It's still not very hot here

We're coming into June and still there's a quilt on our bed! What is going on? This time last year things were rather different and we'd already spend many days in the pool.

This year it looks like we've had a raw deal. The summer months can get excruciatingly hot and it helps if the months leading up to July and August "ease" you into those intense heat months.

But I think we're just going to get slapped with a load of heat without much preparation this year.

Mind you, I was wondering today what it would be like to live somewhere like Tenerife. The weather in Tenerife seems to be hot all the time. I'm not really sure I'd like that.

Anyway, must get to bed. My brain has died this week with too much PC time. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend ahead.

The blog saga is over

Well, I finally finished the blog facility and I emailed everyone about it yesterday.

There was just one problem...I hadn't tested it properly! Doh! Loads of bugs came flying out at me out from the PC. This was last night. Silly me decided to send the email out at 9pm. So then I was up until 2am trying to sort out all the errors!

Anyway, the worst is now over and I'm glad to say that people are slowly jumping on the blogging bandwagon.

If you haven't checked them out yet then go on over to our Spain blogs section and have a read. Maria has set herself up with a blog and I quite like the funny Spain videos one too. Some really good blogs are being created here and I'm really excited about having this facility as part of Eye on Spain.

Anyway, it's been a very long day so I'm off to bed.

New EOS blog facility and real estate news blog

I've been working away like made over the past couple of weeks. I've been locked up in my office working away on the new blog facility for Eye on Spain.

I am so glad that I have actually finished it as I've now been allowed out of my office. We're going to be launching it on Tuesday and it means that anyone can have a blog on Eye on Spain.

I hope it proves to be popular...enough effort's gone into it!

I've started up a new blog on the site called Spain real estate news blog. The intention is to leave this as just my personal blog and the other one more focussed towards what's actually happening in the volatile Spanish property insdustry.

Hope you enjoy the blogs, maybe you'll even set one up for yourself. We've already had Diego and Lisa blogging away testing the system for us so we think it all works ok....hmmmm. And if you haven't already noticed, if you go into any of Diego's actual posts you'll see a link on the right which allows you to translate it into English.

Oh and congratulations to Lewis Hamilton. What an absolute star!

I'm all blogged out

I think I've totally fried my brain over the past couple of weeks. I have been working practically 18 hour days trying to finish the new EOS blog facility so that anyone can have a blog on the site like Diego and Lisa currently do.

The reason it's taking so long is all the set up screens, the rss feeds, the pinging, etc, etc have been really time consuming to get right. Don't worry if that all means nothing to you, trust me, you don't want to know!

Luckily, I'm about 95% there now. All the hard stuff is done and next week we're rolling it out. I hope it proves to be popular. I think it will. Anyone can have a blog on the site and I've even set it up so that bloggers can even earn money whilst they blog. How good is that??

Anyway, I really feel like celebrating having done all this coding so we're going out to our favourite restaurant today, El Estribo in Sabinillas.

If you happen to be there look out for the balding one with square eyes! Just don't interrupt me whilst I'm devouring the best fillet steak in the world.

Have a good weekend

Recommended builders Costa del Sol

It's not often I really recommend a company but I'm making an exception today.

We bought a house a couple of months ago and it needed quite a bit of building work to get it how we wanted it. Now, anyone on the Coast knows that finding a good building company can be tough.

Well, I found an excellent one. The company is called Teryco and is run by a guy called...yes, you guessed it...Terry! I met Terry through the trackdays that we go to every couple of months. He's been on the coast for over 20 years so he's well established here and has built up quite a reputation for himself.

Well, Terry and his team have done an absolutely superb job on our house. They have been totally professional and totally on time. The quality of workmanship was more than we could have hoped for.

I'll take some pics and show you the before and after shots of our house soon so you can see what's been done.

So, if you've any building or project management work needing doing then this is one company that I am really happy to put myself on the line for. They are that good.

You can get more info and contact details on the website at www.teryco.com/english.html

Media Markt in Los Barrios

Yesterday on my way home from a meeting in Algeciras, I stopped off at the Los Barrios shopping area to check out the new Media Markt that's just opened.

Well, I thought I'd walked into gadget-man's idea of heaven. The place is huge and with loads of choice of everything from digital cameras to PCs and TVs. There's also all the more geeky stuff like PC add ons and networking products.

I came out of there in a daze. I could have spent a fortune if I hadn't practised some self restraint.

We've always been lacking a decent electronics store nearby and finally it seems that we have one. Let's just hope it stays that way.

Octopus and buñuelos at the Feria in Estepona

After what has been a pretty depressing week, with the news of the developer San Jose in serious financial touble, I was quite relieved to be going to the feria in Estepona last night. The kids were beside themselves with excitement.

It's quite a small feria but it's gone enough rides to satisfy most kids (and adults). Me, I prefer the food!

Growing up in Gibrlatar, we used to go every year to the feria in La Linea and even as a child I always used to look forward to "pulpo asado". It's quite traditional to eat this barbecued octopus at the feria. It's made on what looks (usually) like and old dirty barbecue, but I assume that's what adds to the taste!

If you've never tried it then you must the next time you go to a feria. It really is so good. They put loads of lemon on it and although it's not cheap it's worth every cent. I paid 15 Euros for this lot last night:


OK, so it doesn't look great but you just HAVE to try it.

Then, once you've devoured all that you'll need something sweet. It's time to tuck into some "buñuelos". These are like mini doughnuts and you can coat them in chocolate sauce! If you haven't tried buñuelos in Spain then again....try them...they really are that good. This lot cost me 2 Euros at the fair last night:



By this point you're probably thinking that I only go the feria for the food.....erm...yeah! Oh...and to take the kids of course!

Photos of our Grazalema trip

Susan hasn't quite got the photos off her camera yet of our recent trip to Grazalema but Maria's husband sent me these pics so thought I'd share them with you:

Overlooking the village:



Me on the the roof of the house with the water mill talking to the guy who owns it.



I'll post some more soon....when Susan pulls here finger out!

Beautiful Grazamela

Last Thursday was a bank holiday here in Spain and when you get a public holiday in the middle of the week it's normal to take an extended break by doing a "puente". So last week many people took the Friday off too to enjoy an extra long break.

On the Thursday we just went into Gibraltar to do some shopping and then on the Friday we headed up to Grazalema, voted one of the most beautiful villages in Spain. It's up in the mountains near Ronda.

We were heading up there to spend the weekend with Maria de Castro and family. We had a very Spanish weekend and it was excellent. The weather was perfect, the scenery just spectacular and the food was brilliant. And of course, the company was great too.

Maria's family own one of the oldest water mills in Spain so she took us into the heart of the mountains to see it. Being an engineer that was the highlight of my weekend. However, my camera ran out of charge and I'm waiting for Susan to download the photos we took with her camera instead. As soon as I have them I'll post them here. It truly is an impressive piece of engineering, the way the mill is integrated with the house.

If you've never been to Grazalema then you need to make it a priority. Such a stunning place and the food (very important for me!!) is wonderful. I suggest you order the local speciality of "venado".

I'll post some pics here soon....