The bar was being whipped into shape slowly but surely !
It was lovely that the town hall guys (workers), Juan and Jose Luis kept popping in to see if we needed any help, which we normally did !
We didn't even have any beer to offer them !
Jose Luis sorted the boiler out as that hadn't been working either.
Then disaster struck, we walked in and found that a fairly large part of the bar was underwater, this was taking having a swimming pool bar to the extreme ! Thank God we hadn't built the store room yet, as that would have been underwater too !
Juan and Jose Luis came to the recuse and helped clear it all up ! The water had been off for so long that the pipe from the mains to the taps in the toilets had rusted and bust, showering the whole area with water, it was like a sprinkler going off. Mr W sorted it out. But the the next day same again ! And then another, my god three times and we still hadn't got to opening night. We decided to replace all the piping and also to descale the working of the toilets just in case and also hoped that this would sort out the really vial smell of toilet, which was over powering. Bleach, toilet cleaner, air fresher and joss sticks hadn't sorted yet !
Two trips to Murcia and Ikea saw all the basics purchased from curtains to cutlery and everything in between !
We were starting to win, the store room was now up, the painting was done, the lighting all changed, the toilets cleaned (always my favourite job !!!!!). New lights where purchased and fitted on the front terrace, none had been there before, so the electrics took some sorting. Mr W kindly took care of that side of things.
We had started to contact suppliers with the help of Felipe and Rocia, also we were lucky to have friends in Albox with a bar, they also helped!
Steve had to make all the calls as he was the only one who was fluent Spanish speaker.
Jose Maria was our first ever customer and had already became a regular, even before opening ! A medium height man, who works the land, lives in the campo with his Father and a whole range of animals. He the hardest person to understand, he seems to talk his own language, as time went on and I understood him more, it turned out to be better not to understand him as he talks total rubbish 50% of the time ! He always is dressed for work, his weather beaten features tell a tale of hard times past. His rugged hands show a man who has spent a life time working hard and his rotten stubbed teeth show the years of alcohol abuse and lack of personal hygiene! He drives a little blue car, which even on first meeting him worried me, as even before we opened, on many occasions he could hardly stand up, let alone drive ! But he has a good heart and I can't help have a soft spot for him. Looking at him I thought he was in his late sixty's, early seventy's, turns out he was only 54 years old. Unbelievable how Spanish people either age really well or really badly! Although I guess you can say that about any nation, it just struck me as being very extreme.
Jose Maria will be featuring heavily in future blogs, as he really is the most loveable character who does some of the most outrageous things, I can't count the times he has had me rolling round with laughter !
Heading towards opening what else would we encounter ?
