Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set by Twead Victoria & James Slater Tony & Cawley Joe & Grace Savannah & Parks Alan

Author:Twead, Victoria & James Slater, Tony & Cawley, Joe & Grace, Savannah & Parks, Alan [Twead, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs
Publisher: Ant Press
Published: 2014-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Gary and Michelle had relocated to Tenerife after her aunt opened a hairdressing salon in the south, initially employing Michelle as a stylist. Michelle, like many, had decided that a new life abroad should also entail a move away from the job she had stuck at since leaving school at 16 and accepted her aunt’s offer on the understanding that it was temporary.

Bar work wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for a breakaway career but the couple had their eyes on buying their own restaurant and knew that having temporary responsibility of stock control, cashing up and customer diplomacy at the Smugglers would serve as valuable experience eventually.

‘No problems last night. Usual dickheads and drunks but no spew. Love Shell and Gaz, XX’. Their customary report was stuck to the till with Blu-Tack.

‘Bar looks good again,’ said Joy, noting the cleanliness. The chairs had all been up-ended onto the tables meaning last night’s sweep and mop was not the usual poke between wooden legs that our end of night routine had degenerated into. All the cutlery had been rolled in paper serviettes, the bar top was free from patches of beer and all the bins had been emptied and cleaned.

As usual, Joy checked the till roll to see how busy they had been and what time the last bill was tilled in.

‘Blimey, the bar must have emptied after we left last night. There’s only a handful of entries. They only took 8,000 pesetas after meals but they didn’t close till 1.30 a.m.,’ said Joy.

‘Well, you know what it’s like. A lot of regulars only want the four of us there. Having other people on won’t make them stay. It can’t be helped,’ I replied.

Joy wasn’t convinced. ‘Even so, 8,000 is crap, especially in summer. We need to take more than that.’

She was right. Summer was our time for raking it in before the lull in October and November. We needed to put some money aside to cover the mortgage, loan and other payments for those months.

‘We can’t have it both ways. We need time off,’ I argued, ‘Either we lose a bit of money or we lose our sanity.’

We had all been feeling the strain, all showing signs of wear and tear in different ways. Cutting back on our hours was imperative for us and our relationships.

Spending every waking minute with each other is not conducive to sustaining a happy relationship. If all that we did all day and night was work, and at the same place, there was little to talk about out of hours. Added to that, the exhaustion of being on your feet for so long in such hot conditions, putting on the friendly front for long periods of time and working under the pressure of being understaffed was sure to take its toll.

On the nights when we clocked off at 10.30 p.m., Joy and I decided that bar talk was banned. Unfortunately that left a gaping hole in our conversation and we often sat

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