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Published: January 2nd 2010
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I’m sat here alone with nothing to do but stare at the blue sky and the palm trees wafting in the light breeze; so, I thought I’d make use of the time and make a start on the next instalment - I’ll get Barry to finish it later when he comes back from Candolim. He’s up there at the Electricity Department trying to get our power supply to the bar sorted. He’s gone with Saj (our neighbour who runs the jewellery shop next door). Those that have met Saj will know what I mean if I describe him as the Kashmiri version of Stavros, I’m sure they’ll come back from Candolim with a tale to tell.
The reason we have no power supply is down to Barry - he flicked the meter on and gave us a lovely fireworks display……it’s a good thing really - saves us a fortune on hair gel!!
Besides this there’s the matter of an outstanding amount according to the landlady, we’ll get it sorted one way or the other but if Saj has anything to do with it it’s bound to involve a bit of running around.
As you’ve probably guessed from reading the above
we now have possession of the bar again, it didn’t come easily, as usual it involved lots of shouting and moaning from the landlady but we got there eventually. She’s still completing the building work on top - rooms and a restaurant that she’s running herself, she’s promised that she won’t serve drinks but seeing is believing and I’m positive that we’ve got plenty more arguing to come. Anyway, it’s time I did some housework, the washing machine is calling and I mean that literally - it plays a tune when it’s finished (must annoy the hell out of the neighbours)……will let Barry continue with this later.
Barry never got round to finishing this and I thought an update was well overdue. Since I wrote the above two paragraphs (3 weeks ago) a lot has happened. The main thing is that the bar is now open for business. It’s looking really nice this year - more up market than usual. We had a few hitches along the way, the main one being the loss of stock!! We were all ready to roll, everything was in place, glasses were gleaming and the fridges were full, all that remained was for
the shutter to open and the crowds to appear. We left the bar intact on the Saturday (28th) and told the lads to come back the following evening at 6pm for opening night. On the morning of the 29th Barry realised he’d left the Ipod cable in the bar and needed it to sort out the music for that evening so we nipped in to get it and it was such luck that we did………the display shelves behind the bar had fallen off the wall taking most of the brand new stock with it…….DISASTER!!!, it was Sunday, nowhere open and only seven hrs ‘til D-Day. (Imagine if we’d turned up at 6pm as planned). We managed to find a hardware shop open to buy materials to fix the shelf (A miracle around here on Sunday), and then had to re-stock, all the stuff that was smashed was the expensive stuff (typical), but anyway we managed to fix things in time. We had a great “Opening Night Party”, probably the best we’ve ever had - the place was packed and the till bells were ringing so good news all round. Business is going well at the moment, we had our first
Bollywood Night on Friday and it seemed to go down well so we’ll probably keep it running once a week throughout the season.
Away from the bar we’ve been busy looking for a new place to stay - the main reason for moving is that our neighbour is building on the land next to our apartment so getting the car in and out is becoming impossible and parking a nightmare!! We’ve settled on an apartment close to SunPark - no pool this time but we don’t use the pool much anyway.
The new pad is bigger than what we are used to and it’s got 3 balconies so plenty of room for the hammocks. Ruby and Brian are going to be taking our old apartment when they come out at the end of the month so it seems to have worked out well all round. We’re going to start moving some of our stuff in today and should be in by the middle of next week
We’ve been invited to an Ordination on the 18th of this month and we’ve also got Inas’ wedding up in Morjim soon. Melwyn popped in to see us a few
days back - he’s on leave from his cruise ship job for a few months so we’ve been invited down to Chandor for lunch with the family……so much to do!! We haven’t stopped for about 5 weeks now and are looking forward to some time at the beach just to chill out, read a book and re-charge the batteries before all of our visitors arrive in December and January.
Diwali was great this year, we managed to wait up until 5.30am to watch the burning of the effigies - the parade was really good and the work that goes into building the devil effigies is unreal. Diwali (or the festival of lights) is the Hindu version of our new year. The effigies represent the devil so are burnt at the new year celebrations. Our local temple started building theirs a month before Diwali, then on the night of the parade it took 3hrs to erect - it cost 30,000 rupees to build and then they burn the thing!?!? The Diwali parade in Calangute is the most popular with 25,000 rupees up for grabs for the winner of the "best devil" prize.
The Effigy burning is supposed to take place at each village's own temple in the early hours of the morning but unfortunately our village effigy didn’t make it that far. The Devil was so big that it touched one of the overhead electricity cables and burst into flames in the middle of the High St…….hysterical for us to watch but they were well gutted.
They tried to stem the flames by beating the head of the devil with a stick but the head rolled off down the street sending flames flying. We were rolling about laughing then the same thing happened further on up the St, I believe risk assessments hadn’t been done beforehand and the guy whose job it was to lift the electricity cables with a wooden stick at the front of the parade has lost his job!!!!
Anyway this has turned into another long drawn out essay so I’ll say Bye for Now, hope you are all well and for those coming out to Goa soon…….it’s HOT!!
Take Care, B & B XXXXXXXX
PS The outstanding electricity bill turned into a saga - not a good one for us as we owed 25,000 rupees (£300). Luckily though Saj was on hand and bartered the price down to 13,000 rupees with the option to pay in instalments!!! Now that’s what I call good bartering……..don’t you just love Goa!!!
Posted on Nov. 13th, 2006
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