Well, They said it couldn’t be done!

Mon 9^th July

Olivia;

Hi,

Well, They said it couldn’t be done!

Dr Victoria, who is the best GP you will ever find, is in private practice, just above us in Diana. She is an absolute angel. She has been phoning and phoning for weeks now to get an appointment for Graham to see a top specialist dealing in back pain. After years of paying top money to private consultants, we are now trying to get Graham’s back pain sorted through the "Social Seguridad".

Dr Victoria doesn’t have to do this for us; she’s simply doing it as a favor, because she is a really lovely person.

Well last night with very short notice, she called to say that she had arranged for us to see the top consultant at the pain clinic, Civic Hospital, Malaga and that the long awaited appointment was for 9:30 am today.

Having finishing work at midnight, my clock doesn’t start until 9:30am, let alone drive to Malaga, find a parking space, ha, ha, ha and then find the right place in a massive hospital, all by 9:30 am.

They all said it simply couldn’t be done, what with all the traffic going into Malaga in the morning rush hour, but after moths of waiting, I was determined not to miss this chance to see someone who may well be able to help Graham.

Graham woke up at 6:00 and took all his painkillers and then brought me in a cup of coffee at 7:30. We were both in and out of the shower in 5 min (Why can’t teenagers do that? It puzzles me.) We threw our clothes on; Graham mixed up the food for Sami our Yorkie (A dead fussy eater.) I shot off to get things out to thaw at the restaurant, whilst Graham got the jeep out of the underground garage, by 8:30 we were driving towards Malaga on the E-15 motorway, listening to Arcade Fire.

We paid 5,75 € (Each way.) to use the toll road, but it is really worth it and the only way to get from Estepona to Malaga quickly. We found the hospital, no problems, but there were loads of cars creeping round the car park bumper to bumper, in the vain hope that someone would pull out and a parking space would appear.

I left Graham with the Mitsubishi and went off and found the doctor, he was ready and waiting for us, as Dr Victoria and he are good friends and she’d done a great job on getting him on our side.

I called Graham thinking he had only a cats chance in hell of finding somewhere to park, but he’d taken advantage of having a 4*4 and driven up onto a rough piece of land at I must say (When I saw it later.) a very precarious angle. A mere car would not have been able to do it. It looked as though it had been parked on the side of a house roof.

He got there right on the chime of 9:30. We saw the doctor and were back at the bar by 12:30 and that included stopping at Macro cash and carry by the airport, loading the car up with supplies and having a café con leche as well.

One of us will tell you what the specialist found, as soon as we have it officially.

Panic stations! Olivia has gone to Gibraltar

Thursday 5th July

Graham:

Hi,

Panic stations! Olivia has gone to Gibraltar for the morning to accompany a good friend and client, Julia, plus her daughter, Leonora and Leonora’s exchange friend Rory (Yes! She’s a girl.) The idea of this trip is to show Rory a kind of Little Britain. You know see the policemen, the changing of the guard and of course eat and down a pint, in an English pub. Hmm! I wish I were there now.

Well the idea was that Victor set out the terrace, whilst Eli ran the bar/restaurant, with the help of Eimy. Eimy lives in San Pedro. She worked for us for 15 years and once she’d got married and had a son, she found it too hard to continue the job, but she still comes in when we really need her. (We regard her as the daughter we never had.)

I did the shopping with Victor, but when we got back to the bar he let it slip out casually, that the 16 packets of burger buns that were on his shopping list, he’d not managed to buy, as Mercadona in San Pedro were sold out.

Panic! Very often when there’s a big feria coming up at the weekend, (As indeed there is this weekend.) every Tom, Dick and Harry decide to have a BBQ, plus the fairground people buy them for their burger stalls and the net result is, not a burger left on the shelf, for miles around.
Panic, Panic, Panic and then more Panic!

I took the decision to rush off to Cancelada in the faint hope that we’d get there just before the hoards of marauders arrived hunting out the last of the burger baps, as I got to the shelf in Mercadona (Cancelada) I was just able to clear every last packet of baps, whilst people behind me were giving me looks that would have killed Cruella DeVille and muttering pretty precise speculations about my parentage. I couldn’t allow any sympathy to creep in, this was war, a dog eat dog situation and for a flashing moment I was both Rambo and Bruce Willis rolled into one. Gee! It felt good.

Olivia:
Hi,
I had a great morning in Gib. With the girls, but was worrying that Victor and Graham would cock-up the shopping, leaving me desperately short of some vital commodity, but when I got to the restaurant, they were sitting sipping cold drinks and they’d got everything exactly according to the shopping list I had given them at 7:30 am this morning. I always worry, when there’s simply no need to. I should learn to trust Victor and Graham to do jobs for me correctly.

Oh! Well. Silly Me, I was worrying over nothing again.

Lola is here for a few days!

Wednesday-4th Jul

Graham:

Hi,
Lola is here for a few days! That means there will never be a dull moment and we won’t be short of entertainment, whilst she’s around. Let’s just say that whilst Lola is a great friend of ours, she is let’s say rather generous with words.

Lola together with her Lebanese partner (Hanna) used to run a bar restaurant in San Pedro, which we visited frequently. Where else would one find wonderful Lebanese cuisine, fine wine and be entertained from when we entered their door to when we left?

Lola and Hanna have had bars and restaurants in Estepona, Marbella, Benalmadena and Fuengirola. The have always rented their premises and only once bought the lease for a bar and consequently have moved whenever the rent has be jacked-up.

Hanna left the Lebanon, when a bomb exploded near him, leaving him deaf in one ear for several years. He has worked as a chef for rich Arabs here on the Costa del Sol, but finally his entrepreneurial partner Lola convinced him to set up their first restaurant together in Marbella.

Olivia:

Hi,
I met Lola years ago, when she first started to come to our bar in the Diana Commercial Center, as a customer. I was immediately attracted to her as a person for three reasons: She was a great talker, always having and interesting tale to tell, She was born in Barbate on the Costa de la Luz, (which is our favourite place to get away to) and lastly because she had traveled widely to places such as Indonesia and Cuba, (where she had managed an hotel for 5 years).

They now have a bar restaurant in Barbate:

Terraza y Bar Restaurant “Losana Sabores”
C/Voraz SN
Paseo Maratimo Barbate”
Tel: (English) 679 74 74 27

The reason they are here now is to install people into their villa here behind Diana. They are renting their house to an English couple, who are waiting for their new house to be finished in San Pedro-Estepona area.

Lola is not only a good talker, but is also a published writer.
This is their first season on the sea front in Barbate, but with Lola’s people skills and Hanna’s exquisite cuisine, I am confident that they will do really well in their new bar restaurant.

Let’s all wish them good luck!

Fitting in a trip to the hairdressers.

Tuesday-3rd July

Olivia:
Hi,

When you have a bar/restaurant, fitting in a trip to the hairdressers, in the morning before you go to work requires a lot of split second planning.

Today, I am trying a new hairdresser in Guadalmina. Renata, a regular customer and friend, keeps on about how great this new hairdresser is and how much cheaper etc. I have to listen to this every day, so I have finally weakened and am going to be disloyal to my regular hairdresser Pepe who is right here a few doors up from my bar and he is superb.

This morning I woke up in a hot and cold sweat, wondering what will happen when Pepe finds out I’ve been playing away on the hairdressing front and on top of all that when I spoke with Renata last night she was starting to drop in a few doubts about this new girl Gema (The hairdressers is called “Silvie”. It’s up stairs in Guadalmina commercial center, right above Supersol).

Actually I went to my Salsa class last night at 7:30 and on the way back I called in to see Renata. My reason for calling in was that her 16-year-old daughter, who had a tumor removed from behind her breasts last year, leaving her with a flat chest, has just been in for cosmetic surgery to re-establish her bust.

Shakira had the op on Saturday and was in great pain on Sunday, but by the time I went to see her on Monday evening, she was out of bed and playing on her PS-2. She is a wonderful girl. A year ago she took lessons and learned belly dancing, without telling her Mum and now earns good money dancing in posh restaurants at the weekends, as well as doing great at school. Shakira is also a very brave girl and I have total respect for her.

So, this morning I went to Mercadona with Graham and got there 5 min before they opened. I flew round and loaded up the trolley to the gunwales, stuffed it all in the jeep, got Graham to drop me off at the hairdressers and then sent him off to take the shopping to the restaurant. I had asked my son Victor to lay out the terrace and unload the jeep, as soon as Graham arrived at the bar, making sure that he put all the bags on top of the inside tables, so that Eli could clean the floor without any obstructions.

Right I’ve just come out of Silvie’s and Gema cut my hair and did my highlights, really quickly. This time factor is important to me, as even an half an hour saved in the morning means an extra 30 min sitting in the sun sipping coffee, before my day in the bar really starts.

I’ve just called Graham, to come and collect me and as I climbed in the jeep, he said. "Your hair looks great; they’ve done a really good job". So a perfect mission completed. I saved a few bob too, so what can I blow that on?