Our Popular local Bar proprietor Pedro celebrated the big 50 yesterday. Pedro and his wife have run the Bar in the pool square for 4 years now. They work long long hours but are always excellent hosts, friendly cheerful and welcoming to one and all. Pedro showed his usual community spirit when he gave everyone a free drink. He was obviously well pleased when we all sang Happy birthday to him followed by three rousing well deserved cheers.
The ongoing sage
John and my mate Lil have been getting a lot of attention lately. They are both community presidents and the not so happy campers in their respective communities are hoping they can work a miracle. Well the English speaking ones anyway. The big issue is of course Brit TV. “Where’s it gone”, from those just over for a holiday or for the winter. “Can we get it back” everyone is asking this. Of course almost everyone wants to know what the alternatives are, if those same alternative companies will them selves be closed down. Then there is the question of community satellite dishes. That brings a whole new raft of question, not least of all who would pay for the installation of same. Very controversial this when some communities have Brits who have not paid there community fees.
Our daughter Bec was acting as a translator at another community meeting the other day and she said it was on the agenda there too. Of course all communities will be looking at their TV reception equipment in the near future anyway because by April 2010 all analogue tv will go in Spain. Oh happy days.
Glad John is President now and not me. Only thing I can say is when I was President I used to say to people that I was neither God nor in the Guardia and therefore could neither enforce the law or perform miracles. Lil and John are beavering away try to come up with an answer so I do hope everyone will be a little patient and also appreciate how much time and effort they are expending on this.
Incidentally we have never had Brit TV in our house nor do we miss it.
It was the AGM last night for our community, i was re elected president for the year 2008/2009, i must have done a good job last year! our administrator gave us a rundown of the community accounts which although we have a number of non payers, is still in the black. He also gave us information on the procedure that is going to be followed to get the community fees from the non paying members of the community. Quotations for a spanish digital freeview satellite system are going to be obtained, this option should give the community some English freeview channels. Apparently the analogue television system in Spain will be completely finished by 2010.
I´ve mentioned the pool ...It is actually a Municipal pool, the great advantage it is looked after by the Town hall, If it was a community pool the property owners in the community would have to pay for the upkeep, which could be quite expensive over the year, (more than half the owners do not even want to pay their normal community charges) The Community would also have the responsibility of running it, This would mean having a management committee and everything that goes with that!
The disadvantage is that is is only open times the town hall allow that is --- 11.00 A.M to 2.00P.M. and 5.00P.M to 8.00P.M between the months of June and September.
We hardy brits do like to swim earlier and later in the year, but we can always go to the sea.
