I hate to see people make awful mistakes and I don't want you to be one of them. We haven't moved over yet but when we see front line beach front Spanish owned bar-restaurants that are usually full totally empty something must be wrong.

A couple of ideas for you. Our friends who's villa we stay at employ an English pool man at the cost of 80 euro's per month and an English gardener and mate at 120 euros per month inclusive. The pool man comes once a week for an hour and does whatever pool men do. The gardener and his mate come once a month and spend around four hours giving their huge garden a real going over, they always take all the garden waste away.

Both have sign written vehicles with business names and phone numbers and our friends pay them monthly by standing order directly into their Spanish business accounts so both appear to be legitimate. They both told me that they had lots of work and were having to turn down enquiries that were out of their preferred area. Neither works nights or weekends and a van and the required tools will come out at a lot less than a bar.