The Family settled into their new home fairly well.
Although there was a small kitchenette in their room they chose to eat out.
So each morning they got the kids ready and went out to find some food. There is plenty of choice within a stones throw but they seemed to like Cafe Blu and Piamonte Cafe where Frazer tried their ‘Full English’ which is really good value and a great breakfast.
Then they were ready to face the day.
The children’s pool (there are two) in the Hotel opened at 11 am (that must be when the life guards come on duty). Usually bored young people on a summer break from Uni keep a watchful eye on the families with young kids who frequent this area of the Hotel grounds.
The Mums and Dads can relax on sun-bed’s whilst their kids play on the various slides or chase around in the water fountains under the watchful eye of the lifeguards.
This facility was perfect for Blake who has gained more confidence in the water since he has been here and for Zaya who wasn’t too keen on being plunged into cold water originally but who now enjoys floating around the pool on her inflatable chair.
At other times they headed to the beach though this was a bit more problematic and took a deal more planning and organising. They have to load the buggies with beach stuff and on their first day they bought an umbrella to give them selves some shade. Sadly that broke on its first outing so they threw that away rather than take it back to the Chinese Supermarket where they bought it.
There is one particular bit of the beach, right in front of their Hotel which is perfect for families. The sand is good and the access to the sea is shallow, with a stone break water, the waves never really get too big. There are also shoals of fish that nibble your toes, so the kids love to try and catch them in their hands.
But there is always the problem of sand and this being Mojacar, the afternoon wind that can become quite strong and tends to drive people off the beach and into the bars and restaurants.
I think the kids have really enjoyed the Restaurants and Cafes. The range of food, the prices and the family friendly environment.
But one thing that has been difficult is the lack of changing facilities for children.
We are so used to having access to purpose built facilities in the UK. Here they have been forced to change nappies on the toilet floor, on park benches and even on a windowsill.
In one restaurant [that shall remain nameless] we asked if they had Kids changing facilities and they proudly said yes. Then showed us a small marble surface about the size of a Tea Tray balanced on top of a Marble Plinth about 4 foot off the ground.
Now Zaya is a Wriggler and when she doesn’t want to do something, she’s a moaning Wriggler. She wouldn’t last two seconds on the top of a marble plinth like some greek statue, so that wasn’t an option.
Wednesday was a big day for us.
My Sister was due to arrive on the executive coach at about lunch time and I was booked into the Dentist for a clean at 1230, so Jaki stayed on lookout duties from the balcony of Bowens.
As it happened they still managed to miss each other but my Sister was familiar with the Hotel Continental so went ahead and checked in. In the past she would have had a complete melt down if she had to do something like that alone. Now she is much stronger and far more able.
On Wednesday we also agreed the Mountain would come to Mohamed.
But like all major expeditions the first problem was one of communication.
Jaki and Georgia had set up a Family Whats App group so the whole group of us could keep in touch. Whilst I was still communicating with Georgia on her personal What’s App.
You can see where this is going cant you?
I was talking to Georgia and making arrangements to meet based on a Lunchtime visit to Neptuno, whilst on the Family Group they were discussing a late afternoon, early evening visit to Neptuno. Somewhere along the line that was bound to go wrong!
There was a certain amount of tension in the Family household when these two versions of events collided!
The kids would catch the bus and come to our end of the Beach and we would go to Neptuno for lunch. Or may be Dinner ?
Now that may not look like a big deal, but you have to remember my Girl hasn’t caught a bus more than twice in her life and I dont think Frazer could describe one if his life depended on it. They aren’t familiar with Pubic Transport. They drive very nice vehicles and wouldn’t think about getting on a bus at home, so it was always going to be a challenge for them especially with two kids, two buggies and a bag of dirty washing. (Guess where that was heading)?
I sent full instructions via Whats App explaining there were two buses:
The yellow local bus [Line 3] which comes all along the beach road then turns around at the far end just before Garrucha, and goes all the way back to Macenas again. Almost like a figure of ‘8’.
However I really should have anticipated the complications as there are two yellow buses.
The other Yellow bus [line two] turns off the beach rd at the commercial Centre, goes up to the old town and then comes back down the hill and goes back to Macenas. This is an ‘L’ shaped route. This one never gets to our end of the beach, so I emphasised:
“They dont want the yellow line 2″.
The blue Bazara Bus. [Line 2] comes all along the Passeo and then goes on to Garrucha, Vera Playa and then finishes in Vera town, where it turns around and comes back again.
So, there were two options for them to catch and we told them where their local bus stop was and what time to expect their bus.
One of the anomalies of this bus system is that both the yellow and the blue bus both start from the same place and leave within 5 minutes of each other, so very often the blue bus will be followed close behind by the yellow bus. Or visa Versa.
What we didn’t expect was that the Blue Bazara Bus wouldn’t have any space on it for the push chairs and both kids by this time had fallen asleep in their buggies.
There is an option to fold the pushchairs down and store them in a locker in the side of the bus. But for some reason that still escapes me Georgia and Frazer decided there wasn’t enough room for them on the bus, so they didn’t get on.
Then the next bus came along (the colour is still unclear as the story has become so complicated and I couldn’t follow it) but for some reason it refused to stop.
Apparently the driver was waving at them indicating they couldn’t get on , why has never become clear.
So we cancelled the table at Neptuno and we three caught the next bus down to Bocaina where the Kids were sat drinking cocktails when we arrived.
Apparently this was all my fault as I had given them all the wrong information!
Grrr.
By then I wasn’t feeling very hungry so they all ate and I kept Zaya entertained on the beach.
But if that wasn’t enough, worse was yet to come.
Later that evening we arranged to meet Maria at Alcazabar a small bar at the bottom of our road.
We were late arriving but Maria still wasn’t there and we wondered if she was asleep as she had planned to have a Nap to recover from her travels.
I gave her a quick call and she said she was on her way.
When she arrived we sat at a small table outside and ordered drinks.
As we were sat there a strange man, short round with dark hair and a striped shirt, approached me and thrust a dog eared copy of Hello magazine under my nose. I assumed he was trying to sell me something but the pictures on the page he chose were completely random and the text was all in Spanish.
I politely declined and without too much fuss he left.
What we didn’t realise until much later was that he left clutching my mobile phone which I had left on the table.
He had obviously seen it and decided he was going to snaffle it.
This particular ruse combined sheer cheek with the sleight of hand most magicians would covet and whilst our attention was drawn the the page of the magazine, his other hand was clutching my phone, almost invisibly.
We only noticed the phone had gone when we decided to go inside as it was getting cool. I realised I didn’t have the phone in my pocket and asked Jaki if she had picked it up. When she said she hadn’t, we all realised at once what had happened.
Maria suggested i use her phone and contact my mobile provider to cancel my Sim, which i did within 30 minutes of it going missing.
Then the shit started.
I left the girls at the restaurant just as the food arrived (so I still hadn’t eaten) and headed for home.
Luckily I had brought my lap top with me so I was able to get on line and start cancelling credit/debit cards and notifying the myriad different accounts that I may well have been hacked.
Strangely part of the two tier security systems currently in place required sending some form of information to my mobile phone and as the thief had my phone, this was not be a sensible approach.
I also had several Apps on my phone like my HSBC Bank App which open directly into my account without any encryption or password protection. Even worse, I use an App called ‘Last Pass’ to store all my different passwords and that strangely wasn’t password protected, which meant if the thief clicked on that it would tell him the pass word and all the details of my bank accounts, Facebook pages and all the other accumulated information we take for granted.
I immediately changed the pass word for that and closed the app on my phone, opening it on my laptop instead.
So for the next few hours I was phoning texting and emailing different organisations to get my accounts locked
It looks so far, like I’ve avoided any serious damage but my identity could easily be stolen in the future using the information on the phone.
Only time will tell if I dodged the bullet or whether I suffered a slow and painful injury that will affect life for the near future?
I obviously lost all my photos but importantly, I dont now have a phone, so I dont have a Camera and I can no longer take photos.
So my Blogs will be somewhat lacking in colour.
But hey, here’s a picture of some flowers, just to brighten it up a bit.
Bill and Jaki go Travelling 