Justin's Life

I had a meeting in Puerto Banus the other day and stumbled into the Cristamar centre by mistake.  It looked like something out of a movie where aliens have taken everyone away and left everything else how it was, sort of frozen in time.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera but the place was deserted.  All the upper floor which is for offices...it was like a ghost town.  People have left the offices with furniture in them and everything.  Mail accumulating under the doors.

It was very spooky and really brought home how bad things have gotten in Spain.  All those offices were bustling just 12 months ago and now they are all empty...and there are loads of them.

It's not just the Cristamar centre and Puerto Banus, there are so many empty offices and closed up shops now that it is actually quite scary.  How different things were even just 12 months ago.

I go to a really nice gym/spa in the mornings, Albayt, and I still don't know how they keep going.  It's always so quiet in there, there just aren't enough customers.  Someone is bank rolling that place for sure.

Are we going to see more places close?  My gestor believes we've seen the worst and that so far this year the number of businesses closing down has been less than last year.  Is that a good sign or just a sign that there aren't any businesses left to close down?

Wouldn't it be great to have loads of money?  Well, maybe it's not such a good idea in Spain.

I was reading in a newspaper yesterday that Spain's mystery lottery winner, who scooped £56 million in last Friday's EuroMillions draw, is too scared to claim the prize.  The winner lives in Mojacar in Almeria and there are rumours that the winner could be from the UK.

It seems that the winner is not coming forward for fear of Spain's violent mafias.

I never knew this but apparently Spain has a history of kidnapping so they may be scared to come forward for fear of being kidnapped and held for a ransom.

If it was me I would claim the prize anonymously and get on the first flight out to anywhere!

Whilst they are not claiming their prize the winner is losing £142,000 a day in interest.  Ouch.

Well, with this "history of kidnapping in Spain" I'm finally really glad I'm not rich.  At least I can sleep easy at night.

It's raining again today but it's more like a monsoon than just rain.  As it is quite cold too I decided to put the fire on and work from home today.

I managed to get through all the wood in a couple of hours so decided to nip out to the garage to buy some more.

On my way down to the garage you would think that some huge natural disaster had hit the area:

On the hill down to Sabinillas there were four separate landslides blocking the road including a tree thrown across it.  Further down I drove past someone's house; they had their front door open and water was gushing out like a river.

At the bottom of the hill there was a huge traffic jam and the main N340 was closed with the diverted traffic causing mayhem.  Huge chunks have also lifted themselves from the road today leaving huge potholes.

All the back roads to Manilva were blocked due to severe flooding and broken roads.  There had been two accidents too that I saw.

All of this within a kilometre radius of where we live.

I was very glad to get back in one piece, even if the whole trip took me over an hour (should have been 10 minutes) and I think we'll be staying in for the rest of the day now.  At least it's nice and warm by the fire.

Not having a good couple of days so far.  I seem to have been landed with both a stinking cold and a stinking tax bill.

I have no idea where either of them have come from so excuse me if I go a bit quiet for a couple of days as I really need to get them both sorted ASAP.

Oh what fun

I have been truly disturbed reading about the recent punch-up in an Argentinian restaurant in Tenerife.  Totally unprovoked and they have brought some real shame on the Brits.

What possesses people to behave like this?

You can read about the incident here.

I have a few Argentinian friends and neighbours here and they are always so friendly and polite.  They are not the sort to cause trouble.

My friend, Selwyn, has just arrived at the circuit in Jerez and it's absolutely gushing it!

If like me you are an F1 fan then this week's tesing should be very intresting after the initial tests in Valencia last week.

My friend is on his way to the circuit with the Ferrari Club of Andalucia.  He's going to be sending me pictures from the paddock so I'll post them here on my blog for you to see.

They are travelling up in a Ferrari F360 and this is his view:

As you can see it's raining!

More pics to follow.

I was reading an article in the excellent BBC Focus magazine about how sinning is part of our inherent DNA, but they had an interesting section looking at the relative levels of sins grouped by country.

If you haven't read the article I'll show you the results here for Spain and the UK.

The report is broken down by the seven deadly sins:

Lust, gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride, each listed with it's own modern equivalent:

Lust

"Thou shalt not ogle"

Spain - Not in top 10

UK - Not in top 10

Worst offenders are South Korea, Japan and Australia.

Gluttony

"Thou shalt not scoff burgers"

Spain - Not in top 10

UK - 5th

Worst offenders are USA (no surprises there), Finland and Australia.

Greed

"Thou shalt not exploit the poor"

Spain - Not in top 10

UK - 8th

Worst offenders are Mexico, Russian and USA.

Sloth

"Thou shalt not pull sickies"

Spain - 2nd

UK - Not in top 10

Worst offenders are Iceland, Spain, Noway.

Wrath

"Thou shalt not use violence"

Spain - Not in top 10

UK - 9th

Worst offenders are South Africa, Montserrat and Seychelles.

Envy

"Thou shalt not nick stuff"

Spain - 8th

UK - 5th

Worst offenders are Australia, Denmark and Estonia.

Pride

"Thou shalt not have a nose job"

Spain - 3rd

UK - Not in top 10

Worst offenders are Iceland, Cyrpus and Spain.

Top 10 most sinful countries

In order of most sinful...

1. Australia

2. USA

3. Canada

4. Finland

5 Spain

6. UK

7. Japan

8. South Korea

9. Mexico/ South Africa

In terms of the Spain Vs UK battle, Spain actually comes out on top here as a more sinful country, particularly in terms of days off work, money spent on plastic surgery and patriotism.

The UK's worst sins are that they eat too much junk food and have higher levels of theft.

So the winner in this contest is the UK.  Any surprises there?

We've had some really bad weather over the past couple of months so when the weatherman mentioned that we were to have one sunny day, ie., Saturday, we had to make the most of it.

We had planned to just take the kids for a stroll along Estepona beach front but instead we decided to go with some friends to the Parque de la Paloma in Benalmadena.

It was just one of those perfect days.

The temperature was perfect, I even had my guiri shorts and t-shirt on and we all sat and had a picnic for a few hours whilst the kids played in the park.

It's those sorts of days which really made us want to live here in the first place.  It's just a shame we haven't had many of those days this winter at all.

Anyway, if you want somewhere great to take the kids for a few hours, the Parque de la Paloma in Benalmadena has it all.  Rabbits and chickens running freely around, massive kids play area, a big lake to feed the ducks and now you can even hire a family 4-wheeled bicylcle to ride around the lake.

Here's some pics to whet your appetite:

I'm flying into Bristol airport at the end of the month and need a hire car for 3 days.  I booked a car using the EOS car hire facility and was quite chuffed to pay 88 Euros for a Golf sized car for the 3 days.

But then just out of curiosity  I checked out the same dates and times for a similar sized car from Malaga airport, expecting it to be much higher than Bristol airport and it came back as 40 Euros for the days!!

I was a bit stunned.  The cars seem really cheap from Malaga airport.

This is surprising as we know that most car hire firms have been struggling and generally all been putting their prices up.

But it seems there may still be some good deals around in Spain, especially off-peak.

The 88 Euros for my car in Bristol seems expensive now

It may seem incredible but it really doesn't seem to have stopped raining since the beginning of December last year.

It appears that this weekend we are supposed to actually get a bit of sunshine in before the rain makes an unwelcomed appearance again on Monday.

Rain in Spain...yes...all the time!

My back appears to have gone into spasm but hopefully I'll be OK enough to take the kids out on a bike ride along the Estepona seafront.

Let's see what the weather has in store for us tomorrow.

If all goes to plan this is where we'll be:

Have a good weekend or see you on the paseo!

I've been meaning to do this for a while now but today Google has given me the incentive to start my new blog up.

My previous blog is actually hosted by Blogger (owned by Google) and I always had problems adding and editing posts.

Anyway, they are soon to stop allowing this sort of blog hosting so I'm shifting me attention here...of course.

I'm going to be blogging about all sorts of stuff that interests me, so not everything will be Spain related.

This will also give me the opportunity to test out some new ideas for this blogging platform so that more and more people can benefit from it.

In the meantime, why not join me and the others already on here and start your own blog?  You can even make some money in the process.

First proper post coming soon....