Hello, good evening and welcome...... to nothing much....
a swift smile and gentle greeting..... with a loving touch.....
Well how the devil are people who are reading this doing?
a long time has passed and I have lost a very dear friend who moved to Zaragoza early on this year.
Fair play to him as he runs his own bar that, by the looks of it, doing really well.
truth be told I miss him like mad, I tell a joke or try to have a laugh with colleagues now and no-one gets my sense of humor.
I am still working at Tuttis, which at the moment (for the past few "summer" months) its been very very quiet, so I have had to sit in the corner listening to the other guys speaking Punjabi, I have even picked up a few words.
My children have aged another year, well Talia hasn't as she turns 9 in 10 days, ooh Friday the 13th what a day to have a birthday!!
Xavi is now 6 and the lucky guy, got loads for his birthday, and the next day he went to England for 2 weeks, (with his sisters too!) so i got a bit of peace and quiet!!
My mum took them all to Blackpool for a weekend, and as i told them this they asked what was Blackpool, my reply was "Benidorm but with miserable weather and lots of arcades and a funfair!).
Bella is now 4, coming onto 14. every weekend she doesn't ask, she demands!! to stay at grandmas house.
at the moment not feeling good, i was given a bike and started cycling to work, so maybe the excersise is working, slowly but surly.
the weather here has been very hot, even with the thunderstorms last week and the Gota Fria which we are still waiting for.
Im sorry for not updating for like 6 months at a time or even longer.
but my life here is simply not the same as "back home", i find here its more laid back and things that i would want to buy are no longer required.
I don't know if anyone reads this anymore, but your feedback would be appreciated.
what do you want to know about living in Spain??
as it sure as hell not like you think it is.....
adios todos
J
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Sunday 13 January 2013
Where have I been??
1st thing i have to say is i have been working from Feb 2012 and my last day will be 23rd Dec 2012 for this year and i have probably had about 25 days off, so after working say 8 or 9 hour days, i would like to wind down by having a few beers with my colleagues and then go home as usually when i just finish work and go home everyone is in bed so i end up talking to myself or watching a movie. ( I admit there were times when the few beers turned into getting home at 4 am, but i was still able to get up and get the kids ready for school or whatever) but getting a rollicking for spending my tip money to have a few drinks its not really fair.
So therefore this lead to bad times at home, we were arguing a lot and said a few horrible things and i probably would have said them if i was sober
we were moving out in September to another rental home which has been a godsend but we experienced a bad patch and i was seeking solace in the bottom of a beer bottle. I had made a few more friends who over the summer and the end of summer had become really good friends, someone to talk to and learn more Spanish.
Apart from the above summer was great, we were busy all the time and i thought the money we made would be good to save for the end of the year "the quiet times" but thanks to the heap of crap we call a car we have had to spend over €1500 so the plans for the winter have hit the brakes again!
so now we are into 2013 and so far...... waiting for the restaurant to open again. I started playing football for the first time in a year on the 3rd of Jan and it shown, all of my muscles ached and i ended up injuring my leg after a slide tackle, the following week was worse, i have pulled a muscle in my leg and in my back and I'm still in agony.
Back to the moving experience, when we first moved out here we were desperate to get into a property and set up our new life here and to be honest i had a few worries about using our so called "letting agent" who now after we moved out was found as Unprofessional, untrustworthy and unreliable, as she and the person she was "acting on behalf of" were best friends and i mentioned this earlier as unprofessional as she had a "conflict of interests" as she was best mates with the landlords she was acting on behalf of, and by now we were angry as when we moved out she said we would get our deposit back and after 6 weeks of calling her and she never even answered or returned our calls, i had a knock on the door and with my youngest daughter being like me, unwell at the time, i opened it to find the landlady screaming and shouting "your not getting your bond back" and other
abusive things towards me and my daughter.
Found out that a lot of people have rented off her and never got their deposit back, i just wished we took our time in moving here and used a professional reliable company rather than a dodgy person who was best friends with the owner of the property!!!
anyway word of the wise, if your selling or renting out your house, STAY AWAY from these people as your going to get ripped off and some of our friends here have "looked" (as a favour to us) at houses with these people and they are very negative about the owners and other stuff. Use a professional agent such as Victoria or Homefinders.
going now as have to finish off some Valenciano homework, i mean come on, who da funk uses Valenciano now?
Jamie
So therefore this lead to bad times at home, we were arguing a lot and said a few horrible things and i probably would have said them if i was sober
we were moving out in September to another rental home which has been a godsend but we experienced a bad patch and i was seeking solace in the bottom of a beer bottle. I had made a few more friends who over the summer and the end of summer had become really good friends, someone to talk to and learn more Spanish.
Apart from the above summer was great, we were busy all the time and i thought the money we made would be good to save for the end of the year "the quiet times" but thanks to the heap of crap we call a car we have had to spend over €1500 so the plans for the winter have hit the brakes again!
so now we are into 2013 and so far...... waiting for the restaurant to open again. I started playing football for the first time in a year on the 3rd of Jan and it shown, all of my muscles ached and i ended up injuring my leg after a slide tackle, the following week was worse, i have pulled a muscle in my leg and in my back and I'm still in agony.
Back to the moving experience, when we first moved out here we were desperate to get into a property and set up our new life here and to be honest i had a few worries about using our so called "letting agent" who now after we moved out was found as Unprofessional, untrustworthy and unreliable, as she and the person she was "acting on behalf of" were best friends and i mentioned this earlier as unprofessional as she had a "conflict of interests" as she was best mates with the landlords she was acting on behalf of, and by now we were angry as when we moved out she said we would get our deposit back and after 6 weeks of calling her and she never even answered or returned our calls, i had a knock on the door and with my youngest daughter being like me, unwell at the time, i opened it to find the landlady screaming and shouting "your not getting your bond back" and other
abusive things towards me and my daughter.
Found out that a lot of people have rented off her and never got their deposit back, i just wished we took our time in moving here and used a professional reliable company rather than a dodgy person who was best friends with the owner of the property!!!
anyway word of the wise, if your selling or renting out your house, STAY AWAY from these people as your going to get ripped off and some of our friends here have "looked" (as a favour to us) at houses with these people and they are very negative about the owners and other stuff. Use a professional agent such as Victoria or Homefinders.
going now as have to finish off some Valenciano homework, i mean come on, who da funk uses Valenciano now?
Jamie
Thursday 24 May 2012
they look like........
Since I have moved here I have seen and met many people, and the best thing is that a majority of the people I have met look like people that I know in the UK, and even more so, some look like celebrities!
Its funny when someone comes into the restaurant and you do a double take and say, hey they look like so and so but a bit fatter.
Its always been one of those things with seeing someone as a famous person but stating the bleeding obvious by having the tourettes moment "BUT HE IS GINGER!", this isnt so bad when there is no one about, but you never know who is listening.
Things are looking up, as in the kitchen where I work, I have been kind of promoted to the main chef and to my delight all of the steaks, ribs and everything else that I cook all comeback COMPLETELY EMPTY!! and keep getting told by the team who work outside people are paying really good complements to the chef and from a personal point of view is excuse the language, Fucking excellent.
As the weather is getting hotter by the day and the pool on our Urbanization will be opening sometime soon, which will be a godsend.
Got asked by someone will I ever go and live back in the UK and to sum it up I said no, due to the fact that the weather here is always beautiful and the children have settled so well, and with Bella due to start school in September.... yippee!
At the moment we are looking to buy a house here in Gran Alacant so most of the mornings are filled with looking around and making appointments to view properties, which me and Marina are having a tough time deciding on whats best as I may like a property but she wont due to the doors opening the wrong way or something to that effect, but with that in mind we may just keep on looking for another long term rental property.
If anyone reading this has a property here and is looking for long term tenants, let me know so we can talk!
Got to go to work now and burn my fingers again!!
Adios Amigos!!
J
Its funny when someone comes into the restaurant and you do a double take and say, hey they look like so and so but a bit fatter.
Its always been one of those things with seeing someone as a famous person but stating the bleeding obvious by having the tourettes moment "BUT HE IS GINGER!", this isnt so bad when there is no one about, but you never know who is listening.
Things are looking up, as in the kitchen where I work, I have been kind of promoted to the main chef and to my delight all of the steaks, ribs and everything else that I cook all comeback COMPLETELY EMPTY!! and keep getting told by the team who work outside people are paying really good complements to the chef and from a personal point of view is excuse the language, Fucking excellent.
As the weather is getting hotter by the day and the pool on our Urbanization will be opening sometime soon, which will be a godsend.
Got asked by someone will I ever go and live back in the UK and to sum it up I said no, due to the fact that the weather here is always beautiful and the children have settled so well, and with Bella due to start school in September.... yippee!
At the moment we are looking to buy a house here in Gran Alacant so most of the mornings are filled with looking around and making appointments to view properties, which me and Marina are having a tough time deciding on whats best as I may like a property but she wont due to the doors opening the wrong way or something to that effect, but with that in mind we may just keep on looking for another long term rental property.
If anyone reading this has a property here and is looking for long term tenants, let me know so we can talk!
Got to go to work now and burn my fingers again!!
Adios Amigos!!
J
Tuesday 15 May 2012
OMG!!!
As I have been working again I barely have time to do this blog again, but now I managed to find a spare 15 mins to tell you whats going on. Well I know I was going to tell you all about my job but that's going to be a tad boring.
At the moment, its dead, Gran Alacant is quiet. Not one night we have been busy and we have been sat around doing nothing as cleaning has been done and all food prepared. On Saturday we only had 3 tables all night and me and Neil spent most of the night looking at funny stuff on internet and using his voice search on his phone with some hilarious results.
Well as most know that the football season is over, My beloved Man United were almost champions, but thanks to 2 late goals (reminds me of Barcelona in 1999, but not as good.) Man City took the title. Be honest they deserved it, they had played better over the course of the season. Hopefully on Saturday, Chelsea can win the European cup.
Its very hot here and today is my day off and I have cleaned most of the house, most of the days I daydream about what else I could do here but jobs here in Spain are very limited. I am quite good at speaking Spanish but I try and speak as fast as the Spanish and end up saying something wrong, like the time I wanted to say "many years ago in 2003..." but ended up saying "many years ago in 2013..." in which the response was "Que?"
I have also made a new friend a downloading tool which enables me to download any film/TV series/cartoons and music just cant get enough of it, well have had to put up with watching Puss in Boots 77 times, or as its known in Spanish Gato con Botas when my girls said this Xavi said Gato y Putas? was like hey not that stop saying that word, but I think cat and bitches would be a good film, but not for kids!!
Also had my family here for the past week, including my sister and her 2 daughters, Sophia is a cute baby but every time I picked her up she cried, as I said, I still got it!!
Well the summer is nearly here and hopefully things will pick up and we will be busy, so there maybe short and sweet updates on here, last year I wanted to try and continue this for this blog but working all day took it out of me, and this year will be no different, looking at other jobs, not getting anywhere or any comeback off them, which I find really unprofessional as I have taken the time to apply, and they could at least reply and say thanks but no thanks, I do tend to find some are just a bunch of cowboys.
going to get the children from school now.
Ta ta
J
At the moment, its dead, Gran Alacant is quiet. Not one night we have been busy and we have been sat around doing nothing as cleaning has been done and all food prepared. On Saturday we only had 3 tables all night and me and Neil spent most of the night looking at funny stuff on internet and using his voice search on his phone with some hilarious results.
Well as most know that the football season is over, My beloved Man United were almost champions, but thanks to 2 late goals (reminds me of Barcelona in 1999, but not as good.) Man City took the title. Be honest they deserved it, they had played better over the course of the season. Hopefully on Saturday, Chelsea can win the European cup.
Its very hot here and today is my day off and I have cleaned most of the house, most of the days I daydream about what else I could do here but jobs here in Spain are very limited. I am quite good at speaking Spanish but I try and speak as fast as the Spanish and end up saying something wrong, like the time I wanted to say "many years ago in 2003..." but ended up saying "many years ago in 2013..." in which the response was "Que?"
I have also made a new friend a downloading tool which enables me to download any film/TV series/cartoons and music just cant get enough of it, well have had to put up with watching Puss in Boots 77 times, or as its known in Spanish Gato con Botas when my girls said this Xavi said Gato y Putas? was like hey not that stop saying that word, but I think cat and bitches would be a good film, but not for kids!!
Also had my family here for the past week, including my sister and her 2 daughters, Sophia is a cute baby but every time I picked her up she cried, as I said, I still got it!!
Well the summer is nearly here and hopefully things will pick up and we will be busy, so there maybe short and sweet updates on here, last year I wanted to try and continue this for this blog but working all day took it out of me, and this year will be no different, looking at other jobs, not getting anywhere or any comeback off them, which I find really unprofessional as I have taken the time to apply, and they could at least reply and say thanks but no thanks, I do tend to find some are just a bunch of cowboys.
going to get the children from school now.
Ta ta
J
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Pato Culo
The Title is named so as that is one of the so called things my son Xavi has learned at school, along with the word Puta and other insults which I shall refrain from typing, to be honest I am just glad he isn't learning other words as he would have done in England and I only say that as I have heard other 4 year old saying such vile F words.
Back to my work so we were in April, coming into May and as things were getting busier at work, the days were going faster, the only gripe about work is when the kitchen was supposed to close at 11.30 you always get some awkward people coming in at 11.40 just as we are cleaning up and closing the kitchen asking for food, Now if they left a tip I wouldn't mind as much but when they don't you just think what an ungrateful so and so.
Anyway each day working was good, as no two days were the same and I seemed to add an additional cut or burn to my hands ( as my mum says if you burn or cut yourself whilst your preparing/making food then you are not doing it properly), the people I worked with I found them to be a great bunch of people to work with, especially Neil as we just had the same sense of humor and just took the piss out of everything and everyone and when it was quiet we just played tricks on each other to waste the time away.
As I had a day off it was good just to relax and spend a bit of time with my family, and as I mentioned previously, I decided to hold a party at home for the champions league final, Being from Manchester I have supported United all of my life ( for any reds reading this my first game was Gary Baileys testimonial) and most of the people I invited were Barcelona fans, that day I cleaned the house top to bottom, hired a bouncy castle for all of the kids (thanks to Bouncy bouncy!) we prepared lots of food, bought loads of booze and got ready for the big game.
When every one arrived as suspected most were wearing their Barcelona shirts and me and Xavi with our United shirts on, getting ribbed off everyone else and when Barca scored the first goal not only my house but the whole urbanization roared, and when Rooney equalized there was little ol' me "Yeah get in there!" I think I shouted that loud you probably could have heard me in Elche.
The result wasn't to be as we all know the outcome and as soon as Villa scored the third I trudged outside to go on the bouncy castle, may as well as I did pay for it and all the children were saying "get off fatty" I wouldn't mind but that was my own children!!
Felt a tad rough the next day and that day was going to be the start of the summer working in a hot kitchen which was going to be rather busy.....
Usually the day starts by coming in slicing your fingers and preparing a lot of things, a lot of people think that a lot of stuff is bought in but they are wrong, its only the ingredients that are bought in as we prepare everything, sauces, starters, chili, breaded chicken, marinading, you name it we do it and there is always the good feeling when someone has sent back an empty plate as you know that they enjoyed it (or they have fed it to their dog!!)
I also found it funny when a big table came in usually 6-8 people as everything would stop and some people get worked up over it and flap about like headless chickens and it was mega important but when it was like really busy and say a table of 18 came in, that's where the fun started, I mainly do starters/salads and desserts but when we had a big table and they ordered 2 of every starter I got very shocked as I didn't think it could happen but it did and as I said before we all work well as a team and when it was done it was forgotten and we moved on to the next.
April and May out of the way next will be June and July.
Thanks for reading
J
Back to my work so we were in April, coming into May and as things were getting busier at work, the days were going faster, the only gripe about work is when the kitchen was supposed to close at 11.30 you always get some awkward people coming in at 11.40 just as we are cleaning up and closing the kitchen asking for food, Now if they left a tip I wouldn't mind as much but when they don't you just think what an ungrateful so and so.
Anyway each day working was good, as no two days were the same and I seemed to add an additional cut or burn to my hands ( as my mum says if you burn or cut yourself whilst your preparing/making food then you are not doing it properly), the people I worked with I found them to be a great bunch of people to work with, especially Neil as we just had the same sense of humor and just took the piss out of everything and everyone and when it was quiet we just played tricks on each other to waste the time away.
As I had a day off it was good just to relax and spend a bit of time with my family, and as I mentioned previously, I decided to hold a party at home for the champions league final, Being from Manchester I have supported United all of my life ( for any reds reading this my first game was Gary Baileys testimonial) and most of the people I invited were Barcelona fans, that day I cleaned the house top to bottom, hired a bouncy castle for all of the kids (thanks to Bouncy bouncy!) we prepared lots of food, bought loads of booze and got ready for the big game.
When every one arrived as suspected most were wearing their Barcelona shirts and me and Xavi with our United shirts on, getting ribbed off everyone else and when Barca scored the first goal not only my house but the whole urbanization roared, and when Rooney equalized there was little ol' me "Yeah get in there!" I think I shouted that loud you probably could have heard me in Elche.
The result wasn't to be as we all know the outcome and as soon as Villa scored the third I trudged outside to go on the bouncy castle, may as well as I did pay for it and all the children were saying "get off fatty" I wouldn't mind but that was my own children!!
Felt a tad rough the next day and that day was going to be the start of the summer working in a hot kitchen which was going to be rather busy.....
Usually the day starts by coming in slicing your fingers and preparing a lot of things, a lot of people think that a lot of stuff is bought in but they are wrong, its only the ingredients that are bought in as we prepare everything, sauces, starters, chili, breaded chicken, marinading, you name it we do it and there is always the good feeling when someone has sent back an empty plate as you know that they enjoyed it (or they have fed it to their dog!!)
I also found it funny when a big table came in usually 6-8 people as everything would stop and some people get worked up over it and flap about like headless chickens and it was mega important but when it was like really busy and say a table of 18 came in, that's where the fun started, I mainly do starters/salads and desserts but when we had a big table and they ordered 2 of every starter I got very shocked as I didn't think it could happen but it did and as I said before we all work well as a team and when it was done it was forgotten and we moved on to the next.
April and May out of the way next will be June and July.
Thanks for reading
J
Monday 16 January 2012
What have we been up to?
In the time that I have not done anything with this blog, a lot has happened.
Everyone is a year older, my Spanish has improved a little and my Sister had a baby girl that I still haven't met yet! (Hello Sophia!)
Lets start in April 2011, when I last posted, Man United made it to the Semi-finals of the champions league against Schalke and I was so confident of them getting to the final I decided to hold a champions league final in Mi Casa. (big mistake, but we will get to that.) On the day of the 1st Leg I got told to go to a local restaurant as they needed staff (no prizes for guessing where?) and to be honest I needed to get a job, so this was a calling.
I went and met the boss and he told me to come back at 6 that evening so I did and it was the first time I had ever worked with food in a busy restaurant but it went well, plus I didn't have to be serving customers face to face.
Working was good as I learned a lot more Spanish (and a few Persian words too) than I did when I attended the lessons that the library did, and I made some more friends too which is always good, (unless you finish work and decide to go straight out for "just one drink" and end up going out until 5am!)
Adding to the "searching for a job" experience, it has been pretty lame, with most of the jobs advertised in the free newspapers a majority are commission only and part time contracts, which are not really suitable for someone like me with 3 children, the really annoying thing too is all of the job websites that are designated for Spain or my area of the Costa Blanca, need updating more often, as when I have seen a job or inquired about one, it turns out that it was advertised 2 years ago!! How stupid did I feel?
Looking towards the future on the job front, everything is the same, jobs that are really old still being advertised and nothing going on around here, I have heard a few things that maybe available but we shall see what happens. Things were bad when I didn't have a full time job, and I was starting to play online poker, not for money, I was joining poker sites and playing free tournaments for money or chances to play in big money tournaments and so far I have won 20 cents!
Also I have had so many ideas floating around in my head about things, I even bought a couple of web domains to start an online dating site but as soon as I started working, it too died off. After the job searches, I even considered doing an updated weekly job search site for Costa Blanca and again other things got in the way such as working all day everyday!
Tomorrow, more on the work and whats been happening with Xavi at school, and I say that as he picked up some rather insulting words!!
J
Hola Todos!
Originally started in late 2010, as a fun thing to let old (and new) friends and family know what I was doing moving to Spain, and as usual, like all things, it just waned and got forgotten about,(last post was 13th April 2011) so having a few months off from working i decided to bring it back, with the help of this old battered smashed notebook, bigger (well a few long words inserted that I have no idea of what they mean), better (well add a few pictures and maybe a few comedy moments that have happened whilst have been here) and a few other things to hopefully keep you interested, such as rants, raves (no not the 90's kind of rave) bitches, twitches and other stuff, such as day to day goings on and the outlook on whats been going on and maybe some drama. (apart from summer time as its too bloody hot to do anything and that's just the evenings.
Like originally I promised to update everyday but with the way things are going at the moment it maybe every couple of days, again depends on what kind of mood I'm in or if i get told off from being on the computer too much, which over the past few weeks has been too much, I wouldn't mind but its not like i have been looking at anything unsuitable, its been looking at new houses or reading news and sports, poker and other peoples blogs and world views......... which anything you say or do nowadays is no way politically correct it?
Many people are writing blogs and I understand that many are there to help people by giving advice and are making sure people don't make the same mistake that they did, which I am sure that I have probably done the same.
I understand that this will never reach the dizzy heights and catapult me to stardom or make me rich over the next few weeks, well unless I win the lottery, win a poker game or 7 or even get arrested or something, which here is very easy if your dipping in a bin or jay-walking. (which reminds me of Grandad from Only fools and horses, when they were in Spain)
If you decide to read this blog which I know some of you here in Spain will as its will definitely be better than the free , weekly newspapers that you can pick up in Lidl or Super Valu, please feel free to leave feedback on here, Twitter, Facebook, different forums, Google + and the like, as I think I'm still active on them?
I understand if many people don't read this for one reason or another, but hopefully if anyone does read it maybe then they can benefit from my mistakes if they were ever think of moving out here permanently, (which, I know we have had ups and downs but we should have done this many years ago.)
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and probably wasting some or your time that your thinking you will never get back! Ha Ha.
Disclaimer: Names maybe changed in this blog just so I don't upset people, but they will probably read this and never talk to me again, which to be honest may just be a blessing in disguise.
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