I’m writing this under the influence. I feel positively high! My recreational drug of choice?…Bleach. 

I haven’t been intravenously injecting the bleach, or smoking it or even swigging it. No, my bleach addiction is passive. I’m a passive bleacher. While preparing our apartments for paying guests, you’ll regularly find me heading threateningly towards the shower tray with a bottle of bleach in one hand while brandishing a toothbrush in the other. You won’t find grime in our bathrooms!

So, as the season starts again, we’ve already checked-in two sets of guests this week. A very nice Scottish couple and some rather charming Americans (oh ya, the Americans are here – how cosmopolitan we are). 

When you live in VP all year round, it’s only natural that you get acclimatised to the wonderful mild climate here. With this in mind, we were worried that at 22 degrees, it is on the chilly side. So we gave the Scottish couple a dressing gown each. They politely declined explaining that having just come direct from bonnie Scotland, 22 degrees is nothing short of a heatwave for them! Clearly we’ve acclimatised too much. 

I’d heard from the news and weather on the good old BBC, that the snow in my home country of England had finally gone and some parts of the UK were even having a bit of a mini heat-wave. Well, one hates to sound conceited, but I hope you made the most of it while it lasted folks – horrible aren’t I?! 

Meanwhile, here in ‘sunny Spain’, we’ve had the most terrible weather. Rain. Yes rain for one whole day! Now that the rain has stopped, the sun has come out and the sky is blue again. That’s how it works here. Sickening isn’t it. Prior to the rain, we had our own version of snow. Red dust. It gets blown over from the Sahara and looks like a snowman has thrown-up red wine everywhere. The day before the sand storm, I had just finished sweeping, mopping, washing and polishing all three terraces at our Mediterraneo apartment in readiness for our Americans, so you can imagine how hashtagnotimpressed dot com I was when I had to do the whole job again the next day. 

On the local Facebook forums people were saying they had spent all day washing down their terraces, cleaning their cars, washing windows due to the red dust…”don’t bother losers!” I shouted at my computer screen “it’s gonna be peeing down in the morning” which it did, and it saved me a job. 

Talking of Facebook forums, I just want to manage a few expectations out there. Someone who holidays here had posted that they were coming this year with a teenage grandchild and that they were relieved to hear the new shopping plaza has opened as this will keep said grandchild amused and occupied. I also received a text message from a regular guest of ours saying how much she was looking forward to doing some serious retail therapy at the new shopping centre.

Now reader, don’t get me wrong…this new shopping plaza is a great new asset to VP and there are some really nice little shops there, but if you’re coming this summer and expecting the Trafford Centre… 

Anyway, we’re off for a swim while we’ve got some down time. Our Spanish teacher is in hospital for a routine surgery so Spanish classes are off at the moment. I’m relieved to be honest. Reciting conjugated verbs while high on bleach fumes isn’t the best learning environment. 

Have a look at some of the lovely photos Steve took this week around the playa...they are really nice. I love it here. 

¡buenas tardes!