Back after 2 weeks on CDS
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 @ 7:50 PM
Hola everyone
Well that was an interesting 2 weeks in Spain, firstly lets get all the great bits out of the way...... the weather was fantastic, the guys behind the bar at Andys Beach in cabopino were on top form during the day with their free shots and general merryment to keep the holidaymakers amused. we discovered a couple of great new restaurants that have moved into our top 10 restaurants list, firstly Julie's on the port at Cabopino - great wraps and starter portion size meals all at 7 euros a go- everyone order a couple of different ones and then mix and match - great value, good fun and top food...check it out.
Also the sister restaurant to the Mijas Player in la cala - Sloane's in Elvira, just behind the water company's offices. Spectacular food and a great ambiance- dont miss it.
We also discovered this time the Don Carlos Beach Club, 20 euro's a bed may seem a little expensive, but compare that to the 40 or 125 for a double sunbed at Nikki Beach and 50 at Pangea (double lounger) and its good value for money when you add in all the extras they give you, free juices are reguarly bought to your sunbed, free towels, 2 or 3 ice cold facetowels to cool you down, cocktail shots and all day waiter service with reasonable priced drinks, they also give you 10 euro's off the 60 euro spectacular buffet available in the restaurant, but we stayed with the sandwiches and burgers off the bar menu and they were all great. TIP: We also found it useful on our last day, as we were able to wash and dry all the Beach towels in the apt.
As previously mentioned by Jeremy, the first community BBQ party was a great success, over 60 people enjoyed the sangria, wine, beers and juices, the food was being cooked all afternoon and then everyone seemed to get a second hunger at about 8pm and the BBQ's were fired up again. The party was scheduled to end at 9pm and at 10.30 we all called it a day and the survivors wandered across to Bar Oro to carry on late into the night. All the children thought the magician was great fun as well as he kept them all occupied for over an hour.
In preparation for the party the tiles on the top of block 11 were powerwashed by jeremy and they looked better than they had done for a few years. The gardeners had been doing their best to make the place look neat and tidy and in general they succeded. We still believe we have some watering issues around the gardens, which are being investigated by Jeremy and Dave as our plants continually seem to be on the verge of dieing, rather than blossoming and producing loads of new growth and colour....this is now in hand, as i mentioned.
As we move into September the Spanish nationals get back to work and try to catch up with all the backlog of work from their August siesta!
The new postboxes are now in situ at the entrance to the community and your new keys are available from Intercala, i can already see from the amount of junk mail in my box that these will very quickly get full for people that arent there all the time, lets hope our cleaner can keep on top of this. We are also still discussing the issue of the community holding the spare set of keys so that if a postbox overflows it can be emptied of all the junk. An ongoing issue that will no doubt throw up more problems.
The ongoing lift saga rolls up and down, the maintenace team turn up time after time and claim to resolve the problems, however this isnt the case and Intercala are now back on the problem and we hope that it will be resolved sooner than later. I wont even mention the ongoing lift emergency telephone problem, other than to say lazara is screaming at them everyday.
We have received quotes for the automatic chlorination of the pool and that is likely to be initiated in the next few weeks, likewise an inspection of the pool has shown that the expected service is not as urgent as we believed and the pool is still in very good condition. This news will allow us to defer some minor upgrades that we were proposing for this year to hopefully next years budget.
Quotes are coming in thick and fast for the terracotta tiling of most of the grass area around the pool, this will make the pool area look a lot more clean, neat and tidy and resolve the problems we have with the current dead grass and muddy areas around the pools edge. We are possibly looking for this work to be done over the winter when the pool is used least...... if the costs are within budgets allocated for the project.
other than the above, i'm sure there will be other things that i've forgotten to mention, so when i'm reminded by everyone look out for the next installment.
Adios