Cycling B&B in the foothills of the Pyrenees

[Bonus]

It rained all last night and so today the snow has cleared a bit.

Ramon cleared the road from our houses to out of the village this morning so that we could get out in the car.

We went and had a look around - the big roads are all clear. The local council must have worked flat out to get it all done. I know they are used to bit of snow, but hats off to them for effort.

Good to know that when an Atlantic Snowstorm hits us, we're only stuck for a day :-)

 

[Bonus]

My son is over from the UK for a few days and thankfully the snow and rain we had last week have gone away.

Today we walked some of the trails I'm busy building on Ramon the Farmers land. Did a bit of cleaning up and cleared some of my drainage ditches. It's looking ok, despite the fact that I haven't given it much attention since we started building our garden walls and terracing our sloping back garden.

It's good news for me that I can ignore my trails for weeks or even months if necessary and they don't fall apart while my back is turned!

 

[Bonus]

After a week of working flat out at one of our local campsites, bad weather stopped play for a few days. Then my son was over from the UK for a week.

Now I'm back at work - preparing the campsite ready for opening time just before Easter.

The boss' daughter, who takes care of the admin and cleaning side of things, asked Mrs Bonus if she'd be interested in helping out for a while too, so she's joined me there :-)

We are both currently "employed" and earning Euros . . . . :-)

 

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Would love to get to Stage 6 of the " Volta Ciclista a Catalunya" on Saturday. It's going to pass here about 40km away.

Just depends on work & weather!

 

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If you live in Spain and you want to drive legally you need to have a Spanish driving license - so we've started the ball rolling for exchanging our UK licenses for Spanish licenses.

You can live here for a period of time before you need to change your license, but we're almost at the end of that period now.

Hopefully it will be a painless exercise. . . .

 

[Bonus]

After 5 weeks of garden & building maintenance at the "Ainsa Camping" campsite, this week the site opened for Easter. (Holy Week - or Semana Santa as they call it).

Yesterday a few customers arrived, lots more today and by tomorrow night I believe they're going to be full.

It's been fun - hard work, but good to be bringing in some Euros, and it looks like the owners are going to offer us both contracts for the summer season.

Going back to work now so that we can check all the outside lights and timers are set up correctly and working. . . .

 

[Bonus]

A couple of days off of work now at "Camping Ainsa" thanks to the rainy weather. Most of what we're doing is outside at the moment.

We did a big Prep of the site grounds and the 27 chalets for a month leading up to Easter ("Semana Santa" here in Spain) and then the site was open for a week or so over the Easter weekend. Now it's closed again until the begining of May and we're doing more prep work. Then it opens through until the end of September.

I'm enjoying the job and it...'s good to have some money coming in. Trying to improve my Spanish "as I go along". My boss, Juan (the owner), is using the famous English method of just repeating the same word over and over with increasing volume until I say "OK I understand"

Mrs Bonus helped prepare the chalets before Easter but won't be going back during the season. She's going to rather concentrate on trying to get done all the things we need to do to keep our project going while I'm at work - lots of paperwork, a new business plan, applying for Spanish Temporary Residence and then Permanent Residence, sorting Spanish Driving Licences and liasing with the builders once we get going. Plus she has to look after me, which is no easy job at the best of times!

Onwards and upwards . . . .

 

[Bonus]

The weather here is driving us nuts at the moment!

We had a long almost entirely dry winter. It got colder much sooner at the end of last year than it did the year before. Winter came early - November was sunny but chilly :-(
It was fine for riding though - just had to wrap up, and although it was cold, it wasn't wet and muddy. In fact it was so dry that the percentage levels of how full the various dams and lakes in Spain were, got down to the low teens.

Where we are living, "Spring" seems to be constantly flicking between two states - one day it's 20 degrees & sunny and we see people on bikes all over - the next day it's raining all day, the trails are wet and muddy and no one is to be seen anywhere!

In the last few weeks in other parts of Spain there has been so much rain that some of the major rivers are now flooding through towns and villages. Thankfully we're fine where we are, although we've had a fair bit of rain come down in the last two weeks ourselves.

Today it's sunny again, yesterday I worked in waterproof clothes because it rained hard all day long! Living in the foothills of the mountains certainly makes life interesting . . .

:-)

 

[Bonus]

We have so much going on at the moment that proper updates have taken a back seat. This weekend we have some free time - so I'll try and get everything back on track.

The Big Adventure continues . . .

We are currently preparing revised paperwork for a new trip to talk to the banks :-)

 

[Bonus]

Today's an important day for us. Work want to discuss a "Summer Contract" with me.

Getting a good work contract for the summer will have a significant influence on how we proceed with our "Big Adventure" . . . so, fingers crossed that after 2 months of work so far, they feel I'm actually worth having around.

:-)

 

[Bonus]

Mrs Bonus and I drove through to Huesca, which is about an hour and a half away and is our nearest big administrative city - to finish applying for our Spanish Driving Licenses today.

Everything went OK, our paperwork was all correct and we've been given cover letters to drive with until the Licence Card itself comes in the post in a week or twos time.

Another step in the right direction . . . . :-)

 

[Bonus]

I had planned to get my "European Guiding Qualification" this Spring so that I could potentially start "working" this Summer, but because I've actually been working at a local campsite for the last couple of months, I've been putting the trip off.

Tomorrow at work I should find out whether I have guaranteed work over the Summer at the campsite. If I do then I will push the Guiding Course back until after the season ends - which is at the end of September. If not then I will plan to do it asap.

 

[Bonus]

So, as I mentioned in my last post . . .

Work at a local campsite has provided us with some income for the last few months and that income has been welcome.

The 6 month "summer work-contract" however, which they promised me and which would have helped us with regards to securing a loan from the banks to cover our renovations has not been forthcoming....

Had the contract been offered, it would have covered us up until the end of the camping season, which is at the end of September.

Our original plan was to work under contract until the end of September and then in October, the week after the contract finished, to travel down to Almeria in the south of Spain so that I could attend an MTB Guiding Course that will earn me my Mountain Bike Guiding Certificate and allow me to guide people safely and legally around the hills and caminos of the Zona Zero MTB trails, where we live.


Our intention from day one has always been to be able to show our cycling guests around, but we wanted to get the B&B built and up & running first. Now our new plan is to take a week away from work at the campsite, since I'm not tied in with a contract, and go down to Almeria in 10 days time to do the course sooner rather than later

When we come back we will have some paper work to complete and some insurance to take out, but essentially I will be ready to start guiding people who are visiting the area and instead of it being a service we offer our guests, it will be a business we run in order to help fund the renovations of our B&B!

Depending on how work goes between now and when I leave for the course (things have been rather strained lately for various reasons), I may or may not continue working casually at the campsite when we return. We will see.

Whatever the case, we have decided that we need to take back charge of our own lives. We've spent a lot of time over the last two years waiting for various people to deliver on their promises. Now it's time for us to keep the promises we made to ourselves and to each other and get this thing done by hook or by crook!

Wish us luck . . . . .

 

[Bonus]

The Enduro World Series is coming back to Ainsa this year....... It's going to be fantastic!

http://www.endurowor...-zero-sobrarbe/


The "Festival Zona Zero Sobrarbe"

EWS 2018 Round 7 - 22–23 September 2018 @ "Zona Zero" Sobrarbe.

 

[Bonus]

Doing some late night studying for my upcoming MTB Guiding Certificate . . .