Alison and her partner Damien have now taken over the running of the Municipal Pool and Bar area in Canillas de Albaida , aptly named “Piscina Bar”! When I first heard the news mine and my husband’s thoughts were “good on you both!” We have known Damien and Alison a few years now and I know Alison has talked about taking on the Piscina Bar a few times. However, taking it over isn’t simple as saying I want it, how much is it to rent it? The process is done through the Town hall via sealed bids from interested parties. This year Alison pitched it right and two weeks before they opened, they found out they had won the bid process. Not deterred by the timescales and with full support from the Canillas Town hall and excellent friends, Alison and Damien cleaned, painted, tiled, and did more cleaning! They re arranged the bar area, installed a large TV and Music system, put comfy sofa’s inside and painted the back room as a goal mouth in preparation for the football season. Alison explained “I want the Piscina Bar to be the place for families to come and watch the football and the place to be for the World Cup 2010”.
The pool itself is perfect, clean and clear. In fact the Junta de Andalucía come round every 15 days to do an analysis of the pool to check it is fit for public use. When I visited for this interview the Junta had just passed them off and subsequent visits with my kids and friends the pool is still perfect! There is a qualified life guard, Laura, at the pool side all the time. This was one of the things Alison sorted straight away knowing that in the villages there were few people with the correct qualification for the job. The Piscina Bar is open from 11.00 Mon to Fri and from 12.00 on Sat and Sundays and they serve food all day, every day, with special paella on Sundays. You can come to eat, drink or just swim and it is all good value. Ice creams are from 50 cent and don’t go much beyond a euro, there is an excellent value big breakfast with all the trimmings and a Menu del Dia for 5euro. Don’t think they then up the price of the drinks as they don’t, it is just good value food for the all the family.
Alison has many plans for the bar they have already started a Pool tournament and there is Pilates by the pool on Tuesdays and Thursday 10.30am to 11.30am by popular demand. They are planning to have treasure hunts for the kids and Wii tournaments along with “Cool Time” for the younger ones. Alison’s daughter Becky will take kids off into the back room (Free of charge) every day 6-7pm giving their parents a beak to sunbath peacefully or eat and drink without disruption. In “Cool Time” the kids will be read a story or watch a DVD in the coolness of their inside space. Any activities that the Piscina Bar mentions an entry fee, Alison said a proportion of this will be donated to the orphanage in Malaga. She explained there is a lot of fund raising done for Cats and Dogs in the area and this time she wanted to raise money for children. Other facilities are access to internet and Wi fi which will be available from the terrace and bar area, this will be a free service with an hour pass and Alison wanted to mention a big thanks to broadband4Spain for their support.
Along with the day time activities there are going to be bands playing on various evenings. They have already had a couple of live music evenings which have been extremely successful so they have booked a couple more for August. On the 1st of August the Lost Boys are playing. These are made up of John and his sons Kitty and Jess. John knew Alison when she had a pub in Towerbrige in England and then bumped into her again a few years back when he holidayed in Competa. When he is out on holiday with his family he always plays a few gigs. Of course being friends with Alison, the Piscina Bar now becomes an obvious place for one of his gigs. On the 15th August Guiri are playing again. Guiri played first at the Piscina bar and the customers thoroughly enjoyed themselves into the early hours of the morning, so they were immediately booked again.
Alison and her friends and family are clearly working hard on this project to make it a successful business, they start early and finish late and are already forward thinking to the winter where although pool will be shut the bar and food are will continue as normal. Alison made it absolutely clear they could never have embarked on this project especially within the timescales they had without the support of friends and family. They would like to especially thank the Wild family…. all of them, Beth, Mark, Nicky, Phil, Adam, Grace and Simon whom they know have been a god send to them and still are now.
