The Brit Awards 2012
I’m sticking my forked tongue out at the person who thought it was a good idea to cut Adele short in the middle of her “thank you” speech/sentence so that Blur could play on time.She had only been on stage for a few seconds, it was awful to watch.
Blur had babbled away for ages saying thank you to their manager, Gandhi, their mum, grandmother and the person that washes their underwear but nobody cut them short.
Poor Adele had to endure being grabbed by a drunk and slurring George Michael who spoke for longer than she did and nobody cut him short. Give me an obsidian blade though and I’ll give it a whirl……
Adele was the star of the show, winning awards, singing like an angel and being absolutely gracious in every respect.
To cut her short so that an ageing band of long ago could play two songs that were so awful I had to put a cushion over my face to make it stop was quite frankly, humiliating for Adele, rude and to be fair. very UN BRITISH.
Owners Direct Spain
We’ve been trying to buy a house in the UK and I’m still surprised at how few owners try to sell their property directly. You see it all the time here and the owners save the 5% estate agents commission by doing so.
In the UK, certainly down in the south properties are still selling like hot cakes, there are few properties on the market and buyers in the wings.
I would have tried to sell a house in the UK privately before enlisting an agent, all you need is a sale board costing under £20 and a bit of confidence.
My friend did just this in Sonning and sold her house in a week. She saved on the 1% estate agents fee which added up to a couple of thousand pounds. Who wouldn’t want that?
If you are trying to sell your property here in Spain then have a go at marketing it yourself. Nobody knows your property like you do or the area and with estate agents charging more like 5% commission you really could be saving thousands and thousands of pounds or at least have a lot of room with your potential buyer for negotiation.
You can advertise your Spanish property for sale, for holiday rental or for long let here, http://www.inspain.tv/Sell-House-Privately.aspx
Good places to walk a dog
Other than the beach early in the morning before the police spot you or your dog savages the fitness brigade, there are a couple of other great places to walk your dog in Marbella.
The river bed near El Rosario, by the beach restaurant is good. Very few people go there and a dog can have a good run as it is flat.
We went to the mountains today on the way to Istan. We pulled over and went down one of the side paths. One side always has a death drop, but our crazy dog didn’t jump so if you have a dog that will stay reasonably close to heel and doesn’t chase butterflies, then it would have a good jog around here. The side paths are for walkers so car free too.
Any others?
Property Management Marbella
Has anyone had a delightful experience with a property managment company in Marbella?
I am finding the lack of communication and care astonishing with one company I am using. I have to go in and check what the cleaners have done because each time there is a mistake. They charge me around 100 euros a clean/laundry plus 50 euros a month for property managment so this really is not on.
The beds were made the wrong way today, only one full size towel on a bed with one facecloth…for 7 days? The cupboards and drawers are never checked so fill up with crumbs and the cot wasn’t put up properly either, with the ends all floppy. Two bulbs had gone and not been replaced (I have spares) and the wardrobe door was off the rails so wouldn’t work.
I have found an English couple which come highly recommended and have promised a better job so fingers crossed the future will be brighter but I am really unimpressed so far with this one property managment company. They are focussing on sales and their staff are not reading emails and passing on details to the cleaners.
If you are a property management company in Marbella then plug away why property owners should choose you to look after their rental property. I’ll post it…..
Car rental London
Beware of cheap deals on cars. Cheap car rentals can often be false economy.
My husband arrived at London Stansted to collect his rental car and there was no car rental booth. He had to phone up a number that sounded like someone in a house answering the phone in-between cleaning the kitchen. He waited 10 minutes ( not a problem but it was so cold outside that he experienced deep shrinkage in his body parts….) and then a man arrived to collect him. There was a drive of at least 10 minutes out of the airport. Not ideal but less ideal coming back. He rang to see if he could return the car early and was told that the office closed at 8pm. Perfect, he had time to spend with his dad and get the car back before 8pm.
On the day it was due to be returned, hubby had a call saying the car rental office was closing at 5pm. He was an hour away from London Stansted and had to leg it over to the car rental company pronto. They didn’t apologise for closing early and at this point there was no snow. I can’t imagine that Hertz or Avis would do that. They stayed open long enough for him to arrive but it meant he had to rush around, had little time with relatives and was not what the car rental company had agreed. If he had arrived at 8pm as planned the place would have been shut and he would have had no way of getting to the airport either.
Stick to car rental companies that are based at the terminal building. You pay a little bit more but you will get better service.
Clean up operation
We had gales in Marbella yesterday like I have never seen before.
I actually got dressed like a womble and attempted to go and take the dog out for a walk. He was spooked and when I saw the trees at 90 degrees and roofing material littered on the front drive I was spooked.
Today we did manage the walk and paths look more like a woodland scene. There are huge piles of pine needles, branches all over the pavements and roads, people throwing roofing material into skips and furiously brushing their front gates clear.
It is going to be one heck of a clear up operation tomorrow……
Stansted airport and the snow
My mum in law who lives in London rang today to tell me they had 6 inches of snow and to see if my hubby had got back safe and sound as he had a flight at 6am today from London Stansted airport.
I didn’t hold out a lot of hope, after all doesn’t everything come to a standstill in the UK when there is snow?
Well actually no…..
His flight is airbourne and he’s winging his way home back to us.
Thank you Stansted airport!
UPDATE…
Well it wasn’t quite so smooth after all. Lack of staff meant huge queues for check in and at passport control. If your bag was pulled over you had to wait and wait for someone to double check with you. The monorail froze over and so they laid buses on for people. Only the buses got stuck and they had to get tractors in the early hours of the morning to clear a path. Then there were 26 people that didn’t arrive on the plane but had their luggage checked in. Twenty four passengers never did arrive and so they had another 45 minute wait whilst those that had failed to find the plane, had their luggage thrown off.
I had used a plane tracker website to find out what was happening and it said the plane had never taken off…..so beware of thse sites as the plane had taken off….I had a call saying ” I’ve landed ” whilst the website still said ” plane yet to take off….”
Hope everyone got to where they needed to be if they were flying to or from London Stansted!
I hate Monday Mornings
and after 10 years of telling myself and the children that they should get their uniform and school gear organised the night before…..we have a groundhog day experience every Monday morning.
The morning started well enough but deteriorated into ” mum I’ve run out of underwear….muuuuum I’ve run out of socks….muuuuum my crop top doesn’t fit, it’s too big…..muuuuuum the hamster is in the bath and I need a shower…..muuuum where is my PE kit….muuum where is my skirt…..muuuumm I’ve fallen over in the soggy grass get me a towel….yes that really did happen this morning.
Anyone who thinks stay at home mums returning to work aren’t fit for purpose need a reality check. Mums that can organise Monday mornings so that everyone gets to work and school on time could easily take over the CEO job of a public listed company and hold conference calls whilst standing on their head contemplating carbon emissions per capita.
Hope your Monday morning started rather more gently…..
Dog kennels in Marbella
I struggled for a short time on where we should put Charlie when we went away to the UK. He’s a labrador so shutting him away in a traditional kennel didn’t seem a good option. So we opted for a kennel that was set in a large garden, where the dogs are split into three groups and play with each other all day. It is located in Nueva Andalucia so fairly local, the local vet sends his dog’s there and I have to say Charlie was in doggy heaven there. Lovely gardens to run in, paddling pools filled with water to splash in, shade to protect them from the sunshine and an abundance of friends. At night a few dogs are allowed to stay and they can sleep in heated accomodation indoors or outside, they choose and on sofas!
However I am now discovering the downside. Whilst Charlie is happy there he has come back each time with medical problems. Since Christmas we are now running up a medical bill of around 150 euros and this is going to get bigger.
The dogs are not checked properly to see if they have had certain vaccinations and so you have dogs that will go there without the kennel cough vaccination. That’s not good. They advise you to have it but really this should be mandatory.
Charlie has come back with a few scars, that’s ok. He’s come back with an eye infection, not really ok as I spotted it immediately and I feel the dog kennel should have too. He’s come back with a large infected wound that he may have caused himself but either way it wasn’t picked up by the kennel. He now has possible parasites from mixing with other dogs ( can’t have been avoided but by mixing with so many made more likely…) and he is now in a terrible state vomitting, losing weight, all not good.
If we go away now I will choose a home from home option. Someone that has one or two dogs only and would take no more than three in total. That way diseases are less likely to be spread and hopefully a couple of weeks away in the UK won’t cost us more than the holiday and poor Charlie in terms of his health……
Hollister Sale
I’m still bewildered by the Hollister shops. I don’t understand why needing a guide dog to enter a shop and then a magnifying glass when you do enter the shop is a good idea?
I’m going to go next time armed with a lightsaber which will have two uses. One to be able to find the exit and two to hit the over attentive and over gorgeous sales girls and boys out of my way.
I went to the Hollister sale in La Canada/Marbella on Saturday. I’d seen tshirts online in the UK down to £12. How foolish am I not to have bought them as the tiny sign on the shelving said 20% off, well that’s what my daughter said, I thought it said “you are over 25 years old, p\xx off ”
Either way 20% off just doesn’t count as a sale in my book. Has to be over 40%. So we came away empty handed. At least I could see we were empty handed when we got out of the shop. You can’t see your hands or your feet anywhere from inside the shop. I suspect the dressing rooms are pitch black too with voice overs from gorgeous men saying ” you look lovely, buy me, you look lovely, buy me….”
Go online straight after Christmas or in July onto the UK website and you will find the prices much better than here in Spain. You will also be able to see what you are buying via the internet, unlike the shop.