Demontage Work in Spain

Day 1 (Thu) in the Demontage Household

Hola!

I started a four to five week contract with Eurocamp as Demontage Assistant: helping clear the sites (of tents/static caravans/furniture) at the end of the holiday season.
Rather than an expected tent, I got to share an eight berth fancy static caravan with Charlie (~53 Liverpool). All nine of the team had one each between two. There were two scousers in the team (Ian ~35), a Scot (Dan ~20), a welshman (Lewis 19) and smatterings of English (Danny 19, Dick ~55, Rob ~24) and a safa for a gaffer (Ryan ~24 South Africa).. and his boss Sarah from Birmingham. A lot of hard graft today - just what I wanted - to remove the furniture from the tents on the first site of many. We are starting in North East Spain on the Costa Brava at a place called Las Dunas near a town called Escala and will work our way down over 4 weeks towards Valencia. I never realised how much firniture you get in these tents. It's a 4* camp site. Nice and hot too. This is what I came for:

• Sun (as I seem to have misplaced the english summer, somewhere between June and September)
• Spain
• Some physical work (after a period of doing not much after the back operation)
• Learn some spanish

In the morning though the boss set out some pretty strict ground rules, some of which were commonsense and behaved like a teacher. ie. treated us like schoolchildren. Not a great start.

That evening the sun went in and some rather unexpected weather came. First the calm. Then the wind built up. We were back in the caravan and heard a thud. I thought someone had thrown something at it. Then another thud. And another. Then lots. It was like one of the first scenes from The Day After Tomorrow. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked out of the window. Hail the size of golf balls were shooting down. It was like parking up at the wrong end of a busy driving range. I have never ever been in hail like this.
I was just about to walk out to the cook tent before this started. Fortunately I didn't otherwise I reckon serious injuries to the head. After the weather dropped down a notch to just driving rain, we had to wade through temporary rivers to get to our now cold dinner.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 3 (Sat) in the Demontage Household
We had a day in Playa D'Aro yesterday - pretty much chambermaid stuff.. cleaning static homes. Not what I came out to do though, although it was a fantastic site with an awesome view as the homes were on a hill up from the beach. These camp sites are custom made, not like any I've seen in the UK or NZ (and expensive too I reckon).

Back here in Las Dunas today to take down the tents and clean them before packing them. More hard work but a day off tomorrow so we'll have a few bevvies tonight I reckon. Got my first injury. Walked right into a trolley - well it stopped and went into me - and got a right bruise on my knee and crack on my shin. It's a pain if a mossie lands on my shin.. I cant just slap it.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 5 (Mon) in the Demontage Household

Yesterday was a day off and I thought I'd do something relaxing. A lie around the pool and a dip perhaps. It was effing freezing! Still, it woke me up. Later in the arvo I walked along the coast to Escala, past Empurie (founded in 600BC by the Greeks as a trading post). It was a hard slog and about 7km on sand but good to get out and see stuff.
Today we finished off the tents on this site. Thought Ian may have been evicted out of the household by the boss after his pissed up shenenigans (we're not allowed to drink spirits onsite). Lewis was close too after becoming the whipping boy from the bitchy boss.
Half of the team went south close to Roda De Bara and we'll meet up with them tomorrow. I joined forces with Rob on the van, loading and taking equipment to the store which made the days easier.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 8 (Thu) in the Demontage Household

We joined the team on Tuesday at Arc De Bara (20km north of Tarragona) and also had Jasper (~22 Holland), Binny (Macclesfield) and Roisin (~20 Thetford) and Jonathan (~40 Wigan) join us. The weather was far better and we set about dismantling. This was harder work as the ground is set hard like cement and pulling the pegs out in the roaring sun is achey business. So I have a few aches and pains. A few cuts. And many bites as this site is full of mozzies. We also got the full run down of all the rules of the campsite which, again, are pretty strict (basically, we cant use anything and we have to clean ourselves up before wandering out of our sector - sounds like a prison camp). At least we get to use the site showers which are hot and nice and powerful as they want us to keep the statics we're living in clean and free from use.
On Wednesday we got notified by the site manager that we were barred from using the campsite showers. There's now a feeling around that we're living in Stalag as we seem to have so many rules imposed upon us and the boss is asking too many things and still treating us like children or inmates instead of letting us get on with it. It's peanuts you get paid so they should expect monkeys. It seems like the reward for working hard and fast is more work and not the promised early finish. Even the gaffer is getting overruled and overran by the boss. Apathy is setting in. Who will be voted out? Who will walk out? Shame as we're a good team and get on well and have a laugh.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 11 (Sun) in the Demontage Household

Yesterday funnily, the boss was offsite so Ryan said we only need to take about eight tents down and that's it for the day. Two hours it was completed in. That's goals for you. Due to the aforementioned apathy, on request and by offer I checked the price of flights back for a few of us but they seemed too pricey.
Heard that two others will be let out of the household on Monday. Me and Charlie went to Tarragona for the day. I wanted to see an old roman aquaduct which was a few km out of town so arranged to meet Charlie later at a bar and ran for the bus. It was quite late in the day so I was in a rush to see it before it got dark and I was running round like a sweaty madman for this bus. Took me ages to find it, but I did and ten minutes later the bus stoppd at a proper stop on the side of a motorway where the car park for the heritge site was. I wandered through and saw it in the valley beyond. Amazing construction - bloody clever those romans all those years ago.

The return was a bit more of an issue - the bus stop on the otherside of the motorway didn't exist and the one I alighted at went away from the city. I asked the few people who had parked at the aquaduct car park if they were going to Tarragona but they weren't. It was mad and dangerous but couldn't see any other option. so I run about 2km up along the motorway hard shoulder and across sliproads trying to remember where the bus came from and eventually made it back to the bar.

Tarragona was a cool city. There was a festival on - and the spanish like their festivals - masses of people and fireworks at street level, dancers, stilted giants and big paper-machiered headed dwarfs. I was talking to one of the staff and they were also having a free concert starting at 10pm going on till 6.30am. Shame we had to get a bus back. Met up with the guys back at the camp site and had some drinks down at the Beach Bar that night before being challenged to a game of barefoot 5-a-side on the beach at 2am.

I am not good at football. I often mis-time and injure myself. This was no exception.

Today I have the best bruised black and purple toes. One on right foot and one on left. Could be broken. Finding it hard to walk. Oblivious to this, I caught a train to Barcelona today with Rob and got the Metro all over. I struggled walking but it was ok walking up and down the Metro stairs - hobbled the rest of the time.

Up for nomination to leave this week are Dan and Lewis.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 14 (Wed) in the Demontage Household

Evictions: Lewis left on Monday to go back home and Dan has left to meet up with mates here in Spain.

Monday it lashed down so the final tents couldn't be taken down wet. so we had an afternoon off reading, crosswords, sleeping or resting poorly toes. The onsite docs gave me some pills and cream and drew a lovely diagram of a broken toe.

Yesterday most of us moved on south to Tropicana campsite, which is where Johnny had rep'd all season. Very old fashioned and gaudy. With faux statues everywhere it looked like a garden centre. And it was in the middle of nowhere. Charlie however has joined another team and went back up north to another site, where we are due to go in a week's time.

Tacky Tropicana

This time we're staying in tents.. not sure why as we have to take them down at some point. It would make more sense to me to put us in chalet and we can do all 15 tents in one go. We got a good crack on and managed to get them all minus the ones we're staying in. Saw, caught and released a gecko which almost ran up my trouser leg.

Today, it rained again so they gave us our half day - nice. Fortunately, after me and Rob had walked off the campsite, the rain stopped and the sun came out (with his hat on - hooray) and it was too late to bring us back once we'd sipped our first San Miguel. Ian joined us later for a few. Rob's alright. He quit his unsatisfying job to do this and regrets it a little due to the way they talk down to you here, but he'll stick it out.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 16 (Fri) in the Demontage Household

We are now back up north in Cambrils. A 5* campsite by my reckoning. Very posh.. great facilities too including heaps of sport courts and a minigolf. On the way up we stopped again at Arc de Bara to finish off the tents which were now dry. And I found mini-gecko. And caught it and released it out of harms way.
I've heard my request for early parole has been granted and I'll be leaving on 1 October. Word on the street is that we're also getting another half day tomorrow. When I asked if this was true they confirmed as long as we get an alloted amount of work completed. "Then tell everyone that, they'll work a lot harder with a goal", I said. He did, and they did.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 19 (Mon) in the Demontage Household

Cambils is near Salou which is still busy this time of year so most people were going to go there on Saturday. Ian was eager to catch the liverpool derby match and I wanted to watch that and then the United match afterwards. Quite a few of us went to Pure Genius (a guinness theme pub) to watch the matches and then went out afterwards. unfortunately Ian was ratted and we had to carry him back. This didn't bode well after his last warning. After a great night out we got back and on sunday heard that the campsite had complained again. Now it was ominous. Ian was nominated by the supervisor for eviction. Shame as ian is such a laugh when we're working and for a scouser (certainly from a manc stereotype point of view), he works very hard.

Johnny and Ryan

Was going to go to Port Aventura on the Sunday but coudn't get a free ticket so sat round drinking with Johnny and Dick. Good guys. Dick's retired and been doing this for years as a van driver so seen lot of europe. Johnny's a pisshead who'll do anything but not get into trouble.
Ended up back at the bar and met up with the others, Binny and Roisin who are a lovely young couple, Jasper who's a mad dutchman and Dan who's a mad scotsman.

Eviction: Come Monday breakfast, as Ian had already knew his fate, six bottles of San Miguel had already been supped and he was on his bottle of red wine ("it's vimto honest") when the boss drive him off to the bus station. I hope he found his way to the airport ok.

--see bigger, better, brighter photos: here

Day 21 (Wed) in the Demontage Household

Yesterday was a breeze. Me, Dan and Rob got a shit job to do and felt like we were doing community service but at least we were unsupervised which vastly improved the situation as we had a tea break, a long lunch break and kicked around. The afternoon was a doddle too as we just had to wait for the van to get emptied which pretty much took all day.
That night I had my final drinks at Pure Genius watching United beat Aalborg.

Today saw me leave and get back to Manchester. I did fancy a quick gander at the Gaudi Experience in Reus but stupid Ryan Air left it till last minute and two super huge queues before opening the single check-in desk.

I was asked many times would I do it again? Well it was a good laugh. The work was hard and shitty sometimes and you dont get paid much but that wasn't why I went. In the end I broke even, whereas I would probably have been down if I stayed in the UK. I got exactly what I wanted out of it and more (although maybe less Spanish than I'd hoped). I probably would do it, as long as there was a different boss. A few who had done it before had said that it usually is better with a different boss.