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…..

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.

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……

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!

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…..

Prices start from 5.50 euros and it is a true Italian restaurant located close to the beautiful church in the middle of the Orange Square in Marbella. For precise directions you will need to call the restaurant who speak fantastic English as the owners once lived in London. The restaurant is called Stuzzikini, telephone 952775994, www.stuzzikini.com and info:@stuzzikini.com

From the moment you walk in you can see that they care. They talked to us, spent time with us and we had two lots of delicious free starters as well as the most delicious soft fresh bread served with Italian olive oil. The pizzas were so crispy, not laden with gloopy cheese and with fresh quality ingredients. 90% of their clients are repeat local customers and so their policy is never to cut back on the quality.

They gave us superb service and we will absolutely come back. They do take aways too. The restaurant is small, it has seating for probably 25 customers so it feels so homely inside and is decorated in a way that makes you instantly relax.

Stuzzikini in Marbella, the best pizza in Marbella and Puerto Banus and I hope they are here for a very long time…..WELL DONE!

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……

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.

http://www.hollistersizechart.com/

I’m on a January mission to de-clutter so when everyone is out of the house I go hunting for clutter. Anything is fair game so long as it isn’t mine and it doesn’t have legs.

I took to the skip today some wooden masks from my ” I love Thailand ” phase, a Christmas tree that changes lights that has got stuck on blue ( didn’t know xmas trees also got the January blues did you?) and some books on art from my ” I want to know all about Spanish art” phase.

I passed some men on the way who took away the masks and by lunchtime everything but the tree had gone.

Love the fact that it has gone to someone who wants it and that it hasn’t ended up in a landfill. The Spanish skips are a great way to recycle……

Blogging about things and people are so much more fun….