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73 days after arriving at Cencerrita, our first guests
were due to arrive. They had not asked to rent the house, but just a room
and to share the kitchen and lounge. As the day got closer, we kept taking
stock of what absolutely had to be done and what could be left till later.
The pool had still not even been started, let alone finished, but we
were not too worried about this as we thought it was too cool for swimming at the end of
October. We had other things to worry about! For the last couple of weeks we
hardly even went to bed. The pile of cabin wood was still outside the room
we’d allocated for them and we were still living in our caravan the other
side of the house. The lounge was still untouched, as was the house
surroundings outside. On the plus side, they had a functional shower room, a
freshly decorated bedroom, an operational kitchen (complete with fridge!)
and a blank pad to learn all about living in Spain.
When enquiring about booking, they told us that they were
planning on living in Spain, but wanted to spend six months living in
different places to make sure they liked it. They had booked a cottage in
the village of El Chorro, a town house in Álora for over 3 months and
Cencerrita. They didn’t want to hire a car, but as we were happy to take
them with us when we went shopping and things, this wasn’t a problem. They
also made the mistake of saying they’d be delighted to muck in and help as
they wanted to learn as much as they could about restoring buildings … well,
there was plenty for them to learn on!
An urgent email was sent to my parents to ask for their
help – bless them, they turned up with a whole week to spare. Absolutely
aghast at the mess we were still in with just a few days left before the
guests arrived, they gallantly rolled up their sleeves and asked what we
would like them to do. My Dad was set to hanging the doors (yes, those same
7 doors mentioned earlier!) and other woodwork. Mum helped me paint the
lounge: we just emptied everything into the caravan awning, cleaned the
place and painted. She was having problems with lifting her arms anywhere
near shoulder height, so Mum did the lower half and I did the upper bit and
ceiling. I wanted to paint it much as it is now, but she insisted I didn’t
have time, so I just painted white over everything – Ugh! However, it did
look clean and respectable with its fresh coat of paint. I just hoped I
could get the paint off the beams at a later date.
 Our roof was the
traditional wood beams, mud and canes and then covered with tiles – none of
your fancy plasterboard or wood panelling. There were several holes in the
ceiling through to the mud and wattle where I carried out temporary repairs
with filler and bits of cardboard - they still stand today! Normally that
would have been Alan’s task, but he was skiving off the hard work doing a
little plumbing here and there. He ought to be glad I didn’t use chewing gum
as I had threatened to do so many times in the past weeks … little did he
know that chewing gum didn’t set in such heat properly, so I couldn’t have
used it anyway! The lounge and dining room is 8 x 4 metres with a high
sloping ceiling and by the time I had finished, after 3 days of solid
painting, two coats of paint, my neck and arms were way beyond the pain
threshold. When Alan teased me about needing a spa (still not functional),
I would have hit him … only my arms just couldn’t work up the necessary
energy.
My parents were wonderful and helped so much – Dad even
helped sew rings on the bedroom curtains. Alan and Dad did have a few
altercations though … pencils! We had loads of the wooden graphite sticks
everywhere, but do you think we could find one when needed? Each blamed the
other for pinching his own personal marking tool. And the less said here
about the missing screwdrivers, the better …
I checked in the diary to see what we’d been up to
preparing for the arrival of the guests, but all that is written is G-Day
minus 17, G-Day minus 16 … too busy even to keep the diary up to date! I do
remember though the last minute panic of realising the day before G-Day that
they didn’t actually have beds to sleep in when I went in the room to make
up the beds. A quick sortie to Malaga was made and suitable beds purchased
at a reasonable price. Trailer That evening, Guest Eve, I was drilling
holes in the walls at 4am to hang pictures to make the place seem more
inviting. I don’t think Mum and Dad got much sleep with the racket going
on. Possibly not the most relaxing holiday they’ve ever had.
The day before the guests arrived, we went to pump water
from the well up to the
 2 newly installed 3000 litre tanks … but there
wasn’t enough water to fill even the small 2000 tank. Rain clouds had
darkened the sky many times over the past few days, but still no real rain
since the previous spring. We contacted our friend Brian, who has been so
very helpful over the years, to see what he could advise. He promised to
get a water bowser up to us the next morning, we weren’t to worry. That was
great, but we were kind of pushing the time as Jan and Howard were due to
arrive in the early afternoon …
The bowser still hadn’t arrived by the time Alan went
down to the airport to pick up our first guests, so we left Dad at the top
of the hill to direct the bowser to the filler point that we’d prepared.
Luckily Alan got back just as the bowser arrived. Poor Antonio, driving,
couldn’t believe where he was being directed by Brian sitting alongside him
in the tractor. When the electricity company had put in the high voltage
pylons, they had test drilled several very large, deep holes – Antonio was
positive that he, his tractor and his tank would all end up in one of them.
Down below all these goings-on, Mum and I were having a
civilised conversation with the newly-arrived and culture-shocked Jan and
Howard on the roof terrace. We were explaining about the first ever
delivery of water when there was a loud shout from Alan above. I don’t
think he cried “Fore!”, but it sounded like something very similar. We all
watched in horror as torrents of beautiful, clean water gushed down the hill
… heading for the awning. At first I told the guests that Alan had just
released the emergency water at the bottom of the tanks before the fresh was
added. Realisation suddenly dawned on me - one of the new, untried tanks
had broken and 3,000 litres of water was now surfing down the hill. I
rushed down towards the awning, grabbing a plank of wood on my way and held
it in a strategic place to divert the deluge away from the awning so the
water wouldn’t flood all the boxes I’d put in there less than a week ago.
Welcome to Cencerrita.
Happily Jan and Howard seemed to like the place –
although Jan was disappointed there was no pool as she’d been planning on
getting fit by swimming some laps. Alan offered her other ways for keeping
fit, such as helping carrying building materials and other such ideas – I’m
not sure she was all that impressed. Wait until she hears his ideas for
“retail therapy” She had also brought some pretty tops with her for the
barbecues which were “a regular occurrence round the pool”, according to the
brochure I had sent them. I told her I was thinking of becoming a novelist
…
We all had a lovely dinner in the evening together which
Mum had prepared. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, if somewhat
exhausted. When Alan and I crawled into bed, absolutely shattered, we
didn’t wake until quarter to ten the following morning.
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