The complexities of living on a complex !

This sort of starts in the middle but at the end of my working life, no I am not old, just lucky enough to be one of those people who has a husband who worked for 37 years in one job, I know mad, but he did, and thanks to that, and me being 10 years younger than him, that helps, I was able to retire at the age of 44 and follow our dreams of being able to see the world and live in different countries (or so I thought but more about that later).

So here we go : Hope you enjoy this as much as I am going to enjoy writing it

Let me introduce myself, I am a 45 year old, 5’11” slightly overweight married female who retired this year (2012), to come and live out the rest of my days with my husband in the land of Pharaohs’, Sphinx, sun, sea and lots of sand, yep you have guessed it Blackpool nah only kidding, Egypt. 

Why Egypt?  That was the question on a lot of people’s lips when we made the decision some 5 years ago.  This is what we wanted to do when my husband came out of the Armed Forces after having the same employer for 37 years.  The pension isn’t enough to live in England, it rains in most other countries and in Egypt you can live very comfortably on the income that we receive every month.  Ps it rained today for 30 seconds ha ha !

In April of 2012 my husband and I both became civilians, having been brought up in the military all my life and my first husband being in the Royal Navy, venturing into Civvy Street was not only daunting but a bit of an adventure.  And how much can one person deal with is almost enough to bring you to tears, there has been plenty of those, I can tell you! I think I may invest in shares in Kleenex the amount I have gone through.

With flights booked for May 4^th (Happy Star Wars Day), the weeks leading up to the day of departure were filled with parties, goodbyes, tears, hugs, and the usual, “we will come and visit”.  No really, they all said it !

My best friend in the whole wide world was going to find a home for my cat, it has since transpired that my 14 year old moggie didn’t want to go and live with my mates next door neighbour, who is a cat lover, and has found himself a new friend and a new home, so if you are reading this and have acquired a white cat with a black tail and black ears, his name is Spook and he wasn’t a stray, I did try and find him a home, but like everything that could go wrong, he decided he wanted to be free (but would pop back for food, you know how it is being a cat?).

So the day before we flew, arrived and we went and said our final goodbyes, got into the car, just, and started on our final ever drive from the West Country up to Gatwick Airport. Now this is where I can tell you that packing up your life into a few bags is very interesting. 

Imagine what you take on holiday - right! Now times that by everything that you really want to take on holiday and can, minus the coats and shoes, cos you wont be needing them.  And then hubby throws in that he is going nowhere unless he can take his Xbox and Kinect, and the docking station, and the iron ? (yep he wanted the iron), so 3 large bags went to four, and when I went out and brought a new larger bag and packed it, ever so carefully and managed to squish things into teeny tiny corners, the look on hubbys face was a picture when he tried to move it - yeah that wasnt going to happen.  So a total of 5 large bags were stuffed into our hire car for our drive to Gatwick, 5 hours, bye bye Plymouth, bye bye !!

It rained the whole journey, for four and a bit hours, we sat in the car watching the rain pouring down the windows and splashing up from the other cars.  I did manage to get a decent photograph of Stonehenge as we drove passed and reminisced with my hubby as when I was a child I used to play on those stones and now you can’t get near them, unless it’s a winter or summer solstice.

We arrived at the hotel and checked in, drove over to the hire care drop off and returned the car and caught the shuttle bus back to the hotel where we met a group of girls who were going away for a hen weekend. And what a giggle they turned out to be - sorry girls but given the option of Poland for a weekend or Egypt for a while, seems you all had fun judging by the photos and the wedding pictures looked lovely.

We checked into Gatwick Airport at 07.30am to begin our new life abroad.  £700 later for excess baggage, yes I know, I could have bought another two seats on the plane for the amount, and being 25Kgs over the allowed limit, apparently you are only supposed to have a maximum of 50Kgs each, we had to get special permission from the pilot to put our bags on the plane.

 I am not sure if it was nervous sweat or the alcohol consumed the night before, either way it was dripping, waiting for the check in person to come back with the answer.  Thankfully the man from that place that makes really good fruit juice said yes! Let the 3 hour wait for our plane begin.

Hangover and airports don’t mix, as the time was passing we were both beginning to feel the effects of finishing drinking at 6.00am – thanks for the hen party invite girls – quick shower, no sleep and over to check in – our plane was finally boarding. 

Seat taken by the window, hood up on head, close eyes and sleep for the 5 hours it takes to fly over.  Job sorted.

We had met some lovely people the last time we were on holiday and one special lady, who shall be referred to a my fairy Godmother, had arranged for us to be picked up from the airport and safely delivered to the flat that we were renting for the month, until we found somewhere we could settle at least for a couple of years as you never know what is around the corner.

The flat was fine, and suited our purpose as somewhere to just unwind, relax and sleep before going down to the pool to swim and sunbathe.  But sadly not big enough as we both like our own space every now and again.

 I mean 24/7 is enough to test any relationship with no external social circle and only the other half to talk to – thankfully we brought out the laptop and the kindle, along with the Xbox and the Kinect, it’s the little home touches.

On day two we had a phone call from a friend of the woman who picked us up from the airport, to say that she understood we were looking for a 2 bedroom apartment.  “Yes, we are” I replied, “Can you get here by 2pm this afternoon?” was her next question so the arrangement was in place to go and see this apartment. 

The complex was a 20 minute walk from where we were staying so we took a slow walk down the road, in the blistering heat, to go and look at this apartment.

Talk about love at first site, it was slightly over what we had initially agreed on, having worked out the budget for living here, down to the last piesta.  Top floor, with roof terrace, two swimming pools, views to the Red Sea, two bedrooms, light and airy and best of all no kids – so lovely and quiet.

We agreed there and then that this was where we wanted to live and the agent agreed that he would let us move in once the month was up on the first apartment, so all was falling into place. And as we were walking out, someone shouted from their balcony, “Welcome, come and have a drink” – well it would have been rude not to.  We met our first new neighbour, the next block over.

We met some lovely people in the first complex we lived in, Jean and Ahmed been together 30 years and she hated the heat, Jilly and Liam, turns out that Jilly was an ex military brat as well, so the same mentality and having a laugh, and needless to say that Liam and hubby sat and put the world to rights with talk on football and other such manly stuff. 

Debbie and John from Holland, Debbie still sends me a text every month just to keep her Egyptian phone number activated, so I do have my uses.

The month flew past and before we knew it we were getting taxis from our old apartment complex to the new one, a whole £0.50 per trip. 

And there started the whole calamity of living in Westside Pearl, the lift didn’t work, so we had to lug all the suitcases round to the other block, up to the top floor, up another set of stairs, over the roof, down a set of stairs into our new apartment.  Then the lift in the other block stopped working. 

Egypt has a propensity of being unable to supply electricity on a permanent level and sometimes the supply dips that much that everything stops for a millisecond and then starts again, sadly this was not the case with the lift. 

For the last bags, the biggest and therefore the heaviest we weightlifted them up the stairs and then realised that we had no drinking water, not a pretty sight I can tell you.  Slightly overweight and sweaty is not a good look for anyone and I needed my root doing !

Moving in day was done, we unpacked and slept for a good 14 hours in an air-conditioned room with a balcony overlooking, well nothing, empty apartments which haven’t been finished but who cares the front balcony has the pool view and the sea view, in the distance between the M for McDonalds and Gadd the kebab shop, but I can see the Red Sea.

We met a chap who also lives on the complex, retired young at 40 and owned his one bedroom flat located just round the corner from the pool, English and seemed fairly pleasant, if not a little bit well how to describe him, not well travelled.  A bit like a rabbit in the headlights. 

He had recently had an operation and was constantly comparing Egyptian hospitals to those in the UK. 

Our agent and Sam, the English lad, invited us out for a couple of drinks.  Not being one to turn down hospitality and the possibility to meet new people and get a feel for what would now be our local area; we went to Mixed Up and had a pleasant evening.  That was until Sam decided that he wanted to go clubbing, and what an experience that was. 

Picture the scene, club full of holiday makers with wrist bands on, music is not what I would call club music and if you listened to my iPod you would know that I like my heavy beats and boom boom boom! Suddenly the lights come on over the dance floor the music stops and everyone sits down.  I am stunned into complete silence by what happened next.  Out came about 6 girls all with plumage and fancy costumes and tah dah, we have a cabaret act in the night club.  I haven’t laughed so much for a long time, the dancing was terrible, the girls looked terrified and the blokes couldn’t take their eyes of the skimpy outfits that just fitted where they touched. 

Half an hour later, cabaret act finished, lights go off again and the “club” music resumes and now the dancers are in cages above the stage.  Enough was enough so we all decided to go home and put that one down to experience and never to be done again!

Life sort of falls into a routine, no matter where you are.  Our choices in the morning are which sun beds do we choose from as there are 40 around the pool and 6 permanent residents on a complex of 450+ apartments, of which only about 100 have been sold.

The majority of the apartments have been bought for investment and stay empty as they are either used as “my second home in the sun” getaways or in our case purely as an investment.  Since the revolution a lot of things have changed, the developer of our complex, I know I talk like I own an apartment don’t I? But I do feel settled – sort of ...... anyway back to the developer, the initial sale of the properties were done off plan, so I don’t know if you understand how this works, but you buy your property on the ideal of someone else’s vision, which is fine but you have to be aware of the pitfalls.

In the case of Westside Pearl, its short on the following, a swimming pool, only has two instead of three, a tennis court!, restaurant, shops, cafe, wifi, beauty salon and landscaped gardens, and a complete block of apartments, so nothing like the scale model that was in the sales office.   I think that putting plants in a pot is pushing it a bit to actually say that it is landscaped but anyway, so those that we have met so far are the “my second home in the sun” getaways.

And then it happened the owners who can’t afford to live out here and have it as their holidays turn up and as we only rent our apartment, don’t work as we have both retired, are treated with either contempt, open arms or completely ignored.

Sally and Ray came over and they have an apartment at the back of us, lovely couple and what a god send.  Kindle breaks and have to send it back to England to be replaced and the wonderful Sally made it all happen as she had friends whose son was coming over with his mate for a week’s holiday and he brought my new Kindle back with him woo hoo ! 

Then there was Gavin and Jane (who shall be mentioned a lot later on as Mrs ICBB) – thankfully they only lasted two weeks. 

Doris and Dave – own two apartments next to each other and thinks that she owns the whole complex - much more about her later.

Polly is currently in the UK, she is Egyptian and the one who phoned with regard to the apartment, lovely. 

Keith and Nicky live above Sally and Ray, nice couple, didn’t really see a lot of them as we just crossed paths.

Lesley and Kevin with their kids, funny chatty little things and the kids don’t shut up either.

Paul and Liz, who live in Turkey and come over for the winter – ex military man himself, but an officer so a cut above everyone else on how things should be done.

Dealing with other people’s issues is quite hard, when you come from a military background and move around a lot as a child, you make new friends and say goodbye to old ones. 

We left a lot of good friends behind in the UK, and no doubt over the coming months more and more will drop off the radar as the keeping in touch with each other becomes more and more difficult and life gets in the way.

Doris and Dave where one of the first people that we met, now Doris is a diva, she has her own business which I am assuming is successful and has been going for some 25 years and she openly admits that she doesnt carry money, has no idea what things cost, so you can see why she thinks she is Queen Doris of Westside Pearl.

They only stay for a about 10 days, and she brought her brats with her and a grandbrat, so the queen has her followers, no problems, brats were a bit strange but hey they have a sheltered life only living in one place called UK, but we all made the effort - tarrah see you next time - oh how wrong can one person be ??

To say that we tried with Jane would be lying, she decided from the off, that she “couldn’t be bothered with me” as were her words to Doris, so my attitude is now one of “sod you, I don’t have to go back to England to do four jobs to pay for 2 two week holidays a year” I live here, well for at least another 2 and half years so deal with it.

The decision at the end of the day is with the owner, who has never seen the apartment and has no interest in it, but bought them as an investment – remember the lady who invited us up for a drink, Rita, yeah she rents the other apartment belonging to the same owner.  She is German and as mad as a frog, her English and my German mean that somehow we manage to have a conversation, a laugh and take the piss out of the “holidaymakers”.

 Anyway where was I, oh yeah, Mrs I can’t be bothered, so her two weeks came and went and things went back to normal(ish).

Our Agent has been back in the UK since June as he thought he had dvt, turns out there are many versions of how long he was going for and has left a few people unhappy. 

Sam had the keys for the owner’s apartments, but when Sam went on holiday to UK for 3 weeks the keys were given to us.  You can see where this is going cant you “How very dare I, me a lowly tenant, who doesn’t even OWN the property that she is living in have the keys to all those apartments”. 

I have even been mentioned on Westside Bitchfest, sorry forum as “that woman”. Ooo get me – I have managed to get under someone’s skin – you have guessed right, it was Mrs I can’t be bothered.  Mrs ICBB for future reference as she does come up a few more times.

Turns out that the agent isn’t coming back until March and Sam wants nothing more to do with him, had his nose pushed out of shape, still his problem not mine. The agent was having the use of a 2 bedroom apartment courtesy of an owner, and all of his stuff was in there and when I say all, I mean ALL! 

Susan, owner of aforementioned apartment, came over and decided that she wants to sell her apartment, two days later we see her and she has moved all the stuff out of the apartment and it covers the landing in front of her apartment and the other two on the landing. 

This was after coming over prior and finding the property in such a state that she arrived on the Friday and by Monday was back on a flight to the UK as she couldnt face it !

It looks like a garage sale.  I honestly didn’t think that you could shove so much stuff into a two bedroom apartment, but he seemed to manage it.  Susan comes over and asks for help and then lets it slip that Mrs ICBB has emailed her to warn her about me – cheeky bitch!

Thankfully Susan said that she would make up her own mind and as we have helped her and fixed her air con seems that Mrs ICBB has failed miserably in turning another owner against us.  It does make me laugh that I am that much of a bother to her that she takes time out of her day to slate me, when she can’t be bothered to talk to me still simple things please simple people!

As keeper of the keys, as there is no where to put them at the moment, until all of the agents stuff is moved into another apartment and I can put them in there and just have his key, which sort of solves the problem but doesn’t really as I still have access to the keys – that did sort of make sense in my head.  

The other day two owners, Peter and Val, who are currently staying in a hotel and have moved over to get their apartment sorted so that they can stay here forever, turn up on our doorstep. 

Luckily Peter and Val are very good friends with Lesley and Kevin.  Lesley had already told Val that we are a nice couple and fun to be around; it’s what I think anyway.   Lesley had sent me a message on a well known social networking site that Peter and Val were coming over and had told them where to find us.

What a breath of fresh air, a couple who don’t have an issue with us being on the complex and renting, who have no brats jumping in the pool unlike Mrs ICBB and her mummies boys, and enjoy having a laugh and a drink.

For the last two nights we have helped them with where to find the office, what they need to do and have assured them that we don’t mind helping them as its only what someone did for us when we got out here, so we are paying it forward so to speak.

As for Sam, he has now got a Romanian girlfriend who has a little girl and she works as an entertainer in the evenings, so we don’t really see him but we have sort of figured out that he is a big gossip not intentionally, he just divulges too much information to people who don’t need to know.

And so the sorry saga continues with the keys and to be quite frank, I have had enough, so much so that it has reduced me to tears as just how pathetic some people can be.  Hubby and I went for a swim and then shopping and on our return we made an executive decision. 

I phoned up Sam and told him that he either takes the keys back or I take them to the Police station as I don’t want the responsibility of having them and after speaking to a friend of mine who informed me that if the owners state that something is missing or broken in their apartment they can blame me as I hold their keys. 

Well that is not happening so I have put my admin head back on and made a list of all the keys that we have and taken a photo of it to be backed up in the computer – amazing what you can do with technology these days and I am going to walk down to the site office when the Site Manager is back in his office and hand them over. 

The agent has asked me not to but he is not the one dealing with the snide remarks and the accusations even though on checking through all the keys I don’t have one for Mrs ICBB or Doris, who are probably the main ones kicking off, if you remember I have gotten under their skin a little bit !!

I don’t need the hassle, I came here for a quiet life and with all this going on, and I feel my dark cloud coming over my head and time for me to retreat into my bubble.

I live with depression, and have done so for the last 27 years.  I don’t reproduce serotonin so I don’t get that feel good factor.  I get my boost from snorkelling in the Red Sea and being a one with the fish.

To be able to swim all day and just watch fish in their natural habitat makes me feel better about myself and the buzz from that usually lasts a week.  That could be the reason for the tears as I haven’t been for a while, might need to make a quick phone call and get something sorted.

I have joined what my hubby calls the WI, it’s not but it is.  There are 127 ladies in the group, no men, from 27 different countries and the aim is to meet different people, and to be completely open I am glad that I have joined the group and sometimes speaking to people who live here and put up with the crap that owners throw during their two weeks makes me realise that I am not alone. 

Where we live is not a massive place and the fact that I can phone people and the reply I normally get is “they are only jealous dear” from my Fairy Godmother, well the best way to describe her is my adopted mum.  She is the person who arranged for our first apartment and to be picked up from the airport, Chris is an angel and always tells me that if I am feeling a bit down to phone her and she will cheer me up.

I know what have I got to be down about? Pathetic little people interfering in stuff that really doesn’t concern them but I do understand where they are coming from – still that matter is being sorted so soon they can just go back to not liking me, which I can handle.

This ladies group I have joined is run by Suki, a Dutch lady, who is so funny and has a wicked sense of humour and the person that Chris had asked to pick us up from the airport. 

Suki and Chris love snorkelling and go at least twice a week, and depending on who else is going and where they are going, sometimes hubby is an honorary Petal (name of the group) and comes along.

Sometimes it’s off a boat costing about £10.00 including lunch and if you are really lucky a swim with dolphins, and other times it’s a private beach which we pay 40Le about £4.00 to be able to walk into the Red Sea and be swimming amongst coral before you are knee deep in water.

I have been lucky to see so far a couple of rays, a couple of eagle rays, turtles, and squid and of course Nemo, lots of them, so not really sure which one is actually called Nemo! Parrot fish, and loads and loads of others which I won’t bore you with the names.

Go into an aquarium and watch them, then imagine being in the water with them – not the sharks for obvious reasons, but the reason of the fish. Peaceful and tranquillity, just what my body needs to get me back in sync with me.

On one of our days out and whilst taking hubby for one of his first attempts at swimming along the coral, we spotted a fishing net, nasty and nylon and with about 20 fish struggling to get free. I tried to unhook this net from the coral and failed so swam back to the shore, reported it to the Dive Master. 

Suki had also seen this net as had Chris so with the three of us itching to do something to save these fish, the Manager of the beach was contacted and as he is Dutch had a long conversation with Suki.  Authorisation was then needed from Security, as should we be unable to remove the net from the coral, the Red Sea Police would need to be brought in, and it is an offence to destroy coral.

We piled into the dive boat, Suki, Chris, Dive Master, two chaps who were scuba diving and wanted to help, three lads from the beach who act like lifeguards and help people learn to snorkel and the chap from Security – on a mission of course I was there as well.

We managed to save about 10 of the thirty or so fish stuck in the net, it was sad to see such beautiful creatures tangled up and slowly drowning and knowing that they didn’t have the strength to go back into the sea so they became dinner for the workers.

I felt proud of myself that day and Chris put a long status on her social networking site, and with her permission I copied it and sent it to the agency here, who are trying to educate people into how to treat the sea properly. 

Our endeavours now mean that the dive boat will go out and look for nets at least twice a day – so I felt that I earned my ice cold beer that night.

Sam has just phoned back and asked was I alright.  I have told him that I am not happy with the bitching and sniping and I want to get rid of the keys so now instead of feeling happy having told you about my fish rescue, my bubble has literally been burst and I am dealing with crap all over again.

He has said that him and Paul are going to come and collect the keys and arrange for them to go to the Site Manager and as I said to Sam I don’t like things being written about me on a site where I can’t defend myself and explain how this whole stupid situation has come about – still it should be sorted soon, so keep your fingers crossed.

Tonight hubby and I have decided that we are going to stay in and have Mac & Cheese for tea with smoked turkey – watch a film and have a quiet night in.

The apartment has a 42 inch telly, oh I forgot to mention in my list of what was missing from here, a satellite.  There is supposed to be a satellite dish on all the roofs (rooves) and access to satellite telly.

The favourite word of the day is “Inshallah” which basically means, with gods will – so maybe, manyana (probably spelt wrong) when I get round to it love !
Doris was told on both of her stays that the satellite was going to be installed in two weeks.  Joy of joys she is back in December for a month, so that should be a giggle (not) having her about – Queen Bee and her lacky, otherwise known as Dave to fetch and carry for her. 

Sorry I keep going off topic, telly and satellite.  When Sally’s friends son came out, Jas and Alan, they had both just finished university and were having a bit of a break before going to work in the big wide world to pay off their debts. 

Hubby was chatting to them and mentioned putting the laptop through the telly, Alan turns round and says, “You brought the Xbox didn’t you?” hubby nods enthusiastically “In that case you have all the necessary connections to link it all up” hubby grabs Alan not in that kind of way and takes him up to the apartment and comes back after about 5 mins and reading this as I am writing it this sounds all wrong but you will get the jist in a minute, so Alan has now connected laptop into 42” telly – and that is where my life of no football ended.

So hubby has his dongle, don’t worry you are not reading 49 shades of a different version of off white, which he now plugs into for the football and all is well in his world.

Hubby even has a tin of his favourite beer, which we can’t buy out here for when his team win a game.  It’s been in the fridge for about 4 weeks and the best before date is April 2013 so it might get drunk before then. 

When they win he will be so happy and so will I – more room in fridge for other stuff!

Being the age that I am, I do think that maybe I am going through the change.  I made the decision very early on in life – aged 7 that I didn’t want to have children. 

They smell and cost money I think was the excuse that I used to my mother, when she was pregnant with my younger brother. 

True to my word I have never had a maternal instinct and at the age of 25, I got sterilised.  It’s the best decision I ever made, you never met my ex husband, that was enough to put anyone off having children and gave me the out that I needed at the age of 27 to walk away from an unhappy marriage.

I am not the easiest person to get on with; I know that I have my faults.  I tend to speak my mind and don’t beat about the bush, if you have something to say, say it. Don’t think that is going to happen with Mrs ICBB, she has bigger issues and I don’t just mean her weight. Now I am being bitchy, but she did ask for it by slating me to other owners. 

Sam is very good friends with Gavin and even he doesn’t know why Gavin and Mrs ICBB are together.  Sam did tell me and hubby one night while we were sat down our local bar/restaurant/second home, that Mrs ICBB said that at the age of 40 you lose your figure or your face, and she openly and blatantly said that she still had her face. 

I did ask Sam how did he manage not to say anything, I would have had no choice but to say “Really, you haven’t got any mirrors then “?

Oh for the opportunity, never mind she is due back in March so I have a few months to lose those stubborn extra couple of stone just so she has something else to hate me for and then wave at her as she waddles back to the front entrance to get back on the plane to go to England. 

Fingers crossed it snows in March so she can’t come out – thanks.

Today is our 6^th month anniversary of coming out here to live, and what an emotional rollercoaster ride that has been, what with all the goodbyes and tears in the UK, to the meeting of new people and putting them in boxes of no, maybe and yes.  To date the yes box is a little bit on the empty side, so lots of room for more and the no box is overflowing and could be dumped on the side of the road and another box purchased to fill it up some more, maybe buy them in bulk me thinks.

I sent this to my good girl friend in Spain, who we went to school together in Lyme Regis, and over the last couple of months have really gelled, more of a sounding board and me telling her that her list of friends really needed to be culled and the reasons behind it.  So having injured her back, which we won’t go into (if you know what I mean) she tells me she bent down awkwardly, but have you seen her hubby – one lucky lady, she tells me that she hasn’t laughed so much in ages, told her I wasn’t writing a book of jokes, this is my life complete with all the dramas and the saga of the bloody keys.
 

The key saga continues, phoned Sam and he has decided that he doesn’t want them, the site manager doesn’t want them so my next option is to find a solicitor and hand them over as it seems that we can be arrested and deported, maybe Mrs ICBB has her fingers crossed as well – bitch, and Paul doesn’t want them either, so everyone is happy to moan like ten men that I have the keys to other owners properties but not one of them want to take them off my hands, funny that !

My cunning plan if all else fails is for my legal advisor, yes I do have one, is going to take the keys from me and go and hand them to Sam as they were left in his possession and are therefore his responsibility as the agent gave them to him. Problem Solve’d.

My legal person, turns out to be a barrister, well I didn’t know, she is part of Petals the Women’s Group and Chris phoned her on my behalf.  She drafted a letter to send to the agent and gave him 72 hours to sort things out, so after a phone call from Sam while I was out, telling me that he would take the keys back, I told him not a chance matey, it’s all being done legally from now on and thanks for making me and hubby feel really uncomfortable over the last couple of days, it has been most appreciated, can you sense the sarcastic tone in my voice? And if that is the way that we are going to be treated then they had better improve as we are definitely not moving now.  The email was sent last night to the agent and oddly enough at 10.00am, my time, my mobile rang and it was he, asking what was wrong. 

I told him that it was nothing personal; I was covering my arse and had been advised to take this course of action.  Naturally, I was quite emotional and told him that all of the past couple of weeks have been awful and I felt that doing a favour for someone was not something I would be doing again, ever.

I forget how many times he apologised, and he did, even to my hubby who was angry at the fact that I was upset. 

He arranged for his “lawyer” to come and collect the keys this evening.  Imagine my shock when I said to the lawyer, well you will have to come to the apartment as there is paperwork for you to sign along with the checking of the keys.  He honestly thought that I was just going to hand the keys over, not on your bloody life mate, not after all the grief I have put up with for the last two / three weeks, you will check them, you will sign for them and it will be done in accordance with the instructions from my barrister – don’t I sound posh?

I am now key free, other than the ones from owners who actually know me and hubby and have asked us to have them.  And what a relief I can tell you – feel like I can breath again.

Whilst all this key malarkey has been going on, I have fallen out with a friend of mine.  Her mother and mine were best mates and to be fair we haven’t seen each other for some time, well over 30 years, and we sort of restarted the friendship – long story short, if you haven’t spoken for over 30 years, seriously don’t bother. 

There are too many skeletons and other random things hiding in wardrobes and cupboards.  The more I got to know her, the more I realised that she is a desperate single mother of 4, with no job and no man in her life to call her own. 

Her days are sat on the social net working sites looking for dates.  Now don’t get me wrong there could be some really nice blokes out there, but really, how many bad dates do you have to go on before the penny finally drops and you accept that you are not going to meet Mr Right on a dating site?

She did meet Mr Married and Looking for a Shag, but she wouldn’t have it that was all he was after, he is different she kept trying to tell me, he says he loves me and would leave everything to be with me, and then, this will make you laugh, tells me that he can’t leave home as his mum is elderly.  That is the best excuse I have ever heard.  And through all of this she is defending him, cos the idiot has only gone and fallen for him. 

For weeks we have caps lock arguments, you know the ones, where SHOUTING, is the only way that you can get your point across.  We don’t speak for a couple of days, she assures me that she is going to bin him and then the next thing I know, they have booked into a hotel for a weekend! 

Then the fireworks start, as the wife finds things all a bit suspicious with him texting all the time and going out.  He admits to texting some woman that he has never met (mistake no 1) and says that he will never have anything to do with her again (mistake no 2). 

Gives it a couple of days for the flames to die down and he is on the phone to my now ex friend telling her that he can’t meet for the weekend as he feels that he is being unfaithful to his wife, now he feels guilty, already done the dirty deed with my ex mate in some forest somewhere up against a tree, told you she was classy, and reality has taken a big chunk out of his arse and he doesn’t want to upset the wife.

Hotel is all paid for by him, and so, get this; she starts back on the dating sites, looking for some bloke to take away with her for the weekend! Just incase he really decides that he is not going. 

The day comes and he has told her quite categorically that he is not going to spend the weekend with her so she gets hold of the wife’s work number, phones her up and tells her that she is the one that has been seeing her husband for the last 2 months and he has been lying to the wife. The hotel was booked and paid for by her husband and the make and model of the car that the wife owns, the ages of the children all the sort of information that you dont normally get from a bloke in passing conversation.

Hell hath no fury is an understatement.  He was apparently thrown out by the wife, phones my ex mate and tells her, look what you have done and her reply, well you should have gone away for the weekend and then I would have just walked away.  Sound like a spoilt brat, yeah I thought so too.

But that wasn’t the reason we fell out oh no its better than that; she changes her profile on that social networking site that rhymes with base, to one of her holding a phone, so me having the wicked sense of humour that I have, put a comment, Sex Chat?? – she then sends me a private message to tell me that she has removed my comment as she finds it offensive and she doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea about her – what do you mean wrong idea, in the last 5 months I have known of at least 5 men she has had sex with, and that is not a long term relationship starter if you ask me.

Caps lock firmly in place, I tell her well if she finds me offensive we can sort that out, unfriend, block and done.  Her reply was just “fine” so mutually agreed to part company. One less person on my Christmas card list.  And her mum thought I was a tramp anyway as I drink out of pint glasses, which a lady should never do, well hunnie, your daughter aint no lady either !!

So now I have the task of telling my little brother, who is only 7 and a half years younger than me but acts like he is the older of us.  His words, shit happens.  Got to love him sometimes.

We have a little bar within walking distance from our apartment, we can see it from our balcony, so we know if it is busy or not, how sad is that. 

The bar is 24 hours, the beer is £1.00 a bottle ½ litre 4% alcohol, locally brewed and all the staff are male. 

Remember me saying I was slightly overweight? Here that means nothing, I get compliments all over the shop, madam you are stunning, Baba is a lucky man, Baba doesn’t seem to think so and once got offered a Ferrari and 500 camels for me, he turned down the camels on the grounds that he had nowhere to keep them and at the time we were still living in England so the quarantine would have been a bloody nightmare.  Camels are worth about £700 each, so I don’t think I did too badly, but he seriously thought about the Ferrari - charming !

Manager of our little local, tells me every time he sees me, “Madam you look beautiful tonight” Hubby tells him he needs glasses but as his English is not that good, the manager and quite possibly my hubby as well, he just smiles and nods at my hubby.

A lot of the chaps over here have the same name, highly amusing when two of them are on duty and you call the one you want and end up with the other one, so last night whilst out with our new neighbours, we decided that one of the waiting staff was going to be renamed “Dave” and he is tickled pink that he is now longer known as Mina he is now Dave. 

The next one is going to be renamed Knobby – goodness knows how that will translate.