SMALL WORLD

Saturday 9 January 2016

Rain at home but sunny on coast 15 degrees

sodding Minions everywhere

TIME TO REGROUP....

Monday 4 January 2016

Very wet - non stop rain

The thing about being an estate agent is that the show isn't over until the lady (fat or otherwise) has bought something with the opposition....  After the disappointment over the flat which she absolutely loved and which the owner forgot to tell me is actually, and properly, sold - I regroup and show some more houses which belong to my colleague's portfolio and they are similarly rejected so I organise a visit on a private sale and it is the apartment underneath the one she loves.  As backup, I have two town houses with shops.  

Because the client tells me she is going Monday, I have to ring up the clients on Friday which is New Year's Day but no one seems to mind.  We are in the low period for sales and sellers sit at home, looking at the rain, and wonder is this going to be the year when they can move on.  A UK estate agent estimates that a property is starting to hang about if it is on sale for six months.  Here, if something sells in less than three months, it is nothing short of a miracle.  The town houses with shops have been on sale for at least three years.  There is demand but the locals are broke and difficult to please and the foreign nationals can choose to live anywhere.  It is a fiendish problem and, as a seller myself, I am only too aware of the stresses.  We bought an apartment block in town and the top flat, with its 42 stairs, took SEVEN years to sell.

We trek around the town houses with shops and the lady is very excited about the one in town, until she gets through the front door.  The odour of dog is still, alas, very strong even though the owners have moved out.  It looks dark and sad and as if they just upped sticks and ran South to a drier clime.  Dishes on the table, shoes in the hall, a dried up bowl of dog food.  The client starts reversing towards the door and we go and see the other town house which is charming but strangely arranged and this one is not a goer either.

The client is naturally effervescent but I can sense she is fading so I whip her around the flat underneath the one she initially wanted to buy and her fizz comes right back and she says she loves it.  On goes the happy hat again and I can hear the reindeer bells faintly jingling.  She says I need to come back to the house where she is staying and we can discuss the purchase process.

We get back to the house, bought by her friend through me just last year, and still knee deep in wires, cables and paint pots.  Her friend persuades some paint off her hands and opens a bottle of rosé (it is 6 pm) and we have nuts and paté and drink.  I listen to their phone messages and one of them says that the house owner needs to go into the maternity unit for 9 am tomorrow morning and to make sure she has a shower first.  As the lady in question is in her mid 50s and has only ever associated with other ladies, this is quite a surprise and we fall about laughing.  My client says she wants to take her friend to see the flat tomorrow, and will stay over a couple of days more, and I go home and OH has made delicious seafood ragout and opened a bottle of Cava.  Fall asleep whilst trying to watch Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn...

A DISNEY MOMENT AND MORE ROPE THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT

Saturday 2 January 2016

Raining a lot at home 12 degrees

Nine o'clock and it was still dark and grey and the rain lashing down on the gravel in the courtyard.  Some soggy birds were lurking in the upstairs window of the barn.  RJ had been up for two and a half hours and wandering around, fully dressed.  He is used to running a large kitchen and has forgotten how to relax.  He had not used the time to put away the dishes or clean the fire or sort out his mess in the hallway....  OH, on the other hand, has no problem in relaxing.  He is relaxed to the point of being comatose.  I dig him out of bed and suggest we go to the coast.  If, for nothing else, to stock up on beer and loo paper.  How on earth do men get through SO much loo roll?????  

We head towards the coast and the sky is blue on one side and slate black on the other.  A massive rainbow arches over the sky, thick and brilliant with colour.  And, miraculously, the cars on the auto route have their own little rainbows, glowing ephemerally around their chassis.  We drive through a rainbow thrown off by a lorry.  A Disney moment...

On the coast, there isn't a cloud in sight and town is heaving with well wrapped up people, enjoying the ozone and stiff breeze, and periodically shrieking and running away from the spray which makes it over the prom wall.  We park, eventually, and go for a quick drink before hitting the shops.  The coffee comes in large bowl like cups, its froth shaped into a leaf and accompanied by glossy cream and yellow potato and cheese tortilla, full of butter and salt. 

The shops are in full sale mode but still shockingly expensive.  The joy of coming to this particular town is that, each time, I discover curious shops which on subsequent occasions, disappear and are never to be refound.  This time, we come across a shop which sells braided items.  Stacked from floor to ceiling, there are ropes as thick as your arm, there are hessian ropes and jute ropes and synthetic fibre ropes in every dimension down to fine finger width.  There are, to my joy, many ribbons and cords and I am torn between deep mulberry, golden, silver or three tone brown, green and white cord.  I end up with five metres of the latter and make sure I have their business card.  I should have bought some of the gold.....  

The men are now hungry so we go to the Oquendo bar which has photos of all the stars who have come to the Film Festival over the years.  We eat rabillitos which are deep fried balls of ham and cheese and more coffee and try and spot who is who...

Then to the big centre commercial where the car park is SO full that there are men with batons directing the traffic.  The supermarket itself is relatively quiet so we are back on the road by 4 pm but alas the traffic is appalling so we don't get home until nearly 7.  

Shark steak and spinach salad with crisp white wine for supper.  Wonderful.