 Changing Places Week 167 W/C 17th May 2009
Where is my Majorca? Is it Soller where I live, Palma where I spend a lot of my social life or Santa Ponsa where I am currently working? In the course of my work I have client appointments all over the place and discover new bits of Palma and outlying districts all the time. A meeting this week took me to the working district of Pedro Garau and its cosmopolitan atmosphere. The streets were filled with children kicking a football and representing countries like Nigeria, South America, China and Morocco - in fact it could have been London with its multiculturalism. The Manacor Road is obviously home to a real united nations. Our bit of north London used to boast up to 20 languages in the local schools and from what I saw, this part of Palma, would be facing the same challenges in its schools.
Santa Ponsa is moving up a gear now that the season is beginning to happen - Ballyponsa with its influx from the emerald isle takes on a Celtic atmosphere with the fair Irish skins taking a beating from the Mediterranean sun. Santa Ponsa is not Soller - they are two different worlds and yet both are typical Majorca to their fans. At Sun Search Recruitment we are often asked advice about relocation and which parts of the Island are the best to live in. We wouldn't dream of committing ourselves because there are good reasons why people choose to live where they do. We do state the obvious though and that is that if you intend to work in Majorca then don't live too far away from Palma or the South West resorts which is where the highest density of available work is.
For our grandchildren the school year is beginning to wind down with just a few more weeks to go before the twelve week summer break. What do you do with holidays that are that long? It gets too hot to concentrate and there is a tradition of the long summer break here just as there is in the USA. The expectation of summer school is alive here just as much as there and the discussions now are how to organise the long holiday with a mixture of summer school and visiting grandparent supervision. In Soller most of the local schools organise a summer programme and the local tennis club does a combination summer scheme with the local swimming pool. The dates to apply for the schemes are printed in the local papers and on the due dates there is a rush to enrol so that parents can breathe a sigh of relief that they can work in that busy time knowing the children are having a good time.
Kate at an international school in Palma and Emma at the local school in the Port of Soller mean that their end of school year experience is very different. Kate gets ready to say goodbye to friends who are moving on and contemplates next term without some familiar faces. Emma knows she goes back in September to the same teacher she has had for the past two years and a class of local children that have deep roots in the local community. Two very different experiences that have their good and bad points - all part of the decisions that parents have to make.
This summer takes on a new meaning for our family with granddaughter number three expected at the beginning of September. Jay went to the hospital for the scan which told her the sex of the new addition as long as she wanted to know. This was a whole new experience as in North London with previous pregnancies the hospital would not disclose the sex. The experience here in Majorca was very different and the technicians looked with sympathy at this Dad who was shortly going to be the father of three expensive girls! Matthew put on a brave face - he knew it was his destiny to be surrounded by women. As for the new `big sisters' they know the ropes and as long as she is loud and a drama queen like them she will be just fine!
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