiona Mackenzie of Scotland. As you may know from my website, Fiona is an accomplished Gaelic singer with a few CDs out there in the market; she has performed in concerts in a few countries as well as her own and is a major promoter of the Scottish Gaelic language. We met Fiona last year when she came to Juzcar on holiday with her family and that how the idea evolved for a singing/language workshop her in the Hotel Bandolero.

The workshop started last Wednesday when the sign-ups arrived; Fiona and her colleague, Gillebride MacMillan, arrived on Tuesday. While there were only three sign-ups, Fiona and Gillebride enthusiastically approached this course. Wednesday morning, while awaiting the arrival of the small group, Fiona and Gillebride put up small cards with Gaelic words & English equivalents words all around the hotel, words such as (in English of course) Bar, Restaurant, Kitchen, Men's/Ladies' Toilet, Pay Here, Staff Only, No Smoking, manager, reception, Lounge, Welcome, Good-Bye, Some Gaelic Spoken Here, chair, table, wall, stove, frame, picture, lamp, cabinet, etc. The course included singing so there was Gaelic singing softly wafting about the hotel for 4 days, a beautiful sounds to open your door to in the morning. Singing on the terrace in the afternoon so villagers could hear.

Saturday Evening Ceilihd -
José, Christine, Gillebride & Fiona singing

Then on Saturday evening, there was a Ceilidh, pronounced Kay-Lee. This is an evening of singing and dancing and it was lots of fun. Ivan got his genuine kilt out for the first time along with all the rest of the accessories and appeared very Brave Heart Scottish for the evening. While we did not have as big a turn out as we'd hoped for, there were a few folks in attendance. Fiona and Gillebride sang Gaelic songs, some sad and beautiful, others more up lifting and chirpie! Antonio, our waiter, joined in with a couple of flamenco guitar songs while Ivan danced a couple of Sevillanas with Antonio's fiancée, Maria Angeles. Our friend Daica, visiting for the weekend from Madrid, sang a song with her daughter Audrey, a Scottish friend from the area, Kate, surprised one and all and got up to sing a couple of songs in Gaelic and did a couple of traditional Scottish dances. Everyone got to dance and sing and eat good food prepared by Ivan as well (including home-made genuine Scottish shortbread). It was a great evening and a very different as well from the normal Andaluz night. Here are a couple of photos of the event.

Iván dancing a Sevillana with Maria Angeles, Antonio on the guitar


Group participating in a wawking

So, all in all, a very good weekend of music and dancing. Ivan's brother Carlos and his family came for the weekend in addition to our friends Steven and Daica with their 3 children... lots of fun with all the little ones running around and having a good old time at the Bandolero!!

These are the types of Saturday night events we would like to host more of... we only need the musicians and singers to come along and then the people will come to enjoy and have a great night!!

What else has been happening here, well... we are almost finished with that art gallery. I feel like we are at this last stage and getting through it is proving to be quite difficult. We have installed a hanging system and we have even been provided with some art work to sell by an English artist who lives in the valley. But there is a lot of stuff left from the work of the renovation and we just have not had the time to clean things up and do the final organisation... so it feels like it is dragging on and on. Like our apartment! It is just about done but we are waiting for the big windows to be installed before we can move in otherwise it is not weather proofed. The electrics are just about done but Ivan has decided he is not so happy with its appearance and would like it done over again....! I'm not so fussy about it as I think it will disappear when all our furnishings have been installed and there are things hanging on the walls.

We bought a cloths closet at Ikea in Malaga last week and they delivered it within an incredible 48 hours. Then Steve, who apparently has lots of experience putting Ikea things together, put together our closet which I'm sure will be saving me lots of frustration!! So small steps down that road of moving.. we will be moving the things over slowly but surely as well. In fact, Daica helped to move quite a few things over this weekend as did Steve.

The weather is warming. We had quite a wind blowing through here on Friday and Saturday but today it is sunny and dry, quite clear, a perfect day for cycling. Speaking of cycling, we had a four Canadian cyclists arrive yesterday for the night, staying only one night here on their self-guided a circuit, heading next into Ronda. When chatting upon their arrival, it turns out that two of them live in Hong Kong and have done so for the last 17 years. They arrived in HK, coincidentally, one month before I did way back in 1992. Martin is a pilot and works for Cathy Pacific Airlines and knows someone (named Greg) that I know who lives in Sydney and works for the same company. All of this proves just how small this little old world is.

And on that note, I will say hasta otra dia.

Ivan and I feel pretty naive after being ripped off. We were only trying to be nice and build a cake business. But there are those people out there who take advantage of that and we had to learn a lesson the hard way.

We were approached by a woman called Melissa Harvey a few months ago for a wedding cake. She worked for an outfit called Purple Turtle International, an events organising company based on the Costa del Sol and in Hertfordshire, one of the home counties north of London. They were all excited about the possibility of doing business with us and were looking for a specific wedding cake for an upcoming wedding. We were happy to oblige of course; she came up to meet us here in the hotel one busy evening with her boss, a woman called Joy Gunning, a Scottish woman and partner with her husband in this company called Purple Turtle International.

They showed up bringing lots of gifts of pens, paper, mouse pads, catalogues with their products and were very effervescent in their enthusiasm. They stayed for some tapas and said how our business was so lovely and they would love to send some for their clients our way. They went ahead and ordered the cake with a tasting to start.

To make a long story short, we agreed to provide the wedding cake and deliver it as well to a location on Estepona, which is on the Costa del Sol, about 75 minutes from the hotel down the mountain. When I asked for payment, they said they could pay 50% on delivery and the remainder when their client paid. This should have set off alarm bells for me but it didn't. This is a major sign of just not having the experience required to run a business. Even now, months later this sets my head on fire for being such an amateur. I got half the amount due from Joy who so sweetly promised to get the remainder to us in no time. Her assistant Mel Harvey was just as much a liar as Joy was as she quit her job with them after this wedding and that was that.

Joy claimed that her assistant up and left her without notice nor any transition time and so she did not have our invoice and did not know how much she owed us and everything was in a right mess. I'm sure Mel left in a hurry as her boss is a thief and she did not want to work for any more, no doubt. Next thing, Joy is in Scotland for weeks on end due to family problems that I am supposed to have sympathy for. Being the nice person I am, I did have sympathy for it but I began to think as it was getting to be months later and no payment nor equipment we left as well (without a deposit... another amateur point to be fuming about), how professional was she for not making sure her business obligation were met even if she had family issues.

I asked her about it in an email and she sent me a very nasty response about how she has her priorities and family was first and she could do without an email like mine and in fact, this was my own fault that I was not being paid.

Well, she had a point there, not the way she meant it but the way I saw it. Of course she took advantage of us because she is the type of business person that is the slime of the business world; making all kinds of ridiculous promised not even asked for, kind of OTT, acting always with a nice face and being pleasant right up to the moment of payment. Of course she was not going to pay me the amount due, she most likely never planned to pay me as we were naive enough to leave a cake without getting full payment up front. We could have threatened to the cake back with us if they did not pay and that would have been that... I think we would have had our cash in hand had we done that... but naive is the word here yet again.

It should have set off alarms as well when I checked out their website and it was "under construction"; today, one cannot find an address on their site nor contact telephone numbers, also a warning sign of a shifty outfit. I should have had reservations when their phone numbers kept changing. There were several tell tale signs that I just did not cotton on to.

So all I can do now is put Joy Gunning's name in my blog several times as well as her business name of Purple Turtle International in the hopes that when others check on Google to see if Joy Gunning and Purple Turtle International are legitimate, they will come across this blog entry and realise that Joy Gunning is a liar and a thief; her outfit called Purple Turtle International is also a fraud and they prey upon nice people. They are the types of Brits on the Costa del Sol who give the Brits that bad name that they have, ripping off each other (Brits that is) and non-suspecting innocents like Ivan and I.

Well, we have learned a lesson the hard way and hopefully Purple Turtle International (also known as First Consultants Ltd) and Joy Gunning will soon be seeing my blog entry in Google results and help to protect others that they may be preying upon. All one has to do really is look at their website to know they are a fraudulent outfit. She even said to me a couple of times that they were for real.... should that not have said something to us to beware of these people?

Enough of them now. I am writing this to get it out of my system as every time I think about it, I get hot under the collar.

Well, we are having a good Easter week so far. The weather is co-operating, warm and sunny, not hot. Clear blue skies, fantastic light and shadows. Ronda is looking pretty good as well; the hills around Ronda are extremely green at the moment, that vivid, rich green that jumps off the hillside and grabs you.

We've had a couple of adventurous kids and their mother go into the pool yesterday and today; the temps are warm-ish but the water in the pool is not...they were just giving their circulatory systems a jump, I think!

The hotel is full tonight and tomorrow with a couple of rooms available for Saturday night... still may get a taker or two for them at the last minute.

We just placed an ad in the latest edition of the "Olive Press", a locally published English language newspaper that I am not all that fond of as it always making Spain look terrible, from an English point of view and I know there are plenty of people who disagree with what's written in it, including many Brits.; it's not the subject, just the presentation. Nevertheless, we got a very nice offer to be in their special edition of restaurants and decided to go ahead and advertise. We have already had a foursome in for lunch who said they came as a result of the ad.... one can never tell what kind of result one will get from print advertising.

We are also currently running some radio ads on Radio Andalucia.es as we got a great offer on that as well for 12 months of adverts, four times daily... we've not seen any results from that yet but one can hope.

We have a very nice French family with us at the moment, spending a week with us. Next Sunday, a couple from Stockholm arrive who were with us last year. They've even written to us in advance saying they are tired of the long winter of Sweden and look forward to their holiday here in Juzcar.

Well, that's it for today, just a short entry for the blog.

I have asked myself a few times why I have yet to publish the story of Diego in my blog. It is an interesting story and one that is unique to Spain... I think. I have had clients comment on this man many times and even tell me stories of similar men in other places, well one man in England and the place benefited from having him around and publicizing the story. So here it goes, our story of Diego, but I am not telling it to benefit from him, only because it is such an intriguing story.

When we were looking at the purchase contract to buy the hotel way back in September 2004, there was one clause in there about this man called Diego Piña. He had the rights of a room and the right of 3 meals a day; our first reaction was what the heck is this? We certainly did not want something like this and firmly told the lawyer representing the seller. A few weeks went by and eventually we were on the phone speaking with the seller about a a couple of outstanding points to be resolved in the purchase contract including Diego. Antonio, as he is called, told us that Diego was the owner of the land that the hotel is built upon. When he bought the land from him, he made an agreement with him; the agreement was that he, Antonio, would pay some money to Diego and also provide him a place to live and his 3 daily meals for as long as he needed or wanted. Antonio informed us if we agreed to accept this obligation (which is in fact a legal right held by Diego and published for all the world to see in the land registry in Ronda), we would receive ownership to another house (Diego's place) in the purchase without any additional cost.

Does that all sound well and good or does it strike a note of concern? For us, in that moment, we thought that if we were going to receive another house in the deal at no extra cost, then what's the big deal? He would only require feeding 3 times a day and how bothersome would that be??

This is Diego, he is not drunk in this photo but he could be blowing.

Well, we did not think about the long term effects of this agreement. Nor did we think to ask the age of this man nor the state of his health. We thought we would get a house for nothing.... well, you get nothing for nothing so you must always pay something to receive a return... that is how life works. Someone must pay! That is the golden rule to life... there is always a fee at the end of the day, nothing is free.

So we have been paying that fee now for almost 5 years.

Diego is a simple man, a village person who does not work nor does he even like to work, or so he recently told Ivan. He lives in this small house that Antonio built for him and that neither Ivan nor I have seen the inside of... our house mind you. The house is located right at the entrance of the village, two buildings up from the hotel. It is more of a bungalow than a house as it has a tilted roof (in fact, the people of Juzcar call his house the cheese wedge as it looks something like that). He owns 2 or 3 other fincas, parcels of land in the countryside, from which he occasionally brings us chestnuts, vegetables, olives or mushrooms.

This simple man was kind of ripped off in this deal as he was paid very little money for land on which a hotel was to be erected, in a prime village location; his house is not where he was lead to believe it would either and he has to rely on a (unwilling at this point) third party for his meals. He has been the butt of many jokes in the village over the years as we have learned. He does not speak all that much but he blows a lot, sort of like whistling but not really. He does that when he is drunk which is normally several times a week. And rightly so I guess as what else is there to do for a single man who never wed, has no children or family to speak of, to do in a village this size? He wonders to his fincas, he hangs out in the village bar drinking a mix of white and sweet wine. He smokes a bit as well but not all that much. Occasionally, Diego helps/assists Francisco with a project he might be working on; Francisco is our maintenance man who lives here in the village and is quite entrepreneurial and so is always busy with one thing or another. On a very rare occasion, he might lend a hand around the hotel but we don't encourage that.

For us, he is mostly an annoyance as he is always there, waiting in front of the hotel first thing in the morning, waiting for his coffee and toast with garlic and olive oil (the traditional Andaluz breakfast). He is not really the first person one wants to see in the morning but there he is. And normally, quite punctually, he will be here at 1.30 PM for his lunch. I recently introduced a new policy where he has to pick up and return his tray to the kitchen himself. Dinner, well dinner is another story.

This man uses the sun as his clock basically. So in summer he will arrive quite late for dinner as the sun sets quite late here in Spain in summer; in winter it is just the opposite, he arrives quite early. Then there are days when he does not turn up at all which we like the best of course. Or he shows at 11 PM or later when we are about to close and retire for the day, expecting to get a meal. On one such occasion, I handed him a piece of fruit and sent him on his way. But to better manage this, I introduced a meal schedule for him which is hanging in the kitchen. It tells him his lunch and dinner times. If he shows later than 10PM, he gets no dinner and I think a two hour window between 8-10 PM is time enough for anyone to show up for a meal.

This is the thorn in our side. As you might be able to tell from this story so far, this man never, well, almost never leaves the village. He has no job so he takes no holiday (and where would he go anyway?). He is always here, 3-6-5 days per year. So what do we do you ask, when we want to escape from here ourselves? Again, Francisco to the rescue... he feeds Diego while we are away. But the rest of the time, it's mainly Ivan who feeds him, but I do as well some times and so does Ivan's father, Mariano, when his parents are visiting.

Diego was only 68 years old when we arrived here and he is in no doubt, better health today than when we arrived as Ivan feeds him well. My dad, Paul, was very friendly with him the two times he's been here and Diego has commented to me on that.

So what else is there to say? Many of our returning clients ask about Diego upon their arrival in the hotel. Those that have not been here before and pass a couple of days here, always inevitably ask, "Who is that man that comes in every day?", no doubt because there is normally little to no conversation between us and him, just a tray of food will be prepared and then he is called to take it away. He eats in the bar, puts his tray away and normally leaves. Sometimes, we have to ask him to bath before he comes into the bar. It is a known fact in Juzcar that Diego thinks that winter time is not the time to bath, it is just too cold outside! I don't believe this is a rule he follows only in winter, in fact, I'm certain. One can imagine that a man who does not bath will stink a bit with time. And on top of this, his cloths are not washed regularly either so add that on top of poor personal hygiene habits and it adds up to a stinky cloud around you that offends most people it comes into contact with. He is a bit indignant when told, "Please bath before you come, you smell" checking his cloths and saying "I just washed this", indicating his cloths.

Mind you, we don't dislike this man, it is just the burden of having to have him around every day. Fortunately, he is not demanding because there are days when we are just out from morning til evening and he gets no lunch as we made no arrangements for it but he does not complain. While he is a simple man, he is not a stupid man so if one tries, one can have a conversation with him, as demonstrated by my dad.

So that is the story of Diego Piña. I have thoughts lots about writing about him but never sat down and actually started the piece so here it is, rolling off the proverbial tongue. Any comments? Everyone who has heard the story tells us to write a book, or comments "only in Spain" or to that effect... but it is humorous, if you are not the one with the obligation to feed him. In fact, making light of it, when asked who this man is, I reply, "He came with the hotel, like a table or another piece of furniture."

We had another death in the village this week. This time a younger person who did not take care of himself. In fact, it was discovered that the house he and his brother were living in needed to be torn down as it was falling in on itself. Amazing conditions some people are willing to live in; the people from the village were even surprised at the mess in this house, filled to the ceiling with trash apparently.

The weather has been good and spring like. The temps have warmed and the flowers are sprouting. The forecast for Ronda is not good for today and tomorrow, rain, no sun. But here in Juzcar it is quite nice, sunny, clear, warm. Better to be in Juzcar than Ronda.

Our art gallery is almost there. The new closet is just about finished; now I have to move everything into it and organise it well. Then the place needs to be cleaned as there is a lot of dust around. We have had plenty of time to work on things upstairs these last couple of weeks as this has been the worst March for bookings, sadly.

And now people are arriving in the bar so I must dash... more later.

Today is Father´s Day in Spain. It is also San Jose Day who is the patron saint of carpenters. Things like that, I never knew growing up in New York. Here in Spain, one learns about patron saints. The calendar issued at each year end by Unicaja Bank, the largest in this area, has the names of the saints on each day of the year, so helpful, no?

We had a death in the village last Friday, a neighbour of ours as well. She was called Maria, what a surprise. She lived two houses down the calle from the hotel. She had a small dog that followed her, slowly, every where she went in the village. She was sometimes friendly enough to say ¨buenas dias¨ or ¨buenas tardes¨ to me or Ivan but she never failed to give a salutation to Lolita, one of our French Bulldogs; ¨Oh Lolita, Lolita, ¿que tal?¨ she would say. We would see her pretty much daily, going to take her trash to the bins or going down to the fountain to fill a bottle of water. Stopping at the mirador with another one of the villagers to chat and look at the view, speculate about the weather. On mornings when we were here early enough, we would see her waiting for the baker to arrive (the baker comes from Ronda daily about 9AM with fresh bread and sweets in his van). And once, we were clearing out some of the quantity of boxes full of vinegar and so we put a couple out in front of the hotel for anyone to help themselves to and help herself she did. She came along moments after the boxes were put out and said, ¨Oh, oh!! What´s this? For me? Ah, have you got some string for me to wrap it up to take home?¨ And off she went with all the vinegar, no word of thanks, no good-bye, just off she went, waddling down to her house, vinegar in hand, dog following behind her.

Her son, Javier, came into the bar on Friday a couple of times, also a new experience. Although they lived practically in front of the hotel and he even helped to build our pool, he never came to our bar before and he certainly never spoke. But on Friday, he was not himself as he had discovered his mother that morning. Now he would be all alone here in the village. He spoke to Ivan and explained a couple of things to him and had a couple of drinks. He came back to the bar later in the afternoon with some family relations and men from the village for coffee and copas of pacharan with ice. He came back in the evening with an aunt or someone that looked like that and wanted lots more pacharan for which I was admonished by this aunt as he was getting drunk.

On Saturday morning when I came to the hotel, the area in front of the hotel was full with cars. Just as I arrived at the hotel, the procession was coming up from Maria´s house with the hearse in front followed by Javier and Mª Carmen on his arm, a moody, somewhat deranged widow from the next street over. They were taking her to the village cemetary for internment. When our waiter arrived at 11.00, he saw all these cars and thought the hotel must be packed but no one was here except us as usual and one drunk called Paco from the next village (a whole other blog entry that is).

Friday was a glorious day as was Saturday, warm, sunny, clear. We had a table of four for lunch on the terrace of people from Ronda, called Rondeños, which does not happen nearly often enough. We had a lovely American couple staying with us for the weekend as well. They live in Cadiz where they have a business. We also had an English couple stay Saturday evening who publish a local English language monthly magazine called ¨Andalucia Life¨. They are doing a story about Bandoleros and this area and so planned to feature the hotel in the article.

We have a new waiter who started the weekend before; his name is Antonio like our previous waiter but that is where the similarities end. He is a very nice regular guy who also has a business which is struggling at the moment given the economics of the times. He and his fiancé, Mª Angeles, run a butcher business in Ronda but as business is down he is supplementing his income by coming to us on the weekends. They are both quite nice people, Sevillanos living in this area. We are now getting some of our meat supplies from him to help him out. In fact, I´m off to Ronda now to go and collect some suckling pig from them.

So I must be off. Another beautiful day here in Juzcar and warm as well. It had cooled a bit earlier in the week but it´s fantastic now. Ciao for now.

Today it is sunny, clear, bright blue and warm; the first spring-like day here in the Genal Valley and it is truly glorious outside. The temperature must be at least 20C. We have a group of Belgians coming for lunch shortly and one of them just arrived in shorts.

The strange thing though is that there is no passing traffic, things look very quiet and deserted actually which is a bit of a let down as one would expect cars passing through on a day like today.

I'm sure our Finnish clients who currently staying with us are out enjoying the weather on their bikes. They arrived on Thursday and went to the La Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park yesterday for a ride and found lots of mist and fog about the park. The park is at a higher altitude than Juzcar so of course it gets worse weather than here when the weather is not good. They had some cool photos of the mist and some ruins around there. It was too windy for them to stay too long but they informed me they saw lots of other bikers about so the park is a good destination for that.

We've been having pretty bad weather these last few days. Lots of wind and rain and cloud cover and power cuts!! It's the power cuts that are the most annoying. Last night for example, we were home watching a DVD and the power kept going off for 2 minutes every 15-20 minutes. So annoying as we had to restart the film from the beginning every time. And the wind has been quite strong too which reminds me a of wind storm we had last year about this time which completely destroyed a cover we had in the pool terrace and blew everything out of shape.

When I went into Ronda this morning, I left Juzcar which was in the sun, windy but in the sun at least. Ronda, on the other hand, was grey and cold. No rain today but just not a very nice day. Coming back to the Genal Valley, it was quite a beautiful sight actually. As I came down the hair-pin turn (there is a slope downwards at this point and the whole valley is lower than where the entrance is) at the entrance to the valley near the village of Parauta (pronounced "Pa-RAU-ta"), the whole valley was just under the cloud/fog and in the distance the cloud/fog thinned out and the sun was shining through. Cartajima was basking in the light with white puffs of cloud behind in and fog coming down off the mountain in front of it. It was quite a sight.

And then there are all the cherry trees which are now in bloom and are spectacular!! White or pink puffs of flowers adorn these individual branches from the tree's trunk up to the tip of the branches which are reaching skywards.

There is supposed to be lots of sun tomorrow and Sunday and then more clouds next week but the NOAA weather site says no rain for the next few days which is good. Temperatures up to 18 degrees... wwwweeee, happy times when the weather improves!

Our art gallery is coming along. We finally got that wall up to create a closet for the extra beds and cleaning items. It needs to be rendered and a door installed and then it will be almost finished. A couple of coats of white paint and then it will be done. Then we need to install the hanging system for the art work and then finally we can get some things hung there. I have a few items to hang already as we have been fortunate to have some gifts of paintings left here by a few of our clients. We are also speaking with some local artists to exhibit some of their work here. I hope this will be done by Easter as this whole project is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. But given the fact that we have few booking so far this month, we will be able to spend more time working on this project as well as the flat and move it along faster!!

I have redesigned my website as mentioned in the last blog entry but I have now also included a new page which will be about the art gallery. A little history of what it is, why we have it and what is currently on exhibition. Hopefully this will draw more business. All very exciting stuff.

In the flat, the windows are finished as is the frame of the new terrace door and picture window. Now we just need the door to be hung and the glass installed. Still plenty of things to work on here.

The hotel is almost fully booked for Easter and Holy Week so if there are people wanting to come then, book now.

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.

We had a very bad and extremely sad experience on Sunday evening. Ivan and I went for walk in the countryside to collect pine cones; we like using pine cones to start the fires in the wood-burning stoves instead of fire starters which tend to smell too much of gas for guest rooms. There is a particular location we found which is full of conifers that have lots of cones. We took the three dogs with us as usual.

While searching for cones, the dogs run up and down the road following us. Well they came across a piece of raw meat that some evil dark hearted person left with poison in it. Ivan caught the dogs sniffing it but unbeknownst to him, Pasky, our German Shepherd had consumed something of it for a few minutes after we got in the car to return to the hotel, there was some odour coming from the back of the car where the dogs were. We stopped to check what was happening and Ivan knew immediately that Pasky was reacting to the poison he was afraid the meat had; Pasky was vomiting, frothing at the mouth, having convulsions, muscle spasms and diarrhoea. We called the vet on call right away and then rushed to the hotel and then on Ronda but the poison was very strong and fast acting. Poor Pasky was dead on arrival at the vet. He attempted to revive him but without success, he was gone, just like that. This all happened in the space of an hour.

The vet said he had not seen a poison kill that fast before and he has seen several dog poisonings of late in Ronda. Some horrible person leaves poisoned meat in the street for dogs to find and kill themselves with, nice eh? He urged us to report this event to the police as there is an on-going investigation into these occurrences. We reported it to the Forest Services as we found out that the land where we were is actually owned by the Junta de Andalusia, the regional Andalusian government and that the area is open to hunters. They think that it is just mean spirited people that leave meat around to kill the hunters dogs; it could also be local shepherds attempting to kill off any predators of sheep and goats. Whoever it is, they are breaking the law as the Spanish central government realised that poison should not be just left lying around for anyone to consume because some beings become unintended victims like our Pasky!! We heard that the Guardia Civil are out questioning people in that area now and the rangers are searching for more poisoned meat with trained dogs.

Noble Pasky

We miss our Pasky very, very much; we only had him for four years, since he was 7 weeks old. He was a beautiful, loving, affectionate dog who was never aggressive, always gentle, sometimes (well, a lot of the times) seeking attention and jumping up on his owners and anyone else around which was too much. But it was all in search of love and attention, which I think he got a lot of. He now lies not far from where we will be living inside the hotel.

IT's been raining all night and most of the day since I got up. Not a nice day for walks with the dogs. The weather was springlike Thursday and Friday so this rain again is a disappointment.

Next weekend is Valentine's Day. We have an offer on our website and I have taken a couple of bookings for it already and have received several queries. Hopefully we will be half full at least for the night.

The village has installed speed bumps throughout the village on the main street as traffic did pass too fast though here. It's a pretty significant "bump"; it was completed in November. This week it changed color. Yes, it was painted red and then Friday, white lines were painted onto it. This is a classic Zebra crossing, only thing is you can't use this "cross-walk" to get to the other side as there is a fence there and a 10-20 foot drop. Funny, the speed bump was required, but then the rules for speed bumps require the thing to be painted like a cross walk even though you can not cross it on foot as it were. Well, this should not surprise you.

Hey, I got some good news on Friday. After waiting for four years, having originally applied in January 2005, I now have a Spanish residency card, finally... picked it up on Friday and then I immediately applied for my Spanish driving license. As I have a Dutch one, I should not have to take a written exam or a driving road test but my Dutch license expires in April so I needed to get the process rolling ASAP. My advisor told me the process could be "lengthy" as "they" (ESP DMV I presume) will send my original Dutch license to Holland for verification of validity (no surprise with that as nothing happens fast here). In the meantime I have no European driving license so hopefully I won't get stopped by a traffic cop (that is to say I still have a US driving license but it would be nuisance to be stopped). Ah, the novelties of Spanish paperwork and bureaucracy.

So the almond flowers have finally started to arrive. This year they are quite late in arrival as normally we see them in December and it is now February. I guess all this rain will help.

We're on holiday at the moment. Started from 18 January through next week. We went to Morocco last week for a few nights. we drove to Algeciras in Cadiz and then took the ferry across to Ceuta,the Spanish enclave on the coast of North Africa before crossing the border into Morocco. Unfortunately it was quite cold and damp there in Chefchaouen where we headed.

We stayed in a friend's flat the first night but it was not really equipped for cold weather and we basically froze during the night. So the next morning, we went wondering around the medina to see what digs we would happen upon. Shortly, we found the Hotel Barcelona which was in a good location not far from the main plaza and they said they had a double with heat, TV & hot shower. The TV was not really necessary but it was offered, all for the price of 250 dirham per night (roughly 25 Euros); we thought not bad, we checked out the room and decided to move there. When we got all our things installed and turned on the heat, we found that the heater only had a fan, cool and dry function mode that worked...no heat. But there were fantastic blankets available and lots of them so we stayed. However, by morning we decided we could not spend one more night in that cold and thought we would try yet another accommodation in this small town.

When we spoke with the guy at the reception desk, he said we could move to another if we wanted as the room we were in was probably the coldest in the hotel (of course(!) and the other guy from reception is to blame for showing us this room to begin with). Anyway, we happily relocated to another room, slightly bigger, same fantastic blankets and, oh low and behold, the guy from reception came running into the room with an electric oil radiator to hand which he quickly plugged in and turned on, all while holding his toothbrush in between his teeth. Before he could say anything to us, he turned and went into OUR bathroom and finished brushing his teeth!! We looked at each other and thought, no big deal, these people are like this. He had given us a story which I have already recounted a few times to howls of laughter, so it was worth it!!

We stayed there one more night and then made the return journey. I filled the car with diesel in Ceuta and paid an amazing 65 cents per litre, SO cheap.

The French have a big influence in Morocco; French is the second language they teach in school in Morocco. Which brings me to the subject I want to mention here in my blog. This is something I have noticed about French drivers, a habit which I find very annoying whilst driving on a motorway.... perhaps a reader here can explain this annoying habit the French drivers have.

When a French tagged vehicle is travelling in the inside lane (the overtake lane), they tend to leave their left signal indicator flashing as if they are going to make a left hand turn. I noticed this on the way to Morocco because on the Spanish highways near Algeciras, there are lots of cars with French plates as they are heading to/from Morocco. Anyway, this behaviour is something I also noticed when I lived in France about 11 years ago and I found it annoying then too. I did ask my secretary in Paris about this at that time and she was stumped. I asked her if this was something that was taught in French driving schools as a requirement of some kind (you know the French had those yellow headlights on their cars for decades while the entire rest of the planet did not) and she replied "Non." So it is something they pick up from each other driving around on their own.

What does it mean? Why do they do it? Do they realise how annoying they are being to other drivers who have no idea why these cars are zipping along with their left indicator flashing? Where did they learn this from if it is not a driving requirement in France?

Well, I digress from my topic of holiday. But I do want an answer to that query if someone would be so kind!

We are still on holiday; Ivan went to visit his family up north this morning and I stayed here to as I wanted to relax at home for a few more days before we start work again. I have to go and clean the house now so I will say ciao for now. I do have a couple of more stories to recount and will do so this weekend.

One more thing, while we were away, the hotel bookings keep on a coming!! All good!!

Happy New Year a wee bit into the new one already.

The purple flowers on the mountain have been out for a few weeks already. Surprising I have not seen the flowers on the almond trees yet as they normally appear by this time of year.

We have been having a couple of fairly quiet weeks buy things are going O.K. for us at the moment. We have a group bookings for the first and last weekends in February and I must get our Valentines Day offer onto the website as well as that will be happening very soon.

We have started working with a Dutch couple who send Dutch walkers to us. We have already received two bookings for them. We have a double group lunch happening today, one of the groups was here for New Year's Eve and they were so happy with everything, they are back already. And they are recommending us to their friends as well as we have already heard back from some of them.

I am pleased to say we will soon start offering another painting workshop with an artist in Ronda who sought us out last week looking to start working with us.

Our art gallery project is slowly starting to take shape as well. We have the new doors ordered and the bricks to put up a new wall in the gallery for a store room for the beds and things we have in that room now. All very exciting stuff. And we may have some art works already as well from an English painter we met recently who was having an exhibition in Ronda, very colourful work!!

For those of the readers here that look at my website, you will have seen a new addition to our Theme Holidays page, an offer of a Scottish Gaelic Singing/Language Workshop in late April 2009. Fiona Mackenzie of Dingwall Scotland is coming with another colleague to conduct this workshop and she already has one sign-up which is very positive! Something new and another cultural item in our list of activities.

We are going on holiday as well so the hotel will be closed for a couple of weeks from this afternoon, re-opening on 3 February. We will spend part of that time catching up with other business owners in the area, a few days a way and working on our gallery project.

And we have one more bird in our collection now, a love-bird, a type of small parrot. It was a gift to Ivan for the Reyes; it is very smaller and does not yet have all its feathers but still quite cute.

The weather here at the moment has been quite fine actually, the last few days. We have had lots of sun and clear skies making it springlike weather for sitting on the terrace to sip a beer. Last week was quite cold as in the rest of Spain and even now it is quite chilly at night but comfortable in the day.

Must dash now as the group will be arriving for lunch soon and still a few preparations to do so Cheerio for now!

Happy New Year to all my readers.

Our Christmas was spent working here in the hotel for the first time. This year, apart from all others, we had 5 enquires for Christmas, a first and in the year of a recession, perhaps heading toward depression!

Well, we were pleased to work with the hotel full with this family from Algeciras, Cadiz. They were all very nice people, as usual. They brought a guitar and a karaoke machine which we heard them singing with into the late hours on the night of 23 December. Ivan prepared a lovely Christmas eve dinner for them of grilled shrimp with rock salt, boiled langoustines, plates of Spanish cured meats, Manchego cheese, baked stuff mushroom caps, pisto on toast with baked pork tenderloin, consume of langoustine, all followed by roasted leg of baby lamb with rosemary sauce and a roasted turkey with mashed potatoes. Dessert was a baba au rum, OH so yum yum!!, with whipped cream.

This family was so nice and unassuming, they asked before dinner if we were dining with them! Very nice but of course we could not even though our new waiter, Tony, was here with us. WE were busy getting those plates out there, dirty ones in and cleaned. After dinner though, we sat with them and sang and Ivan danced with one of the girls. We were with them until 4AM.

All in all, a good Christmas. While we did not spend the holiday with our families, it was a good Christmas all the same because we spent it with very nice people.

Now we are in the midst of preparing for the big New Year's Eve Dinner. Ivan has been preparing food in the kitchen since yesterday already. We are serving our usual eight course dinner with wine, cava and grapes at midnight (as per the Spanish tradition, one grape with each gong of the bell it strikes midnight). Ivan is making consume of langoustines, terrine of fresh cheese with brazed vegetables with a sauce, grilled scallops with sweet potato, quail with dates, lemon sorbet, fillets of monk fish with an aubergine alioli and finally sucking pig confitado with a spiced honey sauce. Dessert is a 3 chocolate brownie with red fruit sauce and whipped cream. WOW, that's sounds yumilicous to me and is making me hungry as I have yet to have some lunch.

I have been busy setting the table, preparing the packets of grapes and helping in the kitchen as well. We have the bar closed today as is our custom on this day because the kitchen is quite busy with all these plates of food coming.

We plan to take some holiday in January, closing from 19 January until 3 February. Bookings for 2009 are starting to roll in as well. We have a booking for 2 January and then a group in February, and bookings in March and May already as well. Our group bookings are improving as well so things are looking up for us these days. Hopefully the first few months of this new year will not look anything like 2008 as this was a pretty miserable time for us, Jan to July that is.

The weather here is cooperating as well as it is dry and cool but not cold. We just had a wood delivery yesterday of 3,000 kilos; that should last a few months. Good burning wood as well, encima and olive.

Well, it's time for me to put some food in my belly so I will sign off here with my last entry of 2008. Oh, one more thing, I have enable a counter on this blog page as I was curious to see what kind of traffic I get here. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have some very interested readers, some who come back and check me out here once a week. To those dedicated readers, I saw sorry for the long break without new entries, I was recuperating from my fall and then lost my momentum here. But now it's back and and I am in full swing with a couple of entries a month, at least. So, keep on reading.... and thank you for reading.

Happy New Year everyone!! Let's all hope it's better than 2007 and 2008. (Well, any year WITHOUT George W. Bush as President of the United States of America has GOT to be a good year!!!)

Ciao.

Today is another quiet Saturday. Last weekend was kind of slow to dead as well. 'Tis the season they say but not much happens in this part of the Serrania at this time of year.

We do have a family coming for Christmas, a first for us. This year of all years with the economic problems around, we have received the miost enquires for Christmas than ever before. Normally we are closed for this time and spend the holdiay with our families, either in NY or in Avila. This year, we decided that if the business was sufficient, we would stay and it has worked out that way. And today we receoived another booking as well for the same time. This family that is coming has seven rooms booked. So we took a booking today for the same period and filled the hotel, a bit of Christmas cheer for us then!!

For New Year's Eve, we have six rooms booked for far and hopefully the last two will fill as well. We are offering our usual festive dinner with drinks and a bit of a party afterwards. And of course the party people of Juzcar will be out and about celebrating the new year as usual, all night in the pub, dancing, drinking, partying!!

We are in the midst of preparing our new living space in the hotel. We have put up a couple of new walls making two bedrooms, we've got some windows going in shortly and a completely renovated bathroom. All should be quite nice, much better than living in the house we have. I'm not so sure what is going to happen to the house as it is for sale but there is no market for houses now, like everywhere else in the world it seems.

We decorated the bar last week and put up our Christmas lights outside the hotel. We decided to skip then outside tree this year for environmental reasons... so just lights which look as good. Ivan has been busy making Christmas cakes and Turron. The turron is so delicious, all kinds, almonds, egg yoke, crispy rice, etc... all so good!

Can you believe that Christmas is just around the corner? Time to get out that box of decorations and start decorating the bar and the hotel for that festive of all seasons.

It has been way too long since my last entry here. So what's happened since July? Well, we've had a pretty good August, September and October. We have seen that given the current economic climate, guests are waiting to make booking to the last minute. But we've had a good steady flow of business since then. Things were very bleak in the first half of the year and have gotten better since summer.

Our American artist group was here in October for the 4th workshop with the largest group yet. Some were not actually painters so they found that there are plenty of things to do here even if not painting. They went on walks across the mountains with Sandrine, mushroom hunting one afternoon as October is a good month for that (if the weather cooperates) and even had a cooking class with Ivan, his first.

Ivan discovered that he really does enjoy instructing people how to cook which was a good first step in offering cooking classes. So the cook book is still in the offing but we hope to have more takers of our cooking offer meanwhile.

We had a couple of takers for the relaxation package we have on line, which came as a surprise actually. One puts these things on line hoping people read them and act upon them but when it actually happens, it is a surprise, a pleasant one of course.

We are preparing to move house which is something I am looking forward to. We are now in the process of building a flat for ourselves here in the hotel; the hotel will now have a proper owner's unit of its own. We have ordered new windows and doors for this and are building walls, so real DIY work!! Not sure when that will be ready but soon I hope. The bathroom is nearly there as the plumbing has been done which is key in a bathroom.

In the same project, we are making a few changes to the large room located next to the flat space where we are planning to install an art gallery. This is an idea I am especially excited about as we have artists that come here to paint already and now we will be able to have their art work on display here as well going forward. We are also working with someone in Ronda who has been searching for such a space in the Serrania for local artists to display their work as well. We hope to have a permanent exhibit as well.

This weekend here in Spain is a 3 day holiday weekend so we have a full hotel tomorrow and Sunday... always good news. And then we have a family coming for Christmas as well, our first time staying here for Navidad. And then there will be the Fin de Año celebrations. I think we are going on holiday in January so the hotel will be closed for a couple of weeks.

So that's my short update. I'll tell you about the big mushroom weekend we had here in early November next time.