Sylvie & jc

Feb 13, 20225 min read

Blog Dia 38: What time is 2022?

Strange how time flies.

They say time flies when you have a good time, or as you get older. I say both because none of us are getting younger. For a while the past few years, time had a whole new dimension. Not really what most would call good times.

Time flies, like flies fly. It's never a straight line. It goes up, down and all around faster than the eye. It settles the time you think you can grasp it. By the time you try, it's gone. Some time trying to forget the times, some time hanging on to the faded images of ghosts washed out by the tides of time. Like the fly we really can't say where it went. When all that's left are the stain marks on the line. Yet, looking back, we still managed to have a good time. Most of the time.

In any case, we didn't waste any.

And in the flash of an eye, it's 2022.

We may be all on the same boat, but clearly not the same time zone. Yet again this year people all over agree o at least one thing: Everyone wants better times.

So we are very happy with our 9.8 Booking.com guest review score for 2021, because We do Better is our credo and standard. Proud to be honored a 4th time!

But what were we going to do about twenty-oh-two-two?

Fengshuing (Fen chu ing ) A verb I invented to describe the highly liberal interpretation of Feng shui and it's very loose application around the property. A fancy way to describe further esthetic enhancements to the kitchens and tidying up some finishing touches here and there. We bought a new lot of very nice pool/beach towels color coded for each apartment to replace the old ones that had their time. The bathrooms also got a professional touch up of the micro-cement to erase a few spots and bad luck pock marks turning them back to the time they were new.

Then we essentially took a month's time off and worked on our side of the moon. Being as I am I took the time off to get some things done. The pool rules blackboard got a total refurb and I redid an old time Louis IV Berger chair in 'Picasso' style fabric.

The only good reason to mention this is that I had the TV on in the background while doing this and I started trying to get some IPTV going. I got fed up and sent an email to our technician pleading for a solution to our highly variable internet coverage. Long story short, we used to be happy with a 0.5 to 5 Mbps signal. Enough to have most guests 'reasonably' connected. We may have a great score, but WIFI has been a unanimous weak spot.

Solved! Monte-Bougainvillea has a very strong and stable network, but now with WIFI internet connection speeds of 30 to 50 Mbps right here in Azinheiro. Without any change to our subscription or provider set-up. A cheap but effective piece of gear hit the market just in time.

The Head of Making it Happen is certain this will get noticed by the Do Better department. Who knows? A promotion to being The Best?

Part of not doing much also involved a lot market monitoring in search of the perfect car I can't afford. I know this for a fact because I sold it over 10 years ago and it's price has tripled since that time. This great taste in cars and bad luck timing is the fruit of countless cars being flipped between the day I got my permit and the last car we bought. Some times you win, some times. Sometime in that 40 years time span I forgot what American cars where like, because in the meantime I got a lot experience with 'other' cars. Somewhere in there I did own a famous American sports car and I remember telling myself to never do that again. I should have listened. They haven't gotten any better.

We were short 1 car since the pandemic. And now times are changing and bookings justify filling that space. So we bought a Jeep Cherokee. Diesel and automatic, because we have Canadian guests who request automatic. I'll keep this one as short as we owned it. I Regretted it in less than a week. A couple guests tried it and did not like it either. Meanwhile our good old Land Rover was rapidly decaying with each additional km. Oh dear...Some times you lose.

We sold the lot in exchange for a Kia Sorento automatic in executive trim. Clean comfortable easy drive. This one makes perfect sense. It's not new, but in as good a condition as the time it was. Our car park is now in prime condition. Let the good times roll! Unfortunately, Canada has now shut down travel to Europe, again, one more time. So the guests cancelled. Time, as the lives it accounts, flies up down and round and round...But not Air Canada at this time. We could be in a time warp because this also happened in 2020...

Then in one big leap time springs forward and here we are outside again. With the sun, again. It's spring already ahead of time. Clearing and cleaning the last remaining patch of the 11'400m2 of rustic land Monte-Bougainvillea nests in. It's taken 4 years to do it all, clear, clean, groom. From now on it's all maintenance and grooming...starting with 20m of Lauriers roses next week and advancing the disc golf course the week after and ... and ... a new and every time. Then a new magazine that will make you wonder where we get the time to do all this while we recount where it all went as we celebrate our 5th year of operations. All good times ahead.

A 'before' picture... in need of friend with drone to update to current time :-)

As I write, we stuck in that time warp, it's February 2022, it the same space as in February 2019. Our book is more that half full for the year. In that other dimension we lost all of it in the following 30 days. This time we have the vaccine. While some complain loudly of feeling oppressed by the inconvenience of the rest, most comply and move on without fear as the inconvenience dissipates to mere politeness expressed in a code. In no time that will be cracked too. It's only a matter of time.

2022 may be a record year yet for Monte-Bougainvillea with still lots of core season weeks remaining available. Things are looking up. And you know, now is about time.