I don't talk much about life at the casa, but for once I'd thought I'd give you a picture of a typical day..  

Usually I rise before dawn, make a cup of coffee and while answering Whatsapps from Indian suppliers or chatting with Ringo (our man in Indonesia) watch the sun majestically cresting the distant Sierra Nevada. The morning sun floods the house and the sea view is always breathtaking, this puts me in a positive mood, and great for thinking big and making plans :) I usually exercise and swim in the Bali inspired pool, decorated with Balinese stone statues. 

My wife will generally sleep in a bit, because inevitable she has been chatting to Chinese suppliers, or sorting some issues with the candle factory in Yiwu during the night. About 8 am we have breakfast together on the terrace, and I check my list of things to do.

Then it's a working day, my phone will begin to ping with messages from the teams in Sheffield or Slovakia and because the time zones are similar can easily communicate. There's always a skype or WhatsApp meeting, recently we started using Slack, which is business communication app, and it plugs you into everything that is happening in the company, I'm not sure whether in this case less is more.. I'm still getting used to it. Ping ping ping..

Thus the day unfolds, always heaps to do, Coco will be placing orders with Chinese suppliers, sorting out issues, I will be lending my brain to whatever issue is testing managers.

When the day is over, maybe we go for dinner with friends or walk on the beach. We like to play chess, and these days I often lose to Coco - I'm sure she is a borderline grandmaster. 

It all sounds idyllic right - I really don't want to make you jealous .. haha.. but it's not all sangria and roses.

One of the reasons we bought the house was that we have an investment in a giftware wholesale company in Malaga..  Our business partner and director (this is years ago) I rather too generously gave 50% shares and effective full control to.. In those days I naively believed if you invest trust you get results that benefit everyone. Sadly the trust in this case was abused, the relationship abused - for 10 years actually, and when we finally started to complain and gently demand a few rights the director basically went rogue.. not paying us for supplies, effectively helping himself to the 50% of the company he didn't own, refusing access to financial information, producing obviously fake accounts for tax purposes.  Breaking the trading relationship with AW, whist still claiming to customers that he represent the values of AW and was in fact AW. This bit hurts the most, because it's fake it's a lie and undermines the good name of AW, whist depriving customers of genuine AW supplies. 

Of course I'm mad, who wouldn't be? For the first time in 20 years I'm having to use lawyers.. and discovering that Spanish company law is surprisingly easy to abuse by bad players. The legal system whilst very firm and just, is just so incredibly slow, so you just grind it out until you get there. 

And yes of course in the meantime I keep reaching out (the proverbial olive branch), trying to make a meeting to find a more mutually beneficial solution, I think they could for example go (honestly) independent, and we could even help them achieve this. It would safeguard the jobs of an excellent team and be genuine honest competition which is good for the customer of course. But the director is scared to meet, lots of excuses, bravado and misplaced bluster.. maybe scared of having to be truly independent. Mostly I guess so he can continue to take advantage as long as possible. Who knows..?

I'm setting this out openly here in my newsletter which is widely read in the gift trade, to warn other business people about Spanish business culture, and Spanish company law. Here you need to be much more careful than in the UK (or even most other EU countries) , working with locals can of course be hugely rewarding and most people are great, but a bad player can abuse the system with ease. Bad debts that can be collected in weeks in the UK, take years here. There is no transparency, in the UK you can search Company House website instantly for free and find all the key information on any company, here you have to pay and then there is virtually nothing to know. Always get a shareholder agreement, never lose control.. just saying.

Meanwhile back in the UK, our new Spain website: AWGifts.es is going great guns, we are picking up totally new customers, some of them very good retailers indeed.. Rodrigo has been overseeing the project and working night and day to make it happen, we have new staff now to take the strain and are well ahead of target. Rodrigo messaged me yesterday that met we July target already. Well done Rodrigo!

Our plan is to find a warehouse - we are looking at some now - and transplant that website (like an olive tree) back into Spain.. after Brexit we will be ready to serve customers better.. but my plan was that our Spain company would also create and contribute gift products back to the UK.. Olive oil gifts for example, now I can see that vision finally coming true. If you know anyone who would be interested in joining us in Spain do drop me a line - it's a new adventure... like the olive tree.. can grow to great things.

Take care

PS

Some Indian esoteric stuff arrived.. I'm so excited :)  Check it out below.