Week 1 on site

---

Geo: 42.0534, 3.19767

Sat 2/4/11 Bright and sunny mid day temp 22oC

Well the awnings up, the freezers connected, we've done the shopping, so all's well with the world, well nearly for some strange reason my International SIM doesn't seem to want to send texts, everyone is showing as failed.

Sun 3/4/11 Blazing sunshine mid day temp 24oC

I've now discovered that not only is my phone not sending or now receiving texts I can't make calls either, as soon as the recipient picks up the phone it disconnects at my end. The site WI-FI doesn't go live until next week so I'll have to find an Internet cafe tomorrow to report the problem. So for now all I can do is pour another drink and chill.

Mon 4/4/11 Bright and Sunny with a slight wind mid day temp 22oC

Market day in Torroella de Montgrí some 5 miles away it's usually a good market here with plenty of good quality local fish shops as well. The market was markedly smaller in size than normal as it was only catering for the local population but it was good anyway, even if the local council did decide that now was the right time to rip up the carpark.

After leaving Torroella we made our way back and ventured into town, we soon discovered it's like a ghost town all the usual places were closed up, mothballed, waiting for the season to start. We had noticed that all along the seafront a community WI-FI service was being advertised so it's a quick trip to the Tourist Information to check it out.

Apparently the WI-FI service extends from the Information office along the seafront to the harbour and can be used in two of the squares in the nest town as well, not bad at €0.9 for 1hr or 5 hrs for €3 so card in hand off we trotted to the seafront across the road.

I must say that ordinarily whipping the old laptop out in public places is something I normally baulk at but here it really doesn't feel like a problem. After 25 mins of trying the logon and password in every possible combination from lower to upper case with the shown space and without it and changing the o to 0 I was defeated every combination resulted in an incorrect password/user error so back to the TI. She checked the card and couldn't get it to work either (I did discover that the space between the two names in the user ID on the card needed to be omitted though????) so I was issued with a replacement card.

Once again sitting on the prom with the laptop and hay presto user id and password excepted, great, but wait it won't connect to the internet there's a problem after 10 mins trying everything I could think off I discovered it wasn't my laptop the problem was with the DNS servers of the provider, back to the TI again argh!!

Explained the problem and sure enough she couldn't get on line either, then she explained that there were 4 different access points and the one outside the office (the one I'm trying to connect to)is the newest and also the most problematic, she suggested moving further away to get in range of another access point wearily I agreed and sure enough after a 4 min walk I managed to connect to an alternative node ho bloody rah!! Email duly sent to comms provider it was time to go and relax now and crack a bottle.

5/4/11 A very hot and sunny day mid day temp 25oC

6/4/11 Bright and sunny with a pleasant light wind mid day temp 20oC

7/4/11 Woke up to a rolling sea fog and visibility down to 100m

It's market day today so after a slow start we wandered down to the market or at least where it used to be, it consisted of approx 20 stalls all selling the same thing, leather wear and clothing and only 5 stalls selling fresh produce, this used to be a fantastic market thriving market but without the tourist trade it was very poor.

The comms situation hasn't changed and nothing from the provider Travefone, not even the courtesy of a response to either my email or the completed feedback left on their website,

8/4/11 A bright but cooler day around 18 oC

I'm told the site WI-FI should be available from Monday so that'll be good. Cursorily enough the site work men have started to install another water point further down the spine road, this has necessitated a road crossing (the obvious springs to mind such as why didn't they do this whilst the site was closed, oh well this is Spain and the obvious very often isn't)

A lot of Spanish families have descended on the site and started to set up their pitches, it's really quite comical, they turn up in truck, flatbed, large vans and all sorts of vehicles and then proceed to remove everything like it's a house removal there's fridges, freezers washing machines including in most cases a kitchen sink unit (no I'm not joking) I'll leave you to imagine the plumbing arrangements. Then there the ubiquitous flower boxes which serves a dual purpose as they're placed around the awning skirt thereby securing the skirt against high winds as well as looking a real treat when they start to bloom.

---