Bob's Spanish Adventure

Looking forward to visitors!

To anyone out there who cares, I apologise for not having updated my blog recently. My job at the bar, and various other projects are taking up so much of my time that I hardly have time to write these days. As it is, I'm sitting here typing this at one in the morning because I'm lucky enough to get home relatively early! Nevertheless, life continues to go well and is always interesting. That's not to say it's without challenges. I'll be honest with you, occasionally I'll find myself thinking 'living in Spain will never work out' when I'm really tired and if something is troubling me. But after a good night sleep or a bit of good fortune I'll pinch myself because life seems too good to be true.

Last week I met up several times with my new friend Barry, who first contacted me via my blog site. He is still living in the UK for the next few weeks but he'd come down to Spain to complete the purchase of a country house. I asked him if I could see the house so he invited me to spend a day last week visiting some towns near to Alcala and taking me for a tour of his new gaffe. Click on the 'Photos' tab above to see pics of his house and some of the places we visited. It was a treat to get out of Alcala and explore. I do occasionally leave town but it's normally when clients take me on jobs to translate and then it's all business. We went for a wander around Alcaudete before visiting Barry's house up in the mountains above Casillas. His house is amazing! Mind you, it needs to be completely renovated but when it's done it was be gorgeous. The views from his house are stunning as well. We walked through the olive orchard above his house and imagined what it would be like swimming in an imaginary pool and taking in the scenery. Afterwards, we went to Castillo de Locubin for a nice, albeit rushed, lunch as I had to get back for my evening shift at the bar.

On Monday, I finally bit the bullet and spent some of my hard earned cash on purchasing a new fitted kitchen. I'd been eyeing up designs at Brico Depot in Granada for the last month or so, every time I went down there with my friend Helen, but I couldn't summon up the courage to spend money! Finally though, I became so fed up with my kitchen and so keen to begin improving my house that I decided to go for it. My friend Alan has a big Jeep and needed to go to Granada anyway so invited me along. I'm really pleased with the kitchen design I selected but there are two problems: I'm too busy to even fathom fitting the kitchen before September so the cupboards are sitting in flat-pack boxes on my ground floor; and I realised when I got home that the chap who filled my very specific order managed to sell me one too many cupboards so I'll have to take it all the way back to Granada! Never mind, it could be worse!

People keep coming up to me in the street and at the bar saying 'I heard you're going to work at the college in the autumn.' The rumour mill in this town is amazing! To be honest, I am edging closer to accepting a part-time job practising spoken English. It's only ten hours a week but will pay 65% of what I need to earn in a month. On top of that, I will carry on at the language academy after summer holidays which, for four and a half hours a week will pay another 10%. I'm on the verge of agreeing terms for partnering on an internet venture which over time should generate a fair bit of cash and Isidro at the bar has already offered me weekend work at the bar whenever I fancy so I should be alright!

On my day off I had the pleasure of going to new friends Jenny and Terry for drinks. I'm not sure whether I wrote about them before but Jenny and I have a mutual friend in Clare W. in Rowhedge. By a remarkable coincidence, we bot decided to move to the same area of Spain. Both Clare and I were gobsmacked to find out! Anyway, Jenny and Terry are hoping to buy a rural home near Frailes, not too far from Alcala. In the meantime, they are living in a rented house right here in Alcala! We had a great chat and I was really pleased to start getting to know them.

I ran into friends Julia and Raquel at Rio de Oro late this afternoon so sat down for a chat. Luis, my friend and manager of the bar, decided to play matchmaker and started telling Julia, 'You need a boyfriend and Roberto is beautiful! He's a good man and perfect for you!' I'm not sure who was more embarrassed, Julia or me, but she managed to lighten the moment by saying she needed a rich man. That's me done then!

A month from now my daughters will be here and I'm so excited! Lately, I've been missing them so much. Obviously, I'm quite occupied with my work but during quiet times at home they're often on my mind. The saddest thing is that because of my work schedule, I can only talk to them on Mondays and this week I missed my chance!  I received a Father's Day card from Ellie and Imogen which took me by surprise as it's not celebrated in Spain so I hadn't thought about it.

Well, it's nearly two in the morning now so I'll sign off. If you're reading this, send me an email to say hello! Goodnight! 

• Posted by bobinspain on 21/06/2007.
• bobinspain's site