Dad has started his blog with earnest, if this is what he gets up to now it’ll be interesting to read he blog when he retires (ha ha) and has more time on his hands.
I’ve added a couple of new pics to Gabriel and Olivia’s blogs. I’ve a video of Gabe’s birthday I want to put on time permitting.
I’ve had my head down working these last few weeks and all non-essential (and some not-quite-non-essential) luxuries such as blogging have been put to one side. I had hoped that today would be the culmination of the project and I could get my life back in order but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, at least not yet.
Other than that, things are going well: Esmé is in a great routine which has meant far less disruption to my daily routine than expected. If anything she sleeps so well that I’m not stopping to work as expected, so the allotted time when I try and keep on top of the household chores has got shorter and shorter.
The kids are well, we saw their teachers yesterday and had very positive meetings.
The weather has started to turn a lot warmer now, the trees have got leaves on and we’re definitely heading into summer. I started wearing shorts at the weekend and although I haven’t been in them every day since it’s getting that way. I’m getting more Spanish in my ways now as well - a few years ago I would have been in shorts weeks ago but I suppose once you get used to the fact that you’re going to have a long hot summer there’s less of a rush to get into the swing of things.
Last weekend we saw the beach chiringuito (beach bar) set up for the first time this year which is another signal that summer is coming 
it started off so well, I woke feeling rested (not often I can say that) and Esmé slept in till 8am (bar a 6:30 am snack) so she also woke very happy.
It quickly went downhill: Gabe left his homework folder here, which in itself shouldn’t be a big issue but they have a mad system here whereby if you don’t bring your homework folder into school then you can’t then take homework home that night. Sounds like an excellent reason to forget your folder if you ask me. That wouldn’t be good anyway, but today is Gabe’s one-on-one Catalan lesson after school and we’ve specifically asked the teacher for his reading book and any additional work he needs to go over. Without the folder I doubt we’ll get anything. Of course Jo being super good and super organised has left the folder on the breakfast table, so no excuses there…
The real problem though was that I’d arranged for a technician to come and look at our washing machine - he was due to come this morning, which in Spanish time means between 9-2. Now I generally get back from dropping Esmé off by about 9:05, but then have to go and pick her up at about 12:50. Normally we’d then potter around a little doing odd jobs, as everything shuts after 2 so if there’s anything to be done then that’s the time to do it. Anyway by 12:45 the washing machine man hadn’t come so I stuck up a note and said ‘back at 1′. I picked up E, ran home without doing any jobs and found my note added to: ‘came at 12:50. arrange for another appointment’. Aggghhh. Bloody typical. The guarantee runs out next weekend so I can’t afford for a re-run of today.
well well, how wrong can you be? Looks like my tip for the strongest candidate was the kiss of death! Now who can I suggest?? The problem is that to be honest I don’t see a strong candidate amongst them. Last night’s episode was populated with those who were useless and those who were invisible. I didn’t see half of them doing anything, maybe it was all in the editing. Of those we did see Alex Wotherspoon had a po face throughout and did his best to shirk whatever responsibility was out there. Claire Young survived by virtue of not backing down one iota in front of Sir Alan, which I guess is a quality, but on task she was all noise and no substance. Helen Speight was just awful, she’s never going to be a finalist. But where were the others??
A little belated in my post - saw episode 3 of the Apprentice last week and as usual it was well worth watching. Ultimately Ian got fired and I think it was the right decision. Kevin wasn’t too hot but anyway he got away with it. I think Simon is the strongest candidate - certainly on the boys team - and even Sir Alan said that he thought he shouldn’t have been in there.
The highlight of the episode for me was when Ian was running low on supplies and decided to send out half pizzas to make his supplies go further. The first customer to receive his half pizza immediately picked up the waiter on the fact, to which the waiter confessed that the chef was running low and was cutting the pizzas in half! The reaction of the customer was just great
I’d never EVER want to swap places with one of those guys (or galls), but as this episode was about food and cooking, something close to my heart, I couldn’t quite believe it when they were buying frozen supermarket pizzas to sell in a restaurant. The boys really didn’t have a clue when it came to costing it all out, they deserved to be trounced.
I’ve finally managed to get back into Olivia’s site, so have put one or two posts up and will try and keep it more updated. Dad’s got into the spirit and will be starting www.billandrews.co.uk soon, so watch out for it! When I set dad’s up I’ll try and sort out Esmé’s at the same time.
had my tooth taken out today 
I went in the hope of putting it off on the basis that it wasn’t bothering me and also that we could maybe prepare for the implant before pulling the old one out, so minimising the amount of time I have to walk around with big gaps. Not so - better to pull it out when it’s not bothering you (apparently) and the sooner the better as the bone needs 3-4 months to recover before we can think about an implant.
So.. an hour and a half in the dentist and all the time I was thinking if it’s so bloody hard to get it out surely we should have left it in??
Luckily I had a cup of coffee before going to the dentist - no hot drinks all day so on top of a sore mouth I’m going to be suffering from caffeine withdrawal.
I like to think we’re pretty hot on recycling - we split our rubbish into organic, plastic and metal, glass, paper, cooking oil, toxic (such as batteries etc) and finally ‘rubbish’ which is our smallest bin.
I feel humbled however - dad and Sue were out the last few days for work/pleasure and I’ve just found a piece of paper on my desk that dad brought out: on one side a statement printed in 1997, on the other an email sent in 1998 - and it’s still being used 10 years later as scrap notepaper. Now that’s recycling
I went to the dentists yesterday and it’s not good news - I lost half my tooth and the remainder isn’t really worth saving. The good news is that the rest of my teeth are OK. The problem is that I already have a gap where I previously had a baby tooth into my late twenties which was never replaced by the adult one. I’ve been talking about replacing it for a long time but it’s become more of an issue now as the broken tooth is just one tooth away from the gap, so it’s going to look hideous. I’ve done a mock up, but I warn you, it’s not pretty! Ignore the fact that I need a haircut (appointment tomorrow) and a shave (no time for such luxuries on a week day morning):
BEFORE
AFTER
Ugh
I missed last weeks’ episode which was apparently very good. Last night the teams were given the use of an industrial laundry and about 15 hours to solicit, wash and return as much laundry as possible, with the ultimate objective of earning more than the other team.
The men had on their team an ex-army guy who had had experience of using the industrial machinery (what are the chance of that!) and broadly speaking they did well. The team leader came out of it well but I’m not sure if that was more chance than anything else; I think if he’d been managing the womens’ team he would have had a much harder ride.
The women were a shambles. I’m not sure the right person got fired in the end; she made the mistake of leaving her post when she was responsible for tracking whose laundry was who’s with the end result that they lost some of the customers’ laundry. Not good, but she cleared it with the team leader (Jenny) before leaving and also was being proactive in returning to the house to try and get the irons to ensure they could complete the job after the laundry had closed.
I would have said that the team leader was responsible and in addition she didn’t run the team effectively anyway, creating conflict where it wasn’t necessary.
Having said that.. Alan Sugar’s reasons for hiring are his own and it wouldn’t surprise me if she does well in the longer run.