It has been a long time since I last wrote an update; I can’t believe that we are already starting the third month of 2009, where has the time gone? 2008 was a very busy year for us with lots of highs and lows.
The year got off to a good and exciting start with the plans for the wedding. After months of preparation and hard work, with the whole farm painted from top to toe and everything looking at its best, the wedding took place on the 4th August and was a perfect day. All our friends and families flew in from England and it was one big long party, before and after the big day. Imagine how we felt just a few days after the wedding, when all the horses broke out of their field and were happily munching the garden as we came out in the morning to feed them, we could only be thankful that it didn’t happen just a few days earlier.
The happy couple settled back into life on the coast, but within a few weeks Rebecca found out that she was pregnant and this triggered the decision to move back to the U.K. Just before Christmas they made the move back to our home town. John now has another job in IT and Rebecca is working part time. Their baby is due in May and of course we are all very excited.
Our younger two children are also going their own different ways. Harry, now 20 finished college last year and while looking for work here in Spain, saw an appeal on English TV, by a company called Ultimate Crew, for young people wishing to work on the Super Yachts, owned by the Mega rich such as film and sports stars. The recruitment process was huge, with over 500 original applicants. He and Elizabeth both applied and got down to the last 100, after passing a succession of interviews. Harry then got down to the last 40, and after an interview and event day in Westminster, finally achieved a place, one of only 25, to train as an engineer. After an intensive 3 week course in Plymouth at the naval yard, he was due to get a placement immediately on board a yacht. Sadly, as with many businesses in the recession, it seems that even that industry is suffering, and he is still waiting for a placement, though he has been told it will be any time now. He will then be given a 6 month contract and sailing off to the Caribbean, lucky thing!
Elizabeth, now 18, has qualified as a veterinary nurse and has been doing work experience at a veterinary practice in Antequerra. As a younger girl she wanted to make her career with horses. As I may have talked about in earlier articles, she had big ambitions to study in California with Monty Roberts (the famous horse whisperer) but has since had lots of other ideas, including training to be a Scuba diving or skiing instructor, just two of her many hobbies. At the moment she is practicing her skills on our own horses, and demonstrating ‘join up’ to any of our clients that are interested.
From an early age she has been interested in Monty’s work and developed her skills by reading his books. A few years ago we attended a course with Tracy James who trained with Monty Roberts and runs a natural horsemanship centre in Bobadilla. With our own round pen Elizabeth has all the tools she needs to practice, including plenty of young horses. Elizabeth has a natural affinity with all animals, especially horses, and has backed and trained some of our young horses single handedly. To her credit these horses have become our riding client’s favourites to ride.
We are going to really miss her help as she went off to Hamburg, Germany, at the beginning of February to become an au-pair. She is taking an intensive German language course, which she sees as being a huge asset, along with her fluent Spanish and English, to work in Spain in the future, especially within the Veterinary industry. So far she seems really happy there and has already made friends. She loves the city of Hamburg and is having great fun exploring it. We are very proud of our confident and independent daughter and wish her lots of luck.
2008 saw the beginning of the recession that is now hitting us all so hard. Clive was starting to struggle to find building work, but the holiday bookings were still doing really well, so it seemed like a good idea to get on with the building of the second guest cottage to replace the income that Clive was losing. As well as arranging the wedding, keeping the farm in tip top condition for the guests and taking guests riding most days, not to mention catering for those on full board, we were now spending all our spare time building. Because the access was difficult, every bit of concrete had to be mixed and wheel barrowed into position, most of this grueling work in the heat of the summer. We had given ourselves a deadline to at least get the ground floor of the new cottage habitable in time for the wedding, to provide some more much needed sleeping and bathroom facilities for the many friends we had staying. This was achieved by the skin of our teeth, with help in the last week running up to the wedding from our friends themselves; it really was a mad time. We just had time to clean ourselves up for the wedding itself,(I really wished that evening gloves were still in fashion, to hide my builders hands!) then a nice break afterwards with all the friends staying on, but then it was back to the grindstone.
We had to decide on a date to have the cottage ready by, in order to begin advertising, so we settled on the October half term. Of course the bad weather of the autumn started to slow us down and we were still putting in the finishing touches an hour before the first guests arrived!
What a relief to finally be finished, we could take a well earned rest. Little did we know quite how much time we would have to rest in the months to follow? The winter of 2008/9 was the worst we could remember, and some say for 30 years. It felt like it rained every day, and if it wasn’t raining it was snowing. We even had thick snow falling one evening and a thunder storm at the same time, very spooky! One night we had hurricane force winds and woke up to find that the horse’s field shelter had blown right over the fence and into the next paddock!
Due to the recession we did not have the usual amount of winter bookings, but in some ways this was a miracle as it was so miserably wet, cold and muddy. The poor horses must have been bored out of their minds, and it was a daily battle to keep them fed, dry and warm. The poor things certainly struggled to keep weight on and we have the hard job of trying to fatten them up now that the warmer spring weather is here. Of course it was miserable for all the animals. The cats and dogs just wanted to be in the house, complete with muddy paws of course. The cat population had decreased to just 3 last year as we had to have poor Storm put to sleep and Spike disappeared and we haven’t seen him since. We did gain a kitten though, as Elizabeth brought one home from the Vet practice she was working at. Sadly, poor little Phoebe, Elizabeth’s ferret, at nearly 9 years old had to be put to sleep too. She had become so thin and had lost nearly all of her hair. She wasn’t walking properly either, just stumbling around. She is sorely missed by all of us; she was such a little character. Even our fish caused us some concern for a while. We have a lovely Moroccan style water trough with goldfish in it. I couldn’t believe my eyes one day when I walked into the courtyard and saw a huge heron sitting on the side of the trough helping himself to the fish. It was extremely annoying as we couldn’t seem to scare him off, he must have been very hungry. He looked amazing, but even so, we didn’t want him to eat all our fish! We had to cover the water with wooden pallets for a few weeks until the heron gave up, not exactly attractive but needs must, and at least we didn’t have guests in at the time. I just hope he doesn’t come back.
Now that we are heading into March we have had a few tantalising peeks at the lovely hot spring weather to come. We have already been lucky enough to get out and do some gardening in our shorts and it is amazing how a bit of sun and blue skies can lift your spirits.
We even treated ourselves to a day out. We took a picnic and went on a lovely mountain drive to one of our favorite villages, Zahara, where we stopped for a morning coffee, then on a few miles to an amazing gorge. It is an incredible walk, and not for the fainthearted as it is very steep, but you see Vultures circling right above you, almost close enough to touch, it is quite incredible.
Things are still very hard, and we wait every day for more bookings to come in, with our fingers firmly crossed (they are coming in, if a bit slower than previous years). I think that we can only hope to survive this recession and keep plodding on. We have no choice as all our rescued animals rely on us, and they always have to come first, we certainly don’t have the luxury of even thinking about giving up.
We see every new holiday booking as a blessing, and a step towards surviving these worrying times. Lets all hope that things can only get better!