Living with the Presidente.

                                      

You would NOT bloomin' believe it !!!!

Some great big idiot has stuck his ( it MUST be a man )

great big size 18 footprints ALL over our nice white newly

painted wall !!! ( how, why, when ? )

El Presidente just shook his head................Mrs El Presidente

has found the swear box ( AGAIN ) and is filling it rapidly !!!

                                    

Today has been painting day. Usually, when El Presidente puts up a notice asking for volunteers to help do whatever, there is a ludicrously small uptake considering we have 184 apartments here !!
But today, 12 people arrived for the paintingfest.
The idea was to paint the main foyer areas and touch up the mucky marks along the corridor which have been made by bikes, feet and God knows what else ( just how did that coffee stain get halfway up the wall ?? AND is it a coffee stain ?? ).
We had brushes, rollers, trays, masking tape, soapy water and cloths, newsparer and plastic sheets and a lot of enthusiasm ( well, some of us did ).
Oh, and we had WET PAINT signs too.
So we began......................................half way through, we ditched the masking tape and just wiped off any 'blobs' with a soapy cloth...............and there were a lot of blobs.........mostly on me.
The foyer area is quite small for twelve bodies, there were ( tall ) people painting the top of the walls and ( little ) people painting the bottom of the walls and the others painting the in between bits. And people going in and out of the main doors all the time saying.........ARE YOU PAINTING ??
I managed not to reply, No I'm blacking my boots, as my old Dad would have done and kept a smile fixed on my face.
We put the WET PAINT signs up so that the natives would know that there WAS wet paint ( although it dried really quickly because it is lovely SUNSHINE here today )
And, blow me, if a 'gentleman' didn't miss the signs completely and stuck his hand on the wall while he was waiting for the lift !!
He said.............I've got paint on me.....................well says El Presidente, that's because we have just painted that wall and it's WET, like the sign says.
Now we ( El Presidente and Moi ) have eight paint trays and eight rollers ( large ) anf two rollers ( small ) and eight varying sized brushes in soak.
Apparently, the volunteering did not include cleaning the rollers and brushes......what a surprise !!!!!!

But it does look good and El Presidente has put up a Thank You notice ( but not on the wet walls !! )

Today has been one of those days that you wish had never happened.

It's too soon to find ANY fun in it.

I don't know if I'll ever find a good thing to come out of it.

Suffice to say that El Presidente and moi are flippin fed up.

     

El Presidente ( obviously SOLEY responsible for the apparent demise of TM ) and moi have spend an unbelieveable amount of time on the internet and talking and reading about TV.

I don't DO TV, but attempting to be a supportive Mrs Presidente, I have been up to the neck in this TV stuff.

Now we know that the only LEGAL way to get British TV is with a big dish directly pointing at the Astra 2 satallite, and believe you me we have explored EVERY other possibility, at least one of which involved what we were told was a perfectly legal cigarette packet sized dish thingy ( I got quite excited !! )............................but it turned out that this cowboy was coralling the signal from another illegal re broadcaster and palming it off as his own !!!

I have masses of paper via the internet ( what did we do without it?? ) and let me tell you that although there are dozens of chanels available from the Astra 2 satallite, there are probably only about eight which may be of any general interest.

So, El Presidente and moi thought, what we need is a big dish on each apartment block ( we have a TV room on each roof so we can accommodate a big thingy.....................no rude comments please !! ) then each owner can join in with this LEGAL system if they want by purchasing the relevant box for thier apartment and paying a connection fee with NO monthly payments. So far we are STILL waiting for a costing. They ( the installers ) seem to be making heavy weather of it.......................to me it seems simple ( perhaps because I am a woman and blonde ?? ) ..................put the dish up, wire it into the TV room and give us an individual connection price and owners can buy whichever box they want cos being Community El Presidente CANNOT mantion Sky, but individual owners can please themselves what they do.

SIMPLE.................................................NO ! ! !

Best offer we have so far is to put the dish up and quite a reasonable connection charge, but they want us to guarentee 20 users from the smaller block and 40 users from the larger block. NO CAN DO. They ( the installers ) can't seem to get it through thier heads that all our owners are not here together and it is almost impossible to contact the lot of them, especially in a short time...........................................and we have owners here with soap withdrawall !!!!!

ALL WE WANT IS A DISH POINTING TOWARDS THE ASTRA 2 SATALLITE and A REASONABLE CONNECTION PRICE FOR EACH OWNER....................................is there anybody out there ????   PRETTY PLEASE.

Till then, I guess it's back to the b****y DVD's and I am sick of the sound of the theme music to New Tricks !!!!!   

Three times I have returned to my apartment to find a carrier bag with eggs in it hanging on the door knob.

The fourth time was earlier today when I opened the door without noticing the bag of eggs on the floor.........they were nearly scrambled !

All the eggs have been in date, so, not to look a gift horse ( or hen ) in the mouth, I have used the said eggs in my cake baking.

Haaaaaaaa, I hear you ask.....................where did those eggs come from ?

Well, I wondered that too, especially as most of the holiday makers I know have gone back to rainier climes.

The mystery was solved this afternoon by the appearence of an owner ( with more eggs !! ). Apparently he looks after several apartments, the owners of which had left the eggs, so he was recycling them knowing of my affinity with cake baking.

The TV, or lack of it, is still causing El Presidente nightmares. He had watched the whole of the first series of New Tricks on DVD and is well into the second series.
Owners are still ringing the doorbell and expecting him to work miracles, but alas, the situation is beyond his earthly powers.

Our resident 'know all' has got a job in the evenings but is still managing to 'control' the pool cleaners in the day time, I'm surprised that with his vast 'knowledge' of how to clean the pool he hasn't got a job with them. Instead he has a bar job, which is just another place for El Presidente and moi to avoid !!

Just off to do poached eggs on toast for tea................................

                             

The quiet is over.................................................

My next door neighbour is having her bath removed and a walk in shower fitted. She lives in Amsterdam and I look after her apartment for her. She, of course, is in Amsterdam right now and not having to listen to the noise !

El Presidente has been gardening in the pool area today and has arrived home covered in scratches due to the bourganvillia. While he was down by the pool, an irate owner complained about the level of noise, horseplay and inflatables in the pool this summer and why wasn't he ( El Presidente ) doing something about it? Of course, being the nice person he is, El Presidente explained about the rules, the fact that he was not the pool police and how people ( me ) who had tried to sort out the situation had suffered tirades of verbal abuse. 
I pay my community fees and I expect you to sort it out the owner yelled at El Presidente as he stormed off ( the owner, not El Presidente ).

Anyone know where to purchase a great amount of concrete............................????

We are still having a lot of disgruntlement about lack of TV and El Presidente is attempting to sort out what's legal ( or not ) in the TV world in order to offer some system that does not include a whacking great dish and a similarly whacking great payment.

I personally, do not miss TV one iota, but would hate to be without my broadband.

It's really nice here at present, not too much angst, no inflatables and very few kids........................AND,.............GUESS WHAT..........................I don't miss them one bit !!!

Our swimming pool is almost deserted, unfortunately the sun has also left the building, so it's not a great place to be!! The pool mantainence people call our pool ' the fridge' cos it's the coldest pool they deal with.

A lot of the door banging up and down the corridors has stopped too.

But someone has pinched a fire extinguisher from Fase 1.....................why?? El Presidente put up a notice asking for it's return, but surprise surprise, it has not made a re appearence yet !!!

There's still a lot of angst about the TV, or rather the lack of TV, but at least El Presidente doesn't seem to be getting the blame at the moment.

It's sooooooooo quiet............................still, better make the most of it cos it will be half term soon!!!!!!!

Yesterday El Presidente and me went to Iceland. We parked in the car park got out of the car and saw a nail stuck in the tyre so we got straight back in and drove slowly to the Spanish equivelent of Quick Fit.
They took the tyre off and repaired it and we went back to Iceland where we purchased one or two English goodies.
This morning we went down to our garage to get the car cos we were off to the Administrators and guess what ?? the tyre was flat ! !

El Presidente now owes the swear box several euros.

Anyway, being a macho man, he whipped off the flat tyre ( slowly, cos the nuts were stuck..........the nuts on the wheel I mean ) and put on the spare and off we went to the Administrators. There we discussed the debtor's situation and where we had got to in the court proceedings, which is actually not much further because as we all know, Spain grinds to a halt in August, then takes till mid September to start up again. El Presidente concluded the community business and we sped off o the Spanish Quick Fit.

The boss was having a really bad day, but the chap who had done our repair was having an even worse day, especially when his boss had a go at him ! ! Anyway the problema was sorted and we have five good wheels again.

So we came home.

We spent a 'happy' hour watching the inane programmes which Telmicro have deigned to provide us with before the door bell rang...........................................................

An irate ( they are always irate ) couple stood outside demanding that El Presidente 'let them into their apartment'.
El Presidente explained that he doesn't have keys to individual apartments and there was really nothing he could do.
It turned out that they had rented an apartment via the internet and had no paperwork telling them where to pick up the key from. Someone had let them in through the main door ( so much for security ) and now they wanted El Presidente to sort out thier problema. They did not even know a name of the letting agent or the owner of the apartment. El Presidente had to phone the apartment owner to find out where they should get the key from and it turned out that the rental had been from a local agent who had told the owner that there was no one renting the apartment in September ! ! !

So there is a least one sneaky double dealing rental agent out there, beware ! !

Anyway, El Presidente sorted out their problema........................................and tomorrow I think I might disconnect our doorbell.

Well, El Presidente and myself arrived home late last night and it was good to feel the warmth after leaving East Mids airport in the pouring rain!
The visit was, as expected, sad and with lots of tears, but we left Dad, who has limited sight and is 92, organised for life on his own with frozen meals ordered and someone to come in and cook them and clean for him. He is adament that he wants to be in his own house and he does manage well and loves his garden and has no medical problems, so all we can do is what he asks and let him be, tho it's hard to leave him and I cried all the way home.

If I'd known what awaited us here, I might have cried a bit more !!!

This morning we were assailed by the banging of our door ( why not use the bell provided ? ) and there was an irate lady outside ( not English or Spanish ) and she wanted to know why she did not have any TV.
We explained that we didn't have TV either but it turned out that she'd never had TV and she wanted it now and according to her, it was the Presidente's responsibility to provide it for her free of charge.

El Presidente explained to her that it was not part of his remit to ensure that every nationality had TV and he told her where she could go ( ! ! ! ) to find out the cost of the type of TV she wanted.

She does not want to pay for her TV. She will not pay for her TV. It must be provided for her out of her Community fees, which, incidentally, she has not paid.

The 'lady' left in a bit of a huff when El Presidente told her that this would not be so and he had no more to say on the subject.

I don't suppose he'll get her vote at the next AGM.

Our resident know all has informed us that the pool water is evaporating and the Community should not be filling it up. So shall we just leave it and when it's empty, use it as a skating rink?

The Vice President has informed the newly arrived tenants of an apartment, the owner of which is in massive arrears, that the apartment is about to be repossesed via embargo and the owner is bellowing down the phone at El Presidente while I type.

 When he's finished listening to the verbal abuse from the owner in arrears, El Presidente is going down to sort out the timer on the electronic pool gate so the pool will be closed earlier. This has to happen because the pool has no independent lighting but there will be some complaints in the morning I'm sure.

 Well, that'll make a change, won't it??