Episode 16: I'm the boss

Sitting at home in my little house in St. Leonards-on-Sea, I had this romantic notion of how owning and running my own business would be. I would soon be working only 5 hours a week, be driving a swanky Renault Twingo and going to all the best clubs with oiled up muscle boys on my arm. Sadly, the only one of those that has come true is the last one, but one has to take whatever comfort one can in these time of crisis. The truth is, the reality is much harder than the notion.......and those boys don't come cheap!

Have you noticed that wherever you are in the room,
the nipples on the front row all seem to be looking at you?

We've had
to sell my father-in-law
in order to buy this

Of course, I knew that this would be the case when I was considering leaving the bosom of the NHS; that's the bit about the reality being harder, rather than muscle boys being expensive, just in case you were wondering! I knew that the hours would be VERY long and arduous and that I'd never get any knitting done as I'd be slaving over a hot class from dawn ´til dusk. I knew that money would be tight and I knew that I needed to change my underarm deodorant, as people had started passing out in my wake. Incidentally, the deodorant I like is SO expensive here that we bought loads of it when we came to the UK for the New Year. When friends asked us if we'd bought anything nice whilst at the sales, we pointed out the deal Boots had and presented them with a hundredweight of spray and stick deodorants. It pleased me though, so get over it!


Setting up the school was hilarious. Well, sort of hilarious. I mentioned a lot of that back in Episode10: 'Back to (the other) school', but what I didn't mention was what happened after the initial set-up and our many, MANY trips to Ikea. The answer.......? Nothing much! We started with a few clients and weren't making enough money to cover my chocolate habit, let alone the rent on the place. I went to my Spanish lessons in the morning, then would go out for coffee with the lovely girls in my class and afterwards, drive over to the school where José was waiting for me to make his lunch. Then I'd sit on the computer - not literally you understand - play on Farmville, read the newspapers, download stuff from iTunes, listen to music and generally lounge about doing very little until he had finished his last lesson of the day. Then we would go home. Apart from the fact we weren't earning very much, it was a reasonably idyllic lifestyle and I quite enjoyed this self-employment lark.


So, trust some nosey bugger to go and put a spanner in the works! They suggested an online company called 'Let's Bonus', which is a sort of perpetual sale (or REBAJAS - you've not had a Spanish lesson for a while) for posh people. It sells things that the common-or-garden pleb wouldn't really need or couldn't afford, at a very reduced price. Anyone fancy a two-week welding and cupcake decorating holiday in Uzbekistan in November? Sure, the price is significantly reduced, but these holidays pile the extras on once you've bought them. The holiday costs about €2,50 on the website instead of the "regular price" of €1500, but that's only for the accommodation. With flights, airport taxes, hotel transfers and the hire of your own welding kit and icing bag, it comes in at - you've guessed it - €1500 per person. A bargain!!! But that's what they do; they hook the unsuspecting punter in and once they've taken the bait, slap 'em with a load more costs. We looked at it and decided that was a business plan we could adopt and so we decided to advertise our Conversation Classes on there. 

Belén Esteban 
TV presenter; Mother;
Jeremy Kyle wannabe; Media Whore

Oh! My! Goodness! We sold 78 of the damn things and I've been working like a Victorian child up a factory chimney ever since. So much for the 'fun' element of self-employment! I set to work designing databases, spreadsheets and all manner of things that we would need in the school. José needed training in the way I do things (the correct way!) and he soon learned that there is only one way to do things.......There are people reading this now, friends I used to work with, who are smiling and nodding, remembering my obsessional traits and possibly shedding a little tear at how much they miss my spreadsheets. The one joy is I can do whatever I want with them. I've got no-one asking for how long a person has been on the caseload or whether or not the staff member had one, two or three pees during the day, I can put on what I like! Inside leg measurement, whether or not they like Belén Esteban, or if they've ever used their Auntie Sylvie's wig as a table centrepiece......well, the lights were low and everyone thought it was a new exotic breed of Venus fly trap, owing to the fact that it moved of its own accord!


The lack of money is an interesting thing. I'm very partial to money and rather liked being paid each month from the NHS. I have to say that is the one thing I do miss about it. If I could persuade my old Trust to keep paying me as a nod to the 21 years of loyal service I gave it whilst not actually doing anything there, that would be a happy medium. The NHS are renowned for wasting money and I was rather hoping that they would waste some in my direction, but it wasn't to be. So, I've learned to be frugal, which is a word I was so unfamiliar with that I had to look it up in the dictionary. We've taken to buying the 'Basic' brand of some things in a well known supermarket as some things taste just as nice and cost half the price. Mind you, I won't let José take it out of the shop in a see through bag. It has to be at least double-bagged so that no-one knows I'm actually poor. We've also stopped buying some things that we never really used such as gulls eggs, kohlrabi, and Tena Lady. 

Kohlrabi - lovely with faggots and chips, but now a luxury

Since we did the first Bonus and it was so successful, we decided to do another one for a Holiday English course we're running, which was also very successful and which created even more work for me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but this 'all-or-nothing' culture is a little too much and I threatened revolt, so José bought me a lovely nasal hair trimmer to cheer me up.


Some days I leave home at 8.10am and don't get home until nearly 10pm. I'm not used to it. My poor frail body can't cope and I have to eat a Kit-Kat at regular intervals throughout the day to sustain me. Plus I'm no longer sitting on reception just doing my nails. Guess who is taking most of the conversation classes? Mind you, they're easy-peasy. I mean, hands up who would like to get paid for sitting around and talking all day?? I give them a few phrases they've never heard of ("eeh, bah 'eck Ma it's a bit parky in 'ere!"), explain what it means and they go away happy as Larry (or Luis, as they would say here). The best thing of all is..........and are you reading this carefully, my lovely nurse friends.......? There are no bloody notes to write up afterwards!!! No care plans! No eCPA. Nothing! I just kick 'em out of the front door and bugger off home myself. Sometimes I have to pinch myself because I think I'm dreaming.

Even the bloody dog
won more than I did!

That said, sitting on reception can be very interesting. We're on the second floor of this building and on the first floor is a hairdressers. The smell of the various solutions has seeped into my little grey cells, turning them into little blue-rinsed cells, basically buggering them up. I think it's making me paranoid. Upstairs is a dog and his bed is obviously right over where I sit. All day I can hear this beast scratching the floor and at first I thought it was really sweet, if a little annoying. I'm now convinced that he's doing something approaching a thousand lottery scratchcards a day. How do I know?? Well, every so often he lets out a little yelp, which obviously means he's won something.  You see, I'm not that mad after all, no matter what José says. 


I know it's been a little longer than usual between blogs this time and it may be that way for a little time to come, as we're so busy these days. I've managed to write this one as we still have the afternoon free on Wednesdays, although that luxury is also about to come to an end, but I really don't blame José at all for that. Not one jot!! No no no no no no!! I will keep writing them though as life here is still as strange as it ever was. I guess I just don't notice it as much these days, the impact of which is a little too scary to objectively contemplate.

..........and we'll sell
my mother-in-law in order to afford this!!

One final word: The only time I ever think of the NHS these days is when I write this thing or when I talk to my friends in Hastings. I did both recently and discovered that my old post has finally been filled, so huge congratulations to Rob who stepped into my slingbacks in a substantive post a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure that he'll buy a drink for anyone who asks him by way of celebration. Mine's a G&T. Large! And none of that cheap 'Basic' brand muck neither!

Episode 15: Back to Blighty

As I write this modest little Booker Prize winning effort, we are back in dear old Blighty and in the midst of seeing all our wonderful friends once again in order to ring in the New Year. Those of you that know me well will now be imagining me in some swanky hotel; all Egyptian cotton sheets, champagne cocktails and fawning staff. Instead, we're setting up our own business so every penny counts and as we've earned little money since we started our school, we plumped for the Travelodge; all sticky carpets, leaky showers and rickets. I was so very homesick before Christmas and looking forward to coming back to the UK, but I have now found a cure. After 5 days here in the Travelodge Hastings, I'm ready to go home. That's home Spain, people!

Not actually what our room was like,
but what it felt like!!

I wish to share so many of the fascinating facets of our stay here in the Hastings equivalent of the Bates Motel, so let's start by talking about the housekeepers for the moment, although I can assure you that the only thing they kept was a supply of rather rancid scent in their little storage room, for they certainly didn't keep house. And they smelled like they'd bathed in it, which I think was Chanel number 1, this being Chanel's first attempt before they finally got it right after 4 more tries with Number 5 and which never made it onto the market on account of the fact that it smelled like nun's sweat. Courtney - for that was the nomenclature by which the dear young lady went by - was your archetypal Hastings resident; ear-rings like a trapeze act and council estate facelift (hair pulled right back and up in a tight pony tail) and with a massive grimace on her face which made her look like she'd just trodden in a Greggs pasty. One morning when we'd managed a lie-in until around 11am, we'd showered and were getting ready to go out when we could hear her talking to the other lady she worked with (4 teeth and halitosis that could strip the varnish off a royal yacht). They were debating whether we had gone out and whether she could come into the room, despite the 'Do Not Disturb' sign being on the door. Thing is, I don't think the poor lass could read very well and she thought interpreted it as 'Stand outside the door of the people who have hung the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on their door, shouting like a harpie to your toothless workmate about said people'. Being kind and in need of some peace and quiet, I popped my head out to say that we would be out in about 10 minutes if she wanted to make the room up. Courtney was clutching the room towels in her mottled mitts as if her very life depended on it and I thought that she would go away and come back later, but she didn't. She hovered outside the room like an undescended testicle for the full 10 minutes until we left for the day. When we did emerge, she was still carrying the armful of towels I'd originally seen her with, none of which were sufficient to dry the sweat off the brow of a drunk surgeon doing a circumcision. It appears that when Courtney is told to do something, she damn well does it to the best of her ability. Well good for her!

The Council Estate Facelift,
captured beautifully on our
winning model, Ena

We left her to it and came back later in the day to what we expected would be a beautifully cleaned up room. Not one bit of it. She'd dumped the towels in the bathroom, left all the wet ones on our bed, but made up the bed around where the wet towels were left and gone. The floor hadn't been vacuumed, the bathroom hadn't been cleaned and the sides were left undusted. Now I don't know about you, but there are certain levels of cleanliness that one expects when staying in a room for which one has paid money and contracting some vomit-inducing bug that Kim and Aggie would avoid at all costs is certainly not high up on my list.


This routine carried on daily. The only thing she did each day was tuck the duvet in and put new towels in the bathroom if we asked for them. I say duvet, I swear it would have been warmer out in the street under a Financial Times. Never have I been covered with something so thin since 1986, when I went to a pyjama party in South Lincolnshire in a rather fetching diaphenous baby doll number, that was, in hindsight, possibly a (bilious) step too far. In fact, on our last morning there, I took to throwing things all over the room, just because I was incensed she'd done nothing for the previous 5 days and I thought she should start earning her minimum wage. I know, I'm not proud of it, but to be fair, it's the only time I've ever done a dirty protest in my 48 years on this earth - and they were asking for it in my opinion!

Possibly a mistake, in hindsight.

As for the shower, well that was something else. Sure the water came out quite fast and the bath was clean - well at least on the first day - but it leaked. And it didn't just leak a little. I was the first one to have a shower after checking in with the Kommandant on reception and as I emerged from the steaming tub, I noticed a small swimming pool had been installed in the bathroom whilst I'd had the shower curtain closed. It transpired that the shower head had a leak. It was a tiny break where the pressure was so great that it forced masses of water out at said pressure and over the top of the shower curtain. On future days, José and I were both able to shower together with me in the bath and him standing on top of the toilet cistern.


They didn't even replace our loo rolls. Can you believe that?? When we got there, we had only 1½ rolls in the loo and after a little while, well......one runs out. Given that our New Year celebration was an Indian Meal (home-cooked by my wonderful friends though and not some takeaway dripping in e-numbers........or as they're known up in Yorkshire, eeeeeh-bah-gum numbers!!), it's surprising it lasted as long as it did. Anyway, on our penultimate night, we were down to our last few squares and still they never gave us new ones when they made the room up (?) earlier in the day. Someone had to do the walk of shame and as José had already lost any street cred he may have had by being seen not only with me but in a Travelodge to boot, it had to be me. I had to walk to up reception and ask. How ignominious! Me?!?!?! A person who had bay windows and decking and who has flown British Airways Business Class on many occasions and I'm reduced to asking in a Travelodge reception for more toilet rolls!! Ooh, there's a letter of complaint brewing in me as I write this..............


And so it was up to Leicester to see two very dear friends, who I know read this blog and who we love above all others (please see the email I've sent you asking to borrow a couple of grand!) Good food, great company, good shopping; in fact nothing bizarre happened there at all that needs column inches here, so moving on....................


We drove through a Force 10 gale to Stansted Airport on the Thursday morning, with the rain howling down and José - on a comb and paper  - having a crack at 'Stairway to Heaven' that was playing through the car radiogram. I associate Stansted with wind and rain as it always seems to be that way whenever I go there; a portent of some doom-laden prophecy perhaps? We flew with Ryanair, so the prophecy was correct! I know that many Sunday tabloid newspapers are no longer in existence, but if they were, flying with Ryanair would be like flying with the Sunday Sport. Thankfully there was no-one with their booosoms out, but bingo and scratch cards are available, along with a hot menu (hamburgers and chicken nuggets) and a selection of alcopops. Classy!

Ryanair have recently introduced prostitutes on it's flights to the UK

Right until the end of boarding, the seat next to me was free. One good thing about being on the larger side is that fellow travellers eye up the little space next to me into which they have to squeeze and think better of it, so pass down the cabin. I could see this woman coming from a mile off. She was wearing a long fur coat and looked so out of place on this flight. God alone knows that this coat was made of, but it had been dead a long time, I can tell you. I'd rather breathe the air at Grimsby docks. Anyway, we were sitting in the over-wing aisle, as we had bought Speedy Boarding (there was nothing speedy about it, as we dragged along behind some man with his foot in plaster and a woman who had no feeling down her right side and who kept slipping down one step each time she went up two). Anyway, the old woman next to me took off her coat and sat with it cradled in her lap. I swear she was stroking it and I now think it was probably made up of every pussy she'd ever had in her life. Pussy number 1 made her a small bobble hat, then Pussy number 2 into a scarf, 3 = bed jacket, bomber jacket, a smart suit style jacket, a three quarter length coat and with the recent demise of poor Conchita Cat, turned into the long monstrosity she had on that day. Eventually the cabin crew noticed it and this guy wrestled it off her to put into the overhead locker. How I didn't laugh! The flight was full and all the lockers were jam-packed. Well, it was like trying to shove a grizzly bear into an ashtray. He pushed and pushed at it and each time he pushed it here, it popped out there. Eventually he'd had enough and with one big slam, the locker door came down and I swear I saw her wince. For there, hanging out of the locker, was a tiny wisp of kitty pubic hair. This little kitty minge mocked me all through taxi and take-off and even though I was reading my book, I kept looking at it. As did she. As soon as the seatbelt signs were off she was out of her seat where she promptly freed it from the locker's grip and wore it the rest of the journey. I can't be too sure it didn't pee on me at one point, although I did nod off for about 30 minutes so it could have been my drool.

Conchita Cat, before she was added to the hem of a three quarter length coat

So now, dear reader, we're back in Spain. I'm back at the language school and our own school restarted yesterday with 75 new students over the coming weeks. Busy times! 

Have I ever mentioned the name of our school on this blog???

The holiday seems like a dim and distant memory and since I started writing this particular episode, I've had another birthday. Lucky me, whatever my name is (well, I did drink a little, which I find is the only way to get through birthdays these days). Trouble is, the memory loss has also wiped out an entire term of Spanish verbs, so I spend my days looking vacantly at our teacher, Ángel. The sad thing is, I don't think he's noticed a difference from last term!