Finally, back online!
Goodness, when it rains, it pours, doesn’t it? Just as I was about to execute my move to Spain I mentioned in the previous post, my webmaster effectively zapped me off the net. Bankrupt he went, shut down his shop, and without further ado, gone was martinstall.com. Horror! As you may well imagine, I had a few more things to worry about at the time. Packing, loading 20 cubic metres of machines, stock of fabric, furniture, personal belongings and what have you into a truck, finishing up my paperwork and driving the 2500 kilometres to our new house and our new life in Andalucia, Spain. To the amazingly wonderful town of Salobrena. I’d insert a link to some nice info about the town here, but the new webhost needs to tweak a few settings before everything works again, I guess.
Anyway, one of the things that went wrong during the move was that the truck driver refused to drive up to the house, saying he couldn’t make the final turn. And just as I was getting a bit nervous, he simply started his engine and began to drive down the hilll away from my new home. You can probably imagine that I got to be quite nervous. And then -yes I’m very very blessed, and extraordinarily lucky- a miracle happened.
The thing is that people here are quite amazing in how friendly and kind they are. The locals, as well as the foreigners who live here, wether they be from England, Scandinavia, Northern Europe or wherever. So this Belgian guy who owns a bar I had met, had arranged for me to have help from two local teenagers to unload the truck. Now that the truck was down in the village, two pairs of extra hands would hardly be enough to get everything loaded into a van and unloaded into the house. So this Belgian instantly arranged three more guys. Right, so got that problem sorted. Oh, but wait: I didn’t have a van yet!
So in a state very near despair, I called upon another very kind person, the English lady who had arranged the house for us. And lo and behold, she had a friend with a van, who actually is known as: “man with a van”. So she called him up, and asked if he was up for a job. By this time, it was nine pm, which is the end of the working day in Spain. The man was just unlocking his front door when the phone began to ring. And yes, of course, he wouldn’t mind working a bit more. He showed up within half an hour, and together we began to unload. In a dusty parking lot, somewhere on the outskirts of town. Now the driver of the truck had been waiting for two hours, and was in a hurry. So within half an hour, all that I own in thiis world was stacked out in the open air. I asked a friend to keep watch while my six helpers and I began making runs up the hill with the van. And in four hours, I was home. With my shop, my books, clothes and computers, the lot. Boy did I ever enjoy my glass of rioja wine after that!
I learned afterwards that this type of thing is known to happen here quite regularly when people move into the old part of town. It’s a maze of small winding streets going steeply uphill with ridiculously sharp turns. I’m still convinced that the driver could have made that turn, but he looked 19 years of age, and drove as if it was his first run in his new job. I don’t blame him for not wanted to rip the sides of his bosses truck.
Ah well, we learn by experience, don’t we? And in the end all ended up well, just lost a bit more sweat (and money) than foreseen.
Anyway, I must keep in mind that this blog is about the suits, not the guy who makes them, so I’ll keep the charming anecdotes for when we will meet, agreed? And there are plenty. Looking forward to tell them to you.
And sorry, ever so sorry for going offline. I hope it will never happen again.
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Good to see the blog back online, enjoy your new life.
Congratulation on the new house and i pray you both find happiness in your new area. Glad to see that you have settled enough to start the blog again, can’t wait to read from you. Thanks for the email notification of your return. Evenstar evenstarafrica.blogspot.com