Back online

It seems that Autumn is well and truly with us now - rain is beginning to feature regularly in the weather forecasts and yesterday evening a prolonged and quite heavy downpour caught everybody napping, including me, despite "a shower or two" having been forecast days ahead. The local road gullies were turned into rushes of escaping water, in places well over a metre wide and, often, 2 inches or so deep which gave rise to very wet feet by the time I had paddled home from work. More of the same is due today and tomorrow although, looking out over my terrace you wouldn't think so, a warm 21C presently with blueish skies and good sunny intervals. But I've always said that the Spanish Met Office doesn't often get it wrong so I'll go out today better prepared for what might be in store.

I left Larisa's way back on Friday 11th September, to return to Torremolinos, not able to tell her exactly where I would be living because I didn't know myself. I knew that I had somewhere to go but did not know where it was. Teresa met me with a key and showed me in through the frontdoor of a nice studio apartment (bedsit), a little bigger than the one I had before and with an airy terrace looking out over a communal swimming pool and grassed garden area. Having settled in and taken possession of the Internet Dongle that I was being allowed to borrow I promptly caused Lary problems in that I started to use my phone SIM in the dongle thereby rendering myself incommunicado. Using the SIM in that way proved very expensive because it was not running on an Internet Access Tariff and I very soon realised that I had to splash out on my own dongle (a USB Modem) complete with its own SIM running on a better tariff for Internet use. That is done so here I am. Larisa had tried to contact me on numerous occasions through the first few weeks of my being here and, getting no answer, even enlisted her friends around Torre to look out for me. No luck for her there either because I do not go up into town very ofen these days. But, with a dongle bought and my phone SIM back where it belonged we made contact 2 weeks ago Sunday and met along the Paseo Maritimo not far from here, then, having seen where I'm now staying, and Teresa's Bar where I'm working, she went home seemingly happy about my lot.

Katia is taking English lessons twice a week and yesterday, seeing me logged into Skype, took the opportunity to engage me in an IM session so that she could practise. She is getting very good now, our hour-long "conversation" giving me a chance to practise Spanish as well, and told me that she hopes to be able to go to New York for a few months in the not too distant future once she is confidant enough in speaking English. I've promised that the next time we meet on Skype I'll call her voice-to-voice and give her a chance to practise more. She tells me that there are no English speakers around her over there in Omsk and once a lesson is over "that's it" until the next one. So, we'll see what can be done via Skype - me in Spanish and her in English, and vice-versa through any difficult bits!

Teresa continues to do well in the bar, beating local competition in the battle for trade more often than not which is very gratifying bearing in mind that she has been unable to get a music licence or a TV licence. Her bar's reputation as a nice place to go is spreading far and wide via word-of-mouth and cards and flyers that she has had printed, there hardly being a day go by when somebody, just arrived in Spain for a holiday, doesn't come in asking "is this the Teresa's Bar that I have been told about back home." The next few months may well be difficult but with the building reputation all the signs are good for her future. I'm in the process of constructing a website for the bar which, when finished and online, will include a Gallery section where folk who are willing to be photographed in the bar can view and download their very own momento once they return home. There are a fair few photos already in the bag so my work is cut-out for the next few weeks but I'll get there in the end!