Casa Pilar Alto, Illora Newsletter 10th March 2007

Illora Weekly News
Dateline 10.03.07

The second Saturday spent washing our clothes by hand on the wash board in cold water lost some of the charm it had last weekend. Of course, this is very well compensated for by being done on the high terraces in the house with the superb views over the Parapanda mountains and valleys that form the header of our web site at www.casaillora.com. We will share this view with our guests when we open but, for now, it is ours alone.

The coming week promises the arrival of a washing machine - Sunday - and the completion of our kitchen cum lounge area - Tuesday evening - with all mod cons. I doubt we will regret these changes but it will mark the start of a huge change to our existence thus far.

We arrived on 1st March to find a plumber and a tiler hard at work in our house - the future Casa Pilar Alto, lllora. Both were stunned to learn that we planned to live here. That evening Tony, our David Beckham look-alike builder cum project manager, took us to Carrefour in Granada to buy a bed that we would unquestionably be able to put into his van and bring home to sleep on in comfort. Carrefour had different ideas - the salesman assured us that our bed would take just 10 to 15 days and they would happily deliver it. Welcome to Spain !

Happily, the people who sold us the house had left a small double bed behind and we have lived as squatters in our own home since then - mattress on the floor, moving around from room to room to suit the builders' needs. Dust from our house being taken apart would defeat the very best of housekeepers. Meals are sometimes taken in the restaurants around but more frequently comprise whatever we buy at ridiculously cheap prices from the many supermarkets around the town.

Illora is a very lovely white painted town on the side of the Parapanda in Andalucia and 35 minutes drive from Granada. The principal industries are growing and processing olives and hairdressing. It is an odd combination that somehow seems to work. Certainly, the town is thriving with a great deal of development on the fringes and to a degree within the old centre in keeping with the style here.

Most noticeably, this is an extremely friendly place. I try to picture walking around London greeting every person I see in the way that is part of everyday life here. Somehow the picture does not come. On weekdays, especially as siesta approaches, wizened, middle aged men with older faces gather in the square in front of the church to chew over the day so far. On Friday afternoon the entire town breathes a sigh of relief at the arrival of the weekend and everybody becomes even friendlier - those who simply greeted you in the street in the week invite you into their houses to sit in the parlour around a square table to natter. Cathy copes with this admirably. I listen and understand some.

The mobile phones we ordered a week ago to arrive last Monday probably will arrive on Monday or Tuesday this week whilst the phone line we ordered at the same time might be installed next week but nobody can say with any certainty. We stopped chasing the bank cards that should have been awaiting our arrival and Cathy has hers simply because she happened to go into the bank on Friday, but she could not get any cash with it today - a problem we might solve on Monday, or at some point next week…. You get the picture ? This is the life we chose and neither of us regrets the change in any respect. It is simply a case of adjusting from a life of tough, demanding deadlines to a life where there are no deadlines at all in the space of what seems a lot more than the 10 days that has elapsed.

This strange "manana" existence, to be very fair, has another side. Enormously friendly neighbours are eager to help with every little thing. The man down the street with a shop that sells just about everything from floor mops, to saucepans, to guns and who goes by the unlikely nickname of "Nono" is a prime example. His network of friends stretch from potential language teachers, to Telefonika (the Spanish answer to BT) and to people influential with the local council. Pop in to buy a toothbrush and come out with an EU grant - it's a world of wheels within wheels where everybody knows somebody who not only can but will help.

Casa Pilar Alto, meanwhile, has become an evermore costly project, principally as the result of regulations nobody was able to forewarn us of - from bathroom and bedroom size requirements, to the widening of the main internal staircase, to the fireproof, odourless cable to run in fireproof, odourless trunking now required for the re-wiring. We are financially challenged but somehow it will work out in the end. Quite how remains a mystery that defies the careful budgeting and planning which I am accustomed to.

Whilst still reliant on the limited hours we can use the internet cafes, we are now steadily improving the website, which is now almost entirely covered in 3 languages and we will shortly enable reservations to be made online. Search engine optimisation is a skill I am re-learning to get the site seen. We will open in May although exactly when is something we would not care to predict too precisely (please see above).

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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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