End of season / Building works / Gotmar residents

And so the season starts to run down, some places having closed, the weather beginning to take on its autumnal feel. In Playa de Muro, the Alcúdia Suite Apartments already have whitewashed windows, the Chinese in Las Gaviotas has its windows plastered with newspaper. Such closures give the place a strange feel even to those of us who live here; for tourists it must be even odder, as though they are intruding.

And yet there are a lot of people still around. Scottish half-term and holidays in certain German states see to that. In Puerto Pollensa, JKs Bar had a packed crowd for the Celtic match on Tuesday evening. The English half-term now kicks in and, after that, that will pretty much be it - and the Mallorcan winter will have officially started.


Many months ago I mentioned the value of the “Part Forana” freebie newspaper. The current issue is once again quite useful, assuming you can understand the Spanish. There is a report on the start of work in converting the Can Ramis building in Alcúdia; this is the rather ramshackle affair by the taxi rank and market square in the old town. It will become the new location for the tourist office (a blessing as the existing one can be a tad difficult to find), and there will be a cafateria and shelter for those waiting for buses.

There is a different form of building due to start in Puerto Pollensa, namely the establishment of a proper parking lot on what is the waste-ground opposite the site of the new school. There will also be a “green zone” and a children’s park.

A rather grainy photo shows a gathering of the Gotmar (Puerto Pollensa) residents’ association. Not a thing generally worthy of note here, except that the photo shows (just about) the president addressing the masses, this being none other than Garry Bonsall, dentist of this parish. As Gotmar is home to Spanish, British and Germans, it is a sound choice of representative as Garry is fluent in all the languages, and can even do your bridge work in several languages.