Work, Work, Work! We all had jobs. Lee was working on sales for a property company in Fuengirola, but she spent more time back in the U.K, every two weeks was a weekend away. Ashley was working in the kitchen of a restaurant, she started as a pot washer but ended up preparing and cooking meals she loved her new life. Ricky worked for a couple of bars and restaurants but after working for a 5 star fine dining hotel (on the Isle of Man) he was spoilt. Some kitchens in Spain are no bigger than a phone box and the standards just aren’t the same. So he ended up labouring for a building company with a couple of friends. Gary had been working in a small kitchen but soon followed Ricky into the building trade where he started as a labourer but soon learnt plastering and tiling to a good standard. I was working for another builder but soon moved to the same firm as Gary and Ricky with my mates Pete and Deano.
The next year was great with all of us working together almost every day in the sun up in the mountains. It was hot, really hot, we had to take salt tablets and drink 5 to10 litres of bottled water a day! We used to leave for work at 7am and get home at 5pm, none of this siesta business for us! The Spanish lads start about 8am and have a siesta (either sleeping on site, in the van, under a tree in the shade or going home) anytime from 1pm till 5pm. Then they will return to work till 8 or 9pm, no problem for them as it’s still light but something we just wouldn’t do. This was mainly because we were working for mainly British people and they wanted to have their evening meal and watch television in peace or sit on the terrace even have a dip in their pool, not hear a load of builders working and noisy machinery.
One thing we never ever did was drink alcohol during the working day and it amazed us so much when we used to pull up at a petrol station on the way to the job most of the petrol stations out there have a coffee shop inside. So we’d have an early morning chat, a coffee or two and be on our way. The Spanish lads would be drinking pints of San Miguel or Cruzcampo followed by a couple of large brandies, whisky or aniseed. Then they’d jump in their JCB or heavy goods truck without a care in the world, we did our drinking when we got home from work and our van was all parked up. Then we’d make up for all that graft during the day, a couple of the bars we used to drink in wouldn’t collect the empty bottles till we were leaving then they’d count the empties and put the amount on the wall.
Every Friday we’d try to beat the previous week. It was all in good fun. At one of the bars we drank in, the owner challenged us to see if we could build a vertical triangle of empty bottles. We got 15 bottles in length and 6 rows high then one of the bar staff knocked them down by accident and spent about half an hour cleaning the mess up. But it was all in good fun and the atmosphere was superb, all the lads were enjoying themselves without a word hardly ever out of place.
Ricky loved it but was missing his chefing and after keeping in touch with his mates on the Isle of Man, he was offered his job back and that was it, off he went but what a laugh he’d had. After a short while Ricky left the Mount Murray which came as a big shock to us but Ricky had been told about a vacancy as a head chef at the White Swan Restaurant in a lovely place called Arundel not far from Brighton on the south coast, he passed the interview and took the job once again Ricky loved his job settled down very quickly and made more good friends.
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