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The view from the back

My blog is about our move to Spain, to be exact it's about the intergration of a techno junkie and his lovely wife of 30 yrs into 18th century Spain.

All Good Things....
Thursday, November 20, 2014

Well all good things do come to those who wait, and have we waited. It's taken ten months to arrange our licences for the pool and general alterations all of which have gone ahead un opposed at each stage. 

 
My prediction of a month's wait was for once wrong and they managed to do the last two weeks admin in three weeks, the lovely wife got a call to pop in to the architects office and drop off the cash so he can pay the bill for the tax's and collect the licences. 
 
After popping in and returning the next day, it was the simple exchange of 2.5k € that saw our acceptance of a bland piece of paper that is apparently the holy grail , our licence . No wax seal, no ribbon , just a wishy washy rubber stamp and a squiggle. 
 
In addition we got the technical specs for the pool and plans starting from a view from space swooping in to a 1m scale on the back page. A very proficient use of Google Earth, there is just the one drawing that has been created by our architect and yes you've guessed it it's wrong. 
 
We've chosen not to argue the point as we've waited long enough and we have what we need, but what a waste of time , a tech spec that is a generic print off n fill in the gaps followed by screen captures from Google and when he finally get to flaunt what he learnt at the collage of architects his lack of note taking on the site visit and consultation with the client leads him in to guessing the , what , where , how stuff and substituting a generic Roman style pool for our square end flat bottom uniform depth swim pool , and placing the filter in a box in the middle of the path rather than in the filter house ? Well it only extends the pipe work 15m each way with all the incumbent friction , so that's ok , it'll make for more storage space in the now empty filter house. 
 
But at least we're now officially off the mark, did we party ? Well no, it was rather odd really , I think the on off delays and then the errors rather took the edge off leaving a flat feeling not the excitement you may have expected. 
 
So now a week later the only builders to be seen is in the lovely wife's tea mug, as they have started another job and are tied up for a week or so. Hay ho , it gives us more time to tile the family bathroom, a project we are doing our selves and is the first step of putting in the finishes , hooray ! 
 
Those of you who manage to hang in there and are kind enough to read my ramblings as I unburden my mind before it explodes with the overload of official jobs worth's, may remember the lovely wife's trip back to the UK in July and the subsequent farce created by monarch when they cancelled her flight .
 
as we now know all good things come to those who wait , they also come to those who won't take no for an answer , after four months of us not accepting no, they have finally accepted that their staff at Alicante airport were in breach of company policy and committed acts of gross mis conduct in their handling of the cancelation. 
 
The long and the short is that if monarch cancel a flight you are entitled under their policy to two land line international calls from their desk or to a phone card of equivalent value supplied by the desk, they advise you this in the hand out when you check in for a cancelled flight. 
 
In the lovely wife's case the failure to honour this after they advised it caused nearly 500€ of additional expenses due to losses that they this week refunded after initially offering just 20€ for a meal and coffee. So if you are wronged stick to yer guns and be over the top logical explain every thing assume nothing. Remember all things come to those who wait, and keep replying to e mails. LoL
 
Til next time...
 
 
 
 
 


Like 0        Published at 6:10 PM   Comments (2)


ITS THE WRONG CHAOS , GROMMIT !
Friday, November 7, 2014

Well the chaos has begun but not in a good way, it would appear that a letter from the Junta de Andalucia granting consent to the works is not enough to get the builders on site. 

 
On Tuesday we had a meeting with our builder who read through our consent letter and put it on the coffee table, he said he'd not seen a letter like this before and although it gives consent it's not a licence like he'd seen before. 
 
He called our architect and explained what we had received , Juan said he could not comment without seeing it so we e mailed him a copy. Now in the rest of the modern world an e mail is pretty quick but it would have been quicker to walk in to town with it . 
 
The next day he got in touch with the builder who called us to explain that it's not a licence, when he gave the reason it was obvious why, we haven't paid the fees or taxes yet and they can't be billed until he submits a cost for the works to the local town hall along with the detailed tech spec. 
 
So how long this time ? A couple of SPANISH weeks, so that's a month then, arr. 
 
After the problems I had getting my PC delivered you would think that I would keep well clear of parcels but , we needed some scaffold for doing jobs around the cortjo and I spotted some of this inter lock stuff with a platform etc on Amazon spain,  not being able to pass a bargain and the fact that the stuff at the brico won't fit in the car in I went ! 
 
Three days later I get a text saying I have a parcel to COLLECT in town, collect , the whole point was , it won't go in the car !! 
 
I have called them but no help as they don't get my Spanglish, I have sent a text in Spanish explaining , we wait to see. 
 
Well the big day has arrived and the lovely wife is now working on filling the other half of the glass of life, yep she's a nifty fifty and the day went well, she arose without the PMT and with a PMA ( positive mental attitude ) 
 
I knew she would come around in the end, life's too good not too, being here and not having to work , what's not to like ? 
 
So the lovely wife worked her way through two large cups of builders, (currently the only sort were going to see is Yorkshire gold hard water) and her stack of cards followed by several skype's and the day was up and running. 
 
Still insisting on a no fuss day, the lovely wife set about staining the new window for our current bathroom that's part demo part in use as we try to make changes without loosing the benefit of the facilities, all prompted by a bargain set of sliding glass etched doors in a local store at 70% off. They were ex display but like mint, probably due to the lack of customers that was causing the closure of the store in the first place, also their size was causing them to be difficult to re home being 270 x 250cm high. 
 
Come to papa their going to fit right in as the room is 500 x 400cm and 350 cm high, having more in common with the changing room at twickenham than a family bath in a Cortijo. A room much in need of some filling up. 
 
Our plan is to have a walk in shower to replace the leaking tray, ditch the Perspex screen and have glass blocks, I'd seen the blocks in the brico at vicar for 1€ ea and three for colours but they only had a aluminium strip for the end to tidy it up, the lovely wife was not so keen, I offered that you can get curved block's for the edges and a double curved corner block but alas not at the brico . 
 
So whilst at the local builders merchants the lovely wife spotted a glass block display and , yes the curved blocks when she enquired about them the guy quite apologetically advised they were 25€ ea plus IVA , 30€ ea and we need 17 ! Plus the other 80 blocks and cement at a tenner a sac. 
 
I really do like that aluminium it would match the track on the sliding doors any way. The lovely wife keeps saying it must coordinate or be tie'd in or what ever.
 
I wonder if those Perspex doors would scrub up and fit back ? 
 
 
 


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