Bonus & Wendy's Big Adventure . . . .

[BigDL]

How is the plan to earn a living from the place going guys?

[Bonus]

Finally, after several weeks of working, MTB Guiding and generally "being busy" - I have time to sit and write another "Adventure" update . . . .

 

 

I'm British born - I want need to talk about the weather . . . . !

 

The weather here is amazing . . . . we had a sunny but sometimes cold Winter followed by a very nice early Spring, followed by a return to Winter for a week, followed by more Spring and then the rain arrived at the beginning of April. April and May have been lovely - but sometimes with showers!

 

The weather apps for our area are usually pretty good, but they do change quickly - one of the things about living in the mountains is that the weather can be very changeable and very localised.  The secret when riding or MTB Guiding here, is to know where you can duck in and hide for 5 minutes if the heavens open :-)

 

 

As far as earning a living is concerned . . . .

 

The work around here is generally tourism or agriculture based. There is work around, and there seem to be less people available to do it this year than in previous years - which is good for those of us here who do want to work. Less "competition" so to speak.

 

On top of what is available "generally", I have also done a fair bit of MTB Guiding so far this year. A lot of my general work tends to become available "day-by-day", not monthly or even weekly - due mostly to the weather and the numbers of visitors to the area at any given time. This has the disadvantage of being a bit unpredictable (and therefore a bit stressful) but gives me the advantage of being able to pick-and-mix my work.

 

Usually, anyone who wants me to do something tomorrow can - 9 times out of 10 - wait until the day after tomorrow if I'm already booked with something else tomorrow. 

 

This combination of work, irregular as it can be and as physically demanding as it can be, is keeping us fed and watered :-)  

 

 

Looking ahead . . . .

 

As much as we are "living the dream" and enjoying ourselves here in northern Spain, we are also very aware that we need to keep pushing-on with our original plan - which is to renovate/convert the "Barn" we bought here and turn it into a working (and financially secure) Bed & Breakfast establishment that will provide us with full time work & income.

 

To that end, having kept a close eye on what's happening "growth-wise" in our local area, having kept an eye on the Banks and what they are doing, and having spoken to many people, including all the people that I've MTB guided here - we are now going to look into the possibility of raising the funds we need by means of private investment. . . . .

 

A new chapter in our Adventure . . . .

[Bonus]

Summer is here.

 

The days are long - sunset tonight is at 9:40pm but it won't get fully dark until well after 10pm, and the midday temperatures are hovering around the low 30's. The full heat of summer hasn't arrived yet, so it's still comfortable to sleep at night. It's very fresh & pleasant in the mornings and nice and warm in the evenings.

 

With the tourist season now upon us, we both have a steady stream of variable work and have both been offered "summer contracts".

 

As I mentioned in my last post, we've been looking into the various methods of raising funds for our Build Project through private investment and I'm going to start a thread on here specifically relating to that, so that we can get as much help and advice from Hubbers as possible. . . .

 

Best wishes from Spain!

 

Bonus & Wendy (Tony and Andrea)

[barrykm]

Looking forward to your new thread.

[Slowbee]

Tony as my wife and I face our own challenges in trying to get new ventures off the ground, I just want to say thank you for the inspiration to not give up.

 

Just when it feels like we want to throw in the towel you pop something on this thread and it reminds us to just keep on keeping on.

 

Thanks for all the posts on this thread, they really are inspirational.

[Bonus]

Always grateful for the encouragement and support from everyone on here. Thanks Slowbee!

[Bonus]

I've started a separate thread "Bonus & Wendys Monday Evening Private Investment Thread . . . " 

 

:-)

[Bonus]

Now that I've moved the "what's holding up the building work?" aspect of our adventure sideways into the "Bonus & Wendy's Monday Evening Private Investment" thread . . . .

 

....I'm going to post some updates on our general day to day life here in Espana :-)

 

 

So, we currently both have summer contracts at local campsites. Mine is with a campsite in Ainsa and "Wendys" is with a campsite here where we're renting a flat, in Boltana. (pronounced Boltanya).

 

 

A typical "working day" goes like this . . . . .

 

Up at 6am.

Breakfast, messing around with forum updates and answering MTB guiding enquiries etc.

I drop Wendy at work by car at 8am. She works from 8am until 1pm then walks home.

After I drop her off I come back home for 20 mins before driving myself to work (in the opposite direction). I do 8:30am until 2:30pm.

She gets home at 1:15pm after a short walk, usually stopping at the butchers or green grocers to buy something.

She has lunch ready for when I get home at 2:45pm.

We eat a biggish lunch and then go to sleep for an hour - the Spanish Siesta :-)

 

For the next few weeks I'll be getting up a bit quicker to watch the end of each days Tour stage! :-)

 

We get up again around 5pm and W goes back to work for another 2hrs from 6pm until 8pm.

I don't have to go back - because my contract is for 6 hrs/day 7days/week whereas she gets a day a week off.

 

At 8pm I pick her up from work and we drive down to one of our river spots for a swim. Tonight at 8pm it was still 35C. 

Then home for showers and at about 10pm we have supper - followed by a couple of hours of TV or internet stuff . . . .

 

and repeat :-)

[Bonus]

Our heatwave continues . . . .

 

The sun is blazing when I finish work at 2:30 and we're having late afternoon temps of 37 / 38 degrees. Thankfully it cools nicely at night and we get to sleep ok.

 

We've been heading to the river every evening for a swim. There are so many places to swim that none of them ever get too busy . . .

 

:-)

[Bonus]

7:30pm at our river spot yesterday.....

 

 

[lechatnoir]

7:30pm at our river spot yesterday.....

 

Such a hard life! lekker man! enjoy!

[Bonus]

My "Summer Contract" has me working from 8:30 to 2:30 seven days a week (Perhaps I should write a post on "The Joys of Working in Europe") . . .

 

Anyway, now that le Tour is over our afternoons will be free and we're going to be doing some more work up at our Project.

 

We're hoping to finish getting the sloping back garden terraced - which involves lots of manual work but not much actual cash outlay - because we have plans to start using the garden while we're busy trying to raise funds for the main Project. . . .  

[Bonus]

For the last few days the local news has been talking about a man who is lost up in the mountains.

 

He is Mexican, 71 years old and called Jesus (Haysuse).

 

He has family in the village of Vio which is not too far from here (but further up in the mountains) and they alerted the authorities as to his disappearance a few days ago.  Since then there has been a huge search on involving the Guardia Civil, the Forrestal and the Mountain Rescue Service helicopters.

 

Yesterday "Wendy" helped at our local Red Cross office to make and deliver food and drinks for the searching officials and volunteers.

 

It's amazing to see how quickly and fully everyone here responds when something like this happens and we remain hopeful for a happy outcome. 

[Bonus]

A Baby Bat sat on my shoulder while I was cleaning the swimming pools at the campsite yesterday.

 

Eventually he flew away but it was nice while it lasted :-)

 

 

[WrightJnr]

Eish, they give me the hibby jibbies.

 

On that note though....I’ve done many trips to Austin Texas. It’s a daily event around sunset along the Austin Lake Downtown for what must be millions of bats to fly from under the bridges up stream for the evening. It’s a sight you can not believe until you’ve seen it, slowly the entire skyline goes dark filled with bats.

[Bonus]

Eish, they give me the hibby jibbies.

 

On that note though....I’ve done many trips to Austin Texas. It’s a daily event around sunset along the Austin Lake Downtown for what must be millions of bats to fly from under the bridges up stream for the evening. It’s a sight you can not believe until you’ve seen it, slowly the entire skyline goes dark filled with bats.

 

This one was a sweet little thing, you'd have been fine mate.

 

On a related note . . . In another life I used to work for a company whose head office was in Austin. Applied Materials Implant Technology. We built the Beamline Semi-Conductor Implant Machines that produced the wafers to make the chips for your computers . . . .