Changing Places No 121 W/C 9th June 2008

Our offices have the perfect view and as I am typing this I am watching couples toasting one another over lunch in the pavement cafes below our window. Holidaymakers and leisurely lunches with the sun on the water and the yachts – a wonderful sight. We really are very attached to our offices. When the African Prince we have been commissioned by suggested that the money we would make from working with him would enable us to move to grander offices - we were quite offended. We love our quirky, eccentric offices in the Port of Soller with the tram cranking past every thirty minutes. The hundreds of day trippers that hang around outside waiting for the boats to take them to Sa Colobra are our daily joy. They cling on to their lunch boxes for dear life together with their transparent plastic macs and momentarily become the cliché tourist. We really would not want to be anywhere else.

Our African Prince has viewed Hotels, Castles and Yachts with us at Sun Search Acquisitions and a medley of other Agents. The accumulation of a portfolio of expensive items gathered momentum and made us scurry to the internet for the latest on the Nigerian 419 scams. This is the Advance Fee Fraud that we are all familiar with as our emails are bombarded with fake letters from people asking us to deposit large sums of money, keep a percentage and send on the rest. Were we all being taken for a ride or had we met a genuine purchaser who happened to come from the same continent as the scammers? Everyone had a view and expressed it!! Then the invitation came for some of us to visit their main client and fund holder in the UK. A request for expenses to attend the meeting met with stony silence and the trip was unceremoniously cancelled. Who knows what it was all about? I don’t think we’ll be moving our offices or making a fat commission this month after all. We didn’t want to move anyway………….

How long will it take to cycle over your mountain was the question that Jay & Matthew’s friends asked when they came to stay. Arriving at the airport two of the party got in a taxi and the others headed on their bikes to Soller. No easy journey awaited them – it is mountain route or nothing. The tunnel that makes our journey by car so simple is banned to cyclists so they have to cycle over the Coll or arrive here via Valldemossa and Deya on the mountainous coastal route. They eventually arrived in a puddle of sweat. These hard men had never done this ride before and had seriously underestimated their first cycle ride on Majorca. They will not forget their ride over our bit of the Tramontana Mountains in a hurry.

Green beans and Roman re-enactments mark the end of term for Kate and Emma. Kate has been learning about the Romans this term and they are spending the day living like them. Have you got a plain white sheet in your house suitable for a toga? We searched but a plain white unfitted sheet was conspicuous by its absence. There are probably plenty of hotels that could lend one but they might think the request was just a bit odd. It looks like it’s a trip to the cheapest shop possible. Green beans needed a tee- shirt of the right hue which involved a purchase for Emma’s school theatre performance. You can never have too may tee- shirts though can you – especially as the beach and mountains are going to take over from school uniform for the next eleven weeks.

Kate has one more important engagement before signing off for the summer. Centre Stage has been invited to sing for the Queen’s birthday celebrations in Palma. Mr Conway takes his duties very seriously and the children are to be word perfect in the National Anthem. Kate has been practising and we have been supplying the backing sound. Shiny happy faces, smart clothes and clear enunciation for the Queen who will, they have been assured be watching on a screen somewhere! The British Consul we are told is looking forward to the performance and this year the guests have promised not to talk through the children’s singing. I hope that is a promise they keep.
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