Back into the swing of things in UK, work and day to day life had taken over with Deb and I both busy beavering away with our respective workloads.
Having only seven weeks between our last visit and our next trip in June I was starting to struggle a little with my workload. I had a lot of enquiries from new clients which I needed to follow up on as well as on-going work with existing clients.
I am an Architectural Designer and prepare drawings and designs for anything from domestic house extensions, to new build properties as well as commercial and industrial projects. I also prepare all the appropriate Applications for the relevant Local Authority permissions that are required.
The smaller domestic projects are relatively straightforward but some of the larger projects can be quite involved and time consuming and the last thing I need at a critical point is to be in Spain when last minute information is requested or a site meeting required. I therefore plan well ahead with current projects when I know holidays are looming.
It was getting to be quite difficult this year though. Our next holiday was only in a couple of weeks time for 2 weeks and I was still catching up with enquiries from after our last holiday. I was getting there though, for now.
Deb was having it a little harder. She is a Technical Administrator for a Nuclear Engineering Company and this involved the diligent recording of information, document control and staff training that is required in a high profile industry. Although she is a Contractor, and basically self-employed so she could take as much time off as she wanted, the Company still expected a level of attendance for her to fulfil her role adequately. Up to now she was coping admirably, but the upcoming 2 week holiday following on from our last one so soon was to be a test.
Her boss, a clueless buffoon, was slowly beginning to realise how many holidays he had authorised for Deb. He had mentioned about her installing a wall chart planner, with people’s holidays highlighted, on the office wall so everyone knew who was off and when. Deb certainly didn’t want her 56 days of holidays to be on show to the world, so she was avoiding this task until it was absolutely necessary. Fortunately her boss has a very short attention span and he was soon distracted by far more important things.
The next few weeks were uneventful. Work Monday to Friday, Spanish lessons on Saturday and relaxing Sundays, with a little Spanish revision.
The Spanish lessons had taken on a more relaxed atmosphere since our return. Two of the students, Philomena and Alan were moving to Spain permanently in a few weeks and were concentrating on organising the move and missing a few weeks of lessons. This made for a more relaxed atmosphere as Phil seemed to have a bit of an issue with me.
Anyway, that left myself, Deb and Julie, all about the same age and we got on really well. We all motivated each other and the learning experience was an hour of fun on a Saturday. It was getting more difficult though and my aged brain was struggling sometimes to absorb the information. This was going to be a little more tricky than I at first thought. What I lacked in ability though I tried to make up for in effort, occasionally resulting in linguist of the week. I’m sure Beckie, our teacher, just felt sorry for me.
In the meantime Julian and Marijse were keeping us updated with the work on our pool refurbishment and things seemed to be progressing nicely.
This was going to be formed from an existing hole in the ground which was originally a water deposit. This would have been used as a water storage facility for the property before mains water was connected. We had decided to have it tiled, have a pump, filter and skimmer installed to create a small dip pool and tile the patio area around it. This work was scheduled to be completed in time for our June holiday and things were going according to plan.
It was soon only a week away from returning to Spain. We had both been so busy the time had absolutely flown by. Deb was getting a few comments at work about her upcoming holiday and the fact that she should maybe take her computer with her and set up a Spanish office. Oh the wit!
In the meantime I was up against it to get projects to a point where I could leave everything for 2 weeks. I was still contactable by e-mail though so could still address certain things if need be.
Julian updated us with photo’s of the almost completed pool, just a bit of cleaning up to do, and we were really pleased.
What a transformation. Deb had sent a photo of the type and style of pool she wanted and we both think Pedro the builder had come up with the goods.
Yes, our little dip pool looked amazing and it would be ready for use for our next holiday but it would also transform the view from our house.
We were both excited to see this transformation for ourselves and in a few days time we will be able to do just that.
Moving to Spain? Help! 