When Frank, a staid, middle-aged, confirmed bachelor takes his new, diplomat Thai bride to a friend’s apartment on the Costa del Sol for their dream honeymoon, they are in Nirvana… until the ghouls of a secret Scandinavian society torment the superstitious young woman to the point of seeking death to end her suffering. Frank is way out of his depth… What is he to do to save the first love of his life?
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is the perplexing story of how Evil can result from the happiest of circumstances and good intentions, and how madness can be the result.
It is based on a true story and is set in Norway, the UK, Spain and Thailand.
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is available in several languages in several ebook formats (Barnes & Noble, GooglePlay, iTunes, Kindle, Kobo), paperback and possibly even audiobook (Amazon/Audible) too.
The cover is an original in crayon by Aliya.
Click a link below to learn more about the availability of the book in the language of your choice:
I am giving away four of my most popular audiobooks in Spanish completely free of charge on a first come, first served basis.
All I ask is that you leave a short review in Spanish when you have finished.
and then enter the free code for the book you would like to listen to. If it has already gone, please try another. Please note, the books for the UK market are marked with ‘UK’, but that is NOT part of the code, so please don’t enter it into the box.
and enter the free code for the book you would like to listen to. If it has already gone, please try another:
46UQLW5B3SKKY (Una noche en Annwn) UK
7KWPYN8247QW4 (Una noche en Annwn) US
32WP8DU26P5HH (El malentendido) UK
3GE5MNXWAC7YR (El malentendido) US
7AMZUQG3YZ3F4 (Cambiar el Destino) UK
42GNF3GL48PM3 (Cambiar el Destino) US
2CYZD2XPC7365 (Autoria) UK
2GM8U3CSDFHZF (Autoria) US
2Y6GTP488WPC9 (Cómo Dar a tu Perro una Verdadera Vida de Perros) UK
2KLFKFE7B6L6B (Cómo Dar a tu Perro una Verdadera Vida de Perros) US
Londoner Frank marries Joy, a beautiful young Thai, who works in town. She has always dreamed of going to the Costa del Sol, so they head to an apartment in Fuengirola on Calle Goya loaned by Frank’s boss for their dream honeymoon.
Things start to go wrong when Joy fears that the apartment is haunted. Fear leads to depression and deepens into terror. Frank has no idea what to do, except take her back to her family in Thailand, but that brings its own misfortune.
Life finally looks brighter because of the intervention of a secret Scandinavian society.
This is the story of how Evil can result from good intentions.
Daisy’s Chain – A Story of Love, Intrigue and the Underworld on the Costa del Sol
Daisy’s Chain
A Story of Love, Intrigue and the Underworld on the Costa del Sol
by
Owen Jones
Narrated by
William James Hill
Daisy, the proud daughter of a wealthy ex-London gangster, John, and his Spanish wife, Teresa, grew up in Marbella on the Costa del Sol, aka, the Costa del Crime. She idolised her parents and sought to impress her ageing father by helping him run the family businesses after uni. However, a disastrous error of judgement ends in family tragedy, and her mother puts Daisy on a safer path of helping the local community as a penance. Daisy’s Chain is a tragic tale with a pleasantly happy ending.
My wife is Thai, for those of you who don’t know me, and, since we have moved back to the UK to live, she needs a residency card (RCUK) or residency permit. These days, these cards contain biometric data such as iris scans and finger prints.
We first submitted her application for a residency card four months ago, so, for about eighteen weeks, she has had nothing to do, because the local government will not grant her the right to work without one. This is completely illegal, I might add, and contravenes the EU Directives to which the UK is a signatory. However, they don’t care about the law unless it suits them.
The government and the politicians who run it are the biggest crooks around… anyway, we all know that already, so back to the point.
On Thursday, we received a letter from the Home Office telling my wife that she should send them her biometric data within fifteen days of the date of the day that letter was posted. Well, I don’t know what that was, but the date on the letter was the third of the month, but the day we received it was the eleventh. Eight days to get a government letter 150 miles? That doesn’t sound right, does it? She had seven days to complete the task with a weekend in that. That sounds like them trying their damnedest to obfuscate to me.
Anyway, so we caught the bus to the nearest facility – the Post Office fifteen miles away – and asked for the biometric data service.
‘Oh, it’s down today, please come back on Monday. Sorry. Next!’
I wouldn’t move!
I complained to everyone around me and made a total nuisance of myself until the manager came.
‘I’m sorry, Sir’, she said, ‘but the engineer can’t get here for four hours. You may wait over there, if you like’.
I went into overdrive.
The result was that she rebooted the machine and it took my wife’s biometric data!
I thanked them and left, not sure whether to be happy that we had gotten the job done, or whether to be really sad that our once great Royal Post Office – the role model for all the others in the world – has sunken so low.
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Those of my regular readers who have followed the five-year saga of my trying to get my Thai wife into the UK will recognize the reference, because Getting My Thai Wife to the UK has been my biggest problem for a decade.
Well, I have had some good news today. An acquaintance of mine has successfully taken his Thai wife from Spain to the UK with very little hassle. This is exceptionally good news for me because our circumstances are almost identical.
We have both been married to a Thai woman for more than ten years, been married in Thailand, and lived in Spain for more than two years.
When my friend took his Thai wife to the UK, he went through the Channel Tunnel. They were stopped and questioned, but after providing the necessary evidence that they were married, were admitted with a visa ‘without end’ – in other words, there was an entry date, but no required exit date – an open-ended right to stay.
This is much more than I would ever have hoped for!
It gives one plenty of time to apply for a residency card. This is fantastic, because one of the requirements of a residency card for a Asian wife is a six-month tenancy agreement, and I am just learning how difficult it is to find accommodation.
Brexiteers’ Lies
In fact, it is horrendous, no matter how easy the Brexiteers say getting into this country is! Pure lies – the UK is famous for being VERY tough on immigration – the rest is lies. I have been married for more than ten years – if it is so easy, why am I struggling and have I been for more than five years to get her in?
Answer me that Brexiteers! You have been hoodwinked…
Now, we are in the UK, but the quest did not stop when we arrive. It gives us a chance to recoup though, and to be honest, we are in need of another victory, as the last were obtaining a Spanish residency card for my Thai wife and a UK visa for her. Next we will need somewhere permanent to lay our heads, and after that the big one – a UK Residency Card…
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This is the month I have tried to take off every year since I left school. August falls in the school summer holidays in the UK. When my father remarried, it was my sister’s birthday on the first, my dog’s on the fourth, my brother’s on the seventh, mine on the fourteenth, my real mother’s on the twenty-second and a good friend’s on the twenty-sixth.
It was easier to take the month off than keep making up excuses!
There are two weeks left, and I don’t see those I used to know who had/have birthdays in August any more.
I wish I did.
We don’t have any real friends here in Spain, no long-term ones anyway. So has it been for most of my life, but my wife is used to more. She has always had loving friends and family around her… I wish I could say the same since I first left home, but I am more than willing to accept the blame for that.
I’m tired now though; I’m fed up with fighting. I would happily give up my life tomorrow, if I could be certain that my wife would be all right, although I suppose that I know that she would be, because she is Thai, and Thais take care of their families.
I have fought with most of the people I know this year and made a tit of myself, but I am not happy and will not be until this struggle to get Neem to the UK is over. I am sorry if you got caught up in my turmoil. I have learned such a lot about why people did the things they have done in the last year.
I am tired of all the hassle, but sleep will not put it right. Death is the only answer I can see and I don’t sodding care any longer. If that upsets you, well, like I said above, I have already pissed most people I know off, so what is another one?
Although I do care about my friends and family… it is just a rotten situation that we are in… and I didn’t bring my wife to Europe so that I could literally worry myself sick and so my wife would worry off ten kilos that she didn’t need to lose.
I hope that you are doing better than we are.
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We applied for my wife’s residence permit for Spain on February 14th. 2017, although we had been working on it for a year before that. When we left Thailand in May 2016, the Spanish Embassy had assured us that we had all the paperwork we needed for my wife to obtain her five-year residency card.
So, we set off for Spain. Our tactic was for me to get my residency permit first, as that would be easy for a Brit, and sure enough, I did get mine, although it took eleven weeks. My wife was told that she had the wrong visa (a visitor’s visa, not one declaring that she was the wife of an EU citizen).
So, we returned to Thailand, spent five months getting the correct papers, translations and visa and came back to Spain in January, as I said above.
The wait has been horrific! There is no more we can do but wait, but in a way, that is the problem. Now, the waiting is almost over. The five-year residence permit, in the form of a bio-metric card will be ready for collection sometime ‘after August 24th.’.
However, the stress that we have been trying so hard not to let each other see is getting to us. I feel really ill and can hardly walk from backache, and my wife has lost ten kilos. She is pretending to be pleased that she has lost the weight, and I’m sure that she is, but I wish that she had lost it through dieting or exercising, not from worry.
She is now insisting that we check the police station for her permit on Tuesday – she cannot wait until Thursday. That proves to me that she is anxious about it, but we will go and look, despite the fact that it is a thirty-minute walk and I don’t know whether I can do it.
Anything to stop this agonising waiting though.
** UPDATE ** My wife received her five-year residency permit on the Tuesday – Whoopee for women’s intuition 🙂
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Old age creeps up on us, as does getting older in general. Parents regularly wonder what happened to their youth, and older people wonder why they hadn’t noticed it happening to them. These are common experiences, but when you have been growing old abroad, there are other factors.
Those who are growing old abroad probably only have elderly friends. More than likely, they don’t have younger family members around them as they would, if they had stayed at home (in Britain, for example).
That can make growing old abroad pretty difficult for an ex-pat, much more so than if they had stayed at home near their family.
This is quite obvious, but it still surprises most elderly people because they didn’t see it coming. It seems as if one day, they were frolicking on the beach, or at least going out for walks every day, and the next they were house-bound or in a wheelchair and lonely.
However, it is a very depressing experience that a lot of ex-pats growing old abroad will have to come to grips with one day.
Sex Matters
It is easier for a man in some ways. He can go to the pub, but many women will not do that alone. They tend to live longer than men too, giving them longer to have to cope with ever-deepening depression.
This now very common phenomenon of ex-pats growing old abroad is one of the reasons why Neem Jones established Fuengirola Home Help Services. It is meant to provide home help and companionship to those who need it – the elderly, the infirm, the house-bound and busy parents.
If you would like to discuss your requirements completely confidentially with Neem, please go to her Facebook page and click ‘Submit Message‘, which will give you the option to phone, email or Message her.
Forty-four kilos is the average luggage allowance for a couple flying abroad – twenty-two kilos each. That is how much you can take with you, even if you are starting a new life – even if you are emigrating. It is the airlines’ norm. I can see why that is and I have no argument with it.
However, that is from the airline’s point of view.
Two years ago, my wife of twelve years and I left Thailand for Spain to start a new life there. It was very exciting and a great triumph, because it had taken us a lot of effort to get the correct papers together for my Thai wife. (They included a WHO health certificate, a certificate from the Special Branch that she had no criminal record, plus marriage certificates etc – all in Thai, Spanish and English and certified by the Thai authorities).
However, the most difficult thing by far was choosing the twenty-two kilos of luggage that we each wanted to take with us without paying for any excess. I suppose it was a little easier for me than my wife, because I had moved from the UK to Thailand with my twenty-two kilos twelve years previously, and with the exception of a blood-pressure monitor and updated clothing, I took the same things back to Europe with me. However, it was very difficult for my wife.
It was a question of clothing for her, and I know that she sneaked some of her stuff into my bag.
Now, we have been here for two years and she has a heap of extra clothes, shoes and accessories to choose from. My guess is that she will need to leave about three-quarters of her stuff in a local charity shop.
So, if you were to move abroad, whether it be forced or by choice, do you know which twenty-two kilos of your stuff are most important to you?
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It was Liverpool vs Real Madrid in some football cup final or other in our local pub in Fuengirola this evening. Well, I suppose it was in nearly everybody’s local too. I am not really into football. However, many of my friends are at various levels from professional to fanatic, so I try to take an interest in the most important games.
People started to arrive early to ensure a good seat and the tension was rising ever higher as it filled. Normally, the clientele is predominantly British and Spanish, but this night it was French and Spanish, although they were split fairly evenly in their support. However, more people seemed to be talking about the game than watching it as far as I could see.
There was never a hint of animosity, even though the noise level was quite deafening once the game got going. By the second half, I think that everyone was supporting the Spanish team as I didn’t notice any sad faces when the game was over.
Football and Me
The Liverpool vs Real Madrid match was the first football match that I remember watching in the last five years, so, as usual, I didn’t really know what was going on. However, I do enjoy the atmosphere, and the Spanish really love their sport, so watching any football game in Spain is a flight of emotion. There were fans of all ages and both sexes in the bar and everybody was shouting their team on.
Free food and cheap drinks ensured that everybody had a wonderful time. I would be watching again, but it was the last game of the season, so I’m told. It seems that I catch on too slowly.
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At six o’clock yesterday evening, I decided that I wouldn’t go to the local pub for a drink, as I usually do, but that I would get a few bottles from the off-licence and carry on working, as I have two audiobooks to approve, which is eleven hours’ work. I had no idea that I would soon be jailed up!
So, I put my sandals on and took a bunch of keys off the shelf nearby. They weren’t my normal set, but I assumed that my wife had taken mine and left me hers. I put them in my pocket, closed the door behind me and descended the outside staircase to the street gate below. However, the smaller key would not throw the bar on the grilled gate in the four-metre high street wall.
I went back upstairs for another set of keys, but the larger key would not open the door to our apartment either!
I was trapped on the outside, open staircase, between the street and our apartment. It was the closest to being in gaol that I have ever been. The floor area of the small yard is about two metres by two and from the floor to our door is about two and a half metres.
It would be at least three hours before my wife got home, and it was already getting chilly. I searched my pockets for my own keys, but nothing. So, I contemplated Tweeting a friend to phone my wife, but none of my friends are on Twitter that I know of. I tried Facebook, but it didn’t recognize my password. Then,I tried to install Skype, but Google informed me that none of my registered devices was capable of using it. I don’t know why they thought I was trying to install it on a machine where I wouldn’t work!
I was truly beginning to feel jailed at this point, but I was also feeling rather frustrated.
Jailed Like An animal in a Zoo
I could see people walking past through the gate, but I didn’t know how to ask them to help me. I didn’t even know what they could do!
Anyway, after an hour, the people across the street arrived home, and sat outside their front door, as is their custom. They could see me jailed up, but were too polite to say anything, although I was sure that they were talking about me.
Now, they don’t speak English, and my Spanish is minimal, but after twenty minutes, I tried to explain. The husband took my keys and tried them in the lock.
“They don’t work”, he said handing them back and walking off. I used my tablet to look up the word for ‘landlord’, and pointed at next door, where he lives.
He tried, but Jose was not at home. “Phone your wife”, he suggested helpfully. So, I asked him for his phone, which his wife gave me.
My wife arrived five minutes later and let me out, but when I thrust my hands into my pockets as I walked off, I felt my own keys. They were in one of the hip pockets, which I never use. God knows how they got in there, or why I hadn’t found them earlier. My mother always said that I never looked and I had been jailed – locked in, but locked out for two hours proving her right!
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We have started to make our Final Preparations for the UK, since we will be flying on June 13th. which is now twenty-five days away. I can’t say that I am looking forward to moving yet again. Moving our home from Thailand to Spain last year with forty-four kilos of our most important belongings was traumatic enough, but then we had to change our residence five times. We have been happy in our current apartment and now we have to move abroad again.
Not only that but we have nowhere to go – nowhere definite, nowhere of our own, anyway.
Not only that, but all the problems associated with getting a visa for an Asian will start again too and in the worst country in Europe to have those troubles in too.
Britain seems proud of treating foreigners like criminals at the moment.
The worst thing is that nothing is guaranteed – it could go either way, but one gets the distinct feeling that people seeking residency are not welcome. It is a horrible feeling, especially since the Asian in question is my wife of fourteen years.
European versus UK Law
At present, European Law over-rules British Law, so I have the right, under certain circumstances, to take my wife back to the UK with me. However, under British Law, I do not unless I can ‘afford’ her. Under British Law, only money counts, but then that is not so surprising, since British society is arranged to suit the wealthy. No matter what criticisms Brexiteers may throw at Europe, at least love and family still mean something on the Continent. In Britain judgement has been reduced to the size of the bank balance in question.
It is sad, very sad.
Still, we have to go back, and before the government pulls up the drawbridge. Hence the need for us to begin our Final Preparations for the UK.
Still, I’m not looking forward to the journey ‘ome…
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I wasn’t happy that night – an argument with the wife, or possibly a misunderstanding… she is Thai, I am Welsh and I know for certain that we still don’t fully understand one another, even after fifteen years.
So, I went for a walk around the town where I live, Fuengirola.
My first encounter was with a young man and his female companion blocking the pavement. They were asking an Indian shopkeeper directions and he was struggling to explain in English.
“Can I help?” I offered.
“No, fuck off! We don’t need any help”, came the reply in a broad Irish accent proving that he was a liar as well as rude and ignorant. The woman looked at me apologetically, and I walked on by.
Musing on that experience, I called into Geordie’s new bar (he is a friend I have mentioned before – Coast to Coast) under Las Rampas. As I sat there, I watched people playing pool.
And this is amazing to me… a man broke and went in off. His opponent pointed at the black and proceded to put his seven balls and the black down ON A FULL TABLE in two or three minutes.
I was astounded! It was the best pool-playing I had ever seen in my forty-five years of hanging around bars.
Anyway, a younger man challenged him after about ten minutes, and, God’s honest truth, made him look like a novice! He had five balls left on the table at the end of the game!
A little while later, I got talking to a bloke, and he said that a lot of the Spanish international pool team meet there to practice…
So, if you like pool, call into Geordie’s and maybe you too will be lucky enough to see something like I did.
I watched every game untill kick-out, and then started walking home. It was around midnight.
The walk home was not uneventful, it is nice to be offered the company of pretty, young ladies, although I declined, and arrived home in a far better disposition than I had left.
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Yesterday, March 30th. was our tenth wedding anniversary. Well, one of them, anyway, since most foreigners who marry Thais get married twice and not necessarily on the same day. However, despite the two chances, neither of us would have remembered the occasion, if it hadn’t been for Facebook’s built-in calendar reminder.
And this isn’t the first time we have both forgotten – I can’t remember a time that we have remembered!
However, this is not to say that we don’t care. As soon as I showed my wife Facebook’s reminder, she threw her arms around me and we cuddled for ten minutes. It was lovely…
It s just that neither of us are the kind of person to whom these sorts of things matter much.
It has gotten us into trouble too – several times – and I am quite sure that it will again.
Everyone is aware of Asian peoples’ obsession with taking photographs, well, several times that we went for my visa extension in Thailand, we were asked to provide photographic evidence that we had in fact been together during the period between the visas, but we could not, because we don’t take photos of ourselves.
I know for a fact that my wife only has one photo from her past – of herself as a baby – and I don’t have any from my past at all.
This is not normal, I know – and what are the chances of two people who feel like that meeting each other?
God knows, but slim, I should imagine.
Anyway, the next hurdle will be when we are asked to produce evidence of a ‘long and sustainable relationship’ when we apply for my wife’s residency permit for the U.K..
That will be a laugh!
However, for those of you still wondering… we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary by spending time with friends in our local, and then going for a meal, at which two of our Thai friends joined us.
It was lovely, but if you want to see a photo, I will have to get one from one of them…
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The weather on The Costa del Sol is quite legendary in the UK and, I dare say, Scandinavia, which is one of the biggest reasons why people from those countries flock here in such vast numbers. (One of the others being the relatively low cost of living).
The Costa del Sol faces Morocco on the Maghreb in north Africa across only 14 kilometres of Mediterranean Sea, which is less than nine miles!
Admittedly, I had never spent a Christmas here before 2017, but this was my second January, and I have been coming here off-season for decades. In fact, many people do come here for the festive season to avoid the weather and expense at home.
Well, it has been cold this season, but at the time of writing, 10:30 am in February 2018, the weather on The Costa del Sol is 2c (Real Feel -1c).
-1c!
People, even residents, are talking about how bitter the weather is around here, Fuengirola, on the Costa del Sol, so, I should imagine that there are quite a few holiday-makers who wished they had stayed at home!
There is no real wind to speak of, nine mph, and it is not raining… it is just freakishly cold. If I didn’t think I knew better, I would say that it is about to snow.
That would be something, wouldn’t it!? Snow on the Costa del Sol – The Sun Coast?
“It has happened before”, one of my long-term resident Brit friends tells me, “but the last time was twenty years ago”.
Well, if I were a betting man, and if there were any betting offices around here, I would put a couple of pounds on the weather on The Costa del Sol turning to snow over the next couple of days.
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Mariscal and Abogados phoned me today, or to say it correctly, Mariscal y Abogados, since I am in Spain. By the way, ‘mariscal’ means ‘marshal’ and ‘abogados’ means ‘solicitors’ (‘y’ is Spanish for ‘and’). Anyway, I had been looking on line for advice on Spanish employment law, came across the above named firm and left them a message.
You see, I suspect that my wife’s ex-employer has been taking advantage of her. This would be easily done since she is Thai and I am British and neither of us know anything about the law here.
I suspect that many unscrupulous employers take advantage of foreign workers because they don’t know the law, don’t have money to use the law and or are frightened to cause a stir.
However, I am European, if not Spanish, and have a sense of what is an what is not legal in Europe.
My suspicions were aroused when it took six weeks to get her contract of employment, and it expired days after she received it. She was never told how much or when she would be paid either.
You can think that you would not have started work under those conditions, but we were desperate… on our bones.
It was when they kept her on for another month and paid her in dribs and drabs that I went on line.
I found Mariscal y Abogados, an international company of lawyers, and there was a free questions and answers facility. I entered my story and thought nothing more about it.
Then today, I got that call.
A very pleasant young man, who spoke perfect English, talked me through my concerns and recommended a course of action. He even agreed to call me back later to see whether my wife had been laid off correctly.
He put my mind at ease with helpful advice, and I am very grateful for that. It can be overwhelming being a foreigner.
Anyway, if you have a problem and cannot see a way out, you could do a lot worse than speak to Mariscal y Abogados.
By the way, this is a completely voluntary account of my experience with Mariscal and Abogados
I just made progress on The Alien House! So far I’m 100% complete on the Writing phase. 0 Days remain until the deadline, so it’s looking dodgy whether I’ll make it as the story has not yet been completely told.
[mybookprogress progress=”0.4906375″ phase_name=”Writing” deadline=”1506729600″ book=”3″ book_title=”The Alien House” bar_color=”CB3301″ cover_image=”8550″]
