Casa Pilar Alto, Illora, Granada Newsletter 6th June 2007

Illora Weekly News
Dateline 06.06.07

Casa Pilar Alto Illora Trraces Unveiled !! Now Booking Online !!

“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. True to my calling, mid-afternoon yesterday, I went up to Casa Pilar Alto Illora newest and highest private terrace to try to restore the lovely, antique window that forms a feature there whilst Miel and Carbon slunk into the stables for shelter. Three hours later, I went back into the house as bleached as when I left it, save for the tan I have managed to gain on my forearms and, to some extent, my face. Like many British people, I have two options – the bleached look or the lobster look. The latter I first discovered on my first trip to Asia, when I decided to go into the sea to avoid sunburn. For 3 days I could not lie down but equally could do nothing else but. In fact, on our side of Illora the sun is strongest between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and not at midday. At around 12 noon, the sun comes up over the rock that rises above the terraces and builds its strength till mid-afternoon.

Most of the elaborate metalwork that makes up the veranda for the Café at Casa Pilar Alto Illora went into place today. This is put together just down the road by Alan – a Liverpudlian who is consequently almost incomprehensible to Cathy. Cathy copes far better with Andaluz Spanish than with Liverpool. Alan started out as a waiter, or something, and then found his talent in metalwork. This is a feature of the café which we have kept quiet about thus far. It is so stunning, I think we should keep things that way for now – all will be revealed in due course.

In the meantime, the web site continues to grow in variety and depth of content, ready for its next indexing by Google in a few days, with a little thought also as to what our prospective clients may find helpful. Embedding a Google map in the “Directions” page proved so challenging that I have made do with an alternative, for now. However, the Touring Andalucia page has another entry and there is a new section on Eating and Drinking in and around Illora – something close to the hearts of most people. Our Environment and Safety policies follow hard behind.

Spain is not a land of wide choice in every respect – some things that we took for granted in the U.K. are less readily available here – Cathy does not especially like the choice of tea here, for example. However, in milk, Spain beats any country we know hands down. We made a visit yesterday to the larger supermarket in Pinos Puente – a small town between Illora and Granada – and it was there it first struck me. This supermarket, which is smaller than an out of town Tesco, has a wall of milk. I carefully counted 43 choices of milk, including condensed milk but not counting any flavoured milk drinks. Even the smallest supermarket in Illora has 18 choices in milk, whilst a small supermarket in London struggles to keep up to 3. There is “normal” milk, milk with vitamins A+D, milk with A+D+E, milk with Omega 3, milk with Omega 3 and Vitamins A+D+E for children, milk with extra lactose, milk with no lactose….and so it goes on.. Each one with full fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed varieties – you see how the numbers build up. Competition in milk is fierce and different brands play a significant part here. If consumption comes close to matching supply, Spanish bones and teeth should be tough as old boots.

Tony, our contractor, rushed in yesterday full of boundless enthusiasm and a determination to finish everything by the end of this week. Whilst very welcome, Tony has a tendency he himself would recognise, I think, to do just this prior to withdrawing all his lads to another job. So, instead of welcoming the commitment, we found ourselves worried as to whether anybody would come to work today. Our worries proved misplaced and we have more people here hard at work then we have seen together at one time. That said, Tony and his lads have done, and are doing, a tremendous job. Tony’s main line is in buying, refurbishing and selling houses and, as I have previously mentioned, he must be up for “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here”, given the number of times the programme featuring him in exactly this main role has appeared. Our web site shows a banner for Tony’s company Granada Renovations - www.granadarenovations.com – and we would strongly recommend you contact Tony if you are thinking of buying property in the Granada area – not least because we want the hotel finished. Granada Renovations web site gives you initial advice on aspects to consider and Tony himself will happily give advice or point you in the right direction to get the right advice on wider topics.

As Casa Pilar Alto Illora rushes towards completion, we trotted down to the bank today, so that we could present the business plan, bills so far paid, forecasts of costs still to come and so on. The people at the bank are all lovely and Rosa, who we talked with, especially so. Since such things fall mainly to me, I worked hard with my limited Spanish to handle most of the discussion. Once we passed the revenue forecasts, we came to the cash flow. Rosa was stumped by the document and I was stumped for the word – I had forgotten to look this one up. It turned out to be quite simple: “cash flow” ! Strange the number of words that convert with little or no change to Spanish.

…..and so this part of our early experience in Spain is close to an end. Bedrooms have locks and keys, wardrobes, decoration (in most cases), the staircase is largely widened to regulation width, with all the work that that entailed, the terraces are entirely capa fina’d, save for one wall, emergency lights have blossomed all over the house, furniture not yet here waits in furniture stores in Illora. There’s much to do to bring this to an end but that end is very clearly in sight. I hope that this is not an end of these newsletters – I ask for your tolerance for a little while longer – but there is now a newsletter sign up form on the index page of the web site so that you can indicate your desire to receive the more formal type of newsletter later. In the meantime, I must thank my friends at London Town Hotels for allowing me to include Casa Pilar Alto Illora in their newsletter this week and apologise to those of you who feel bombarded by us.

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Hasta luego !

Matthew and Cathy Brooks

Casa Pilar Alto
4,6 Cuesta Pilar Alto
18260 Illora
Granada
Spain

Email: stay@casaillora.com

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