To everything there is a season in Soller…
Published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin
on Tuesday 25th October 2016
Photographs by Rachel Fox
The closed signs are being polished and fixed to the door of the first hotels to close their doors for the season. The early closers have the builders poised ready to rush in with their tight work schedules. To be open and ready for business again on 1st February 2017 with refurbishments and room additions to make is quite an ask. As one group of workers’ head into holiday mode for a month the next come in to do the building work and prepare for 12 hour working days. The rush of effort coincides with the weather just about cooling down and making such a workload possible.
Most businesses here are admitting that 2016 has been a spectacular season in the Soller Valley. The ‘all inclusive’ debate largely passes us by and the restaurants and bars of the area do very well and have a loyal following. The end of season staff negotiations is always interesting as employment rules cover those whose contract isn’t renewed next year automatically to those that have worked for the same place for long enough for them to be guaranteed work next year. In the interim many people have to claim unemployment benefit and begin the procedure of the Paro office. This is a fact of life here and takes some getting used to. Seasonality is less of a problem in this area of Majorca as the Soller Valley has a ten-month season which includes catering for all the walkers and cyclists in our mountains. So ten months’ salaries plus a month’s paid holiday entitlement mean that benefits often only have to be claimed for one month. The inconvenience of it all and the wait for the cash often means that people don’t claim and just try to get by.
At this time of year there is much chatter about next year and whether the profits of this year will mean that their salaries for next year will go up. Local company reputations are made or broken on the results of this one. It is very difficult for any employer to plead poverty and limited pay rises after the way the tills have rung in 2016.
We say good bye over the next couple of week to the people who live elsewhere in the winter. Many of them have restrictions on how long they can reside here in any year. The six-month rule for non residents and their tax status seems to be a driver of this one. So many people really do not want to go but fiscal rules make it impossible for them to stay. This is the traditional time that they close up their houses and leave us till next spring. They are brave about it – up to a point – then they start making comments about how there isn’t much to do here in the winter. We don’t hold such silliness against them because we know they are only hurting about having to leave us.
For those of us that remain we begin the time when the Soller Valley changes into village mode. This year the Soller train is closed from 7th November 2016 until 1st February 2017. This has a huge knock on effect to the businesses here. The day trippers keep our main street busy and without the trains for 12 weeks many of the shops are deciding to take their holidays too. This train closure has been controversial and permission from the Transport Department of the government had to be granted before this closure could be announced. There are, of course, good reasons for this event and massive works in the railway tunnels and tracks is being undertaken in this time.
Soller is still open for business, shopping, day trips, fiestas, parties, restaurants and normal daily life. We just have to do it all without our train. The tram will continue from Soller to the Port and on the odd days when the tram needs track repairs a replacement bus service is put into operation. To drive to Soller is such a pleasure these days and the new road and all the stone walling barriers are a joy to behold. Nearly two years of road works and delays were worth the way it all looks today. The only benefit we need now is for the Soller Tunnel to be free to all. It is said that this will become fact within the next six months or maybe sooner. We just have to wait and see and remember that to everything, including the Tunnel, there is a season in the Soller Valley.
