Hello everybody, I thought I'd put together a brief newsletter to keep you in touch with your R2 community and I appologise that this is the first since the AGM but time flies and I have been very busy.

The summer holiday season has come and gone with no real issues within the community, the weather was as usual very hot and that continued through September and October. The November weather however has been very mixed to say the least. The days have often been unseasonably warm but interspersed with some very strong winds and quite violent storms. Over the past two weeks there have been several periods of very heavy rain, so much so that they have even closed the golf course on three occasions. The thunder has been deafening and the lightning spectacular, with one unfortunate owner, (not on our community), losing the corner of his roof to a lightning strike.

The satellite dish has now been installed with some 30 properties signing up to the system. Peter from 'Sky Digital', the firm who installed the dish, has now set up shop within the commercial area on La Finca in order to be available for any issues. This is also the site for his other business 'Solar Spain' so if you want to contact him for a TV system or to install solar heating, drop in for a chat.

There have been a number of water leaks on individual properties over the past months, it appears that the pipes originally installed were of inferior quality and now after six years or so have started to split. I have spotted a few and have turned off the water as soon as I see them, but obviously that is down to pure luck.

I have commissioned painting work of community areas on site with the two internal roads having a much needed face lift along with all the sliding and pedestrian gates which were becoming very rusty and dull. Paddy our maintenance man has been busy and done a very good job. The railings along the central internal road will be the next to be painted.

Within the next few weeks I will be obtaining quotes to re-tile the paving area around the communal pool, you will no doubt have noticed that the ones we have are splintering and are becoming more dangerous for the bare feet that use them during our warmer weather. If anyone has any particular views on this then do write in.

The local council, to try to save money, have come up with the idea of removing the garden skip which was permanently on our site and replacing it with smaller ones spread around La Finca but for only one week each month. As you may imagine, these become full very quickly and for the other three weeks each month the garden rubbish gets piled along the side of the roads. Even more of a problem is that as soon as a pile appears, it prompts people to dump anything else onto the pile and it is not unusual now to find old settees or broken furniture sitting on the road side. We as Presidents have been to the town hall to find a solution but so far with little success. The police will impose a heavy fine on anyone caught fly-tipping.

The local towns are beginning to get geared up for Christmas by putting up the usual decorations, but that is generally nothing compared to what you get in the UK, but I wish you all a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.