Here is our second Readers Question from Tracy:

Loved the Technology Behind Almerimar Life post you did. Am thinking of getting into blogging but have no where near that amount of technology. What do you suggest I need as a minimum?

Great question!

Here is our first Readers Question from Andy:

Love the blog, but have you ever thought of adding a Forum?

Thought about it for all of 20 seconds! I have a number of’ ‘issues’ with forums in general:

1. They can give a distorted view. Best analogy is if you landed from Mars and went straight into a hospital. Your first impression would be that everybody on earth was sick. Well that is sort of the way I feel about forums ………. they tend to attract negativity for the sake of negativity.

Nothing like a guest or two to make you realise how little you know about the area! So prompted by Mac’s recent visit and the arrival today of Sands mum I thought I would do some digging around regards some places of local interest and history:

Background

Almería is a blend of history, art and nature that combined with over 3,000 hours of sunshine a year offers a vast expanse of coastline full of secluded coves, beaches and villages of whitewashed houses and streets very much in the Moorish influence.

As you no doubt are aware we are big fans of the chiringuito and for years they have been a feature of Almerimar beach life. They look rough, are generally a little bit run down, but serve excellent food, with friendly staff and are a great place to chill out during the day, or to grab a late drink or three in the summer.

Thought I would point you in the direction of Mac’s Site so you can see his pictures and thoughts on Almerimar. I will post a summary when he has finished.

I recently spent some time with local sporting start Víctor Fernández López who has just come runner up for the second year running in the Wave category of the Professional Windsurfers Association Tour.

Among the things we discussed where his background, targets for the future, sponsorship, and working together through Almerimar Life.

Yesterday I was taking some photos and video for The Long Way Round and we stopped off as usual in Ujicar for lunch. Only it wasn’t ‘as usual’ as they were in the middle of a fiesta to celebrate Ntra. Sra. del Martirio, who seems to be yet another Virgin that they go potty over! And have a huge Paella as you can see.

Unfortunately illness meant that I couldn’t attend to 5th Annual Boatcompany Regata here in Almerimar, so not only did I miss out on the chance to go on the Tokyo II, but I also missed out on a great day!

I’ve been mulling over exactly how I have got SO involved with helping the strays cats recently, to the extent that I am regularly helping to clean 30+ litter trays at the cat home, finding foster homes for sick kittens, emailing cat rescue in Germany, fund-raising, sorting medication and vet visits, feeding some strays and even thinking of adopting a third one! SO where did it start and why am I doing all this?

Have just spent a couple of days at the rather strangely named Fairyhouse Racecourse at the first Motocross World Championship to be held in Ireland. I wouldn’t claim to have had a clue as to what was going on, apart from after the practice days the actual races where of a 35 mins then 2 laps format, whatever that means? There were two categories, 250cc and 450cc, and they were both very impressive.

One of the (extremely few) pleasures of travel and hotels in the ‘excuse’ to eat a cooked breakfast!!! We don’t bother at all at home, although from time to time we will have a brunch on a Sunday, or I may have a bacon baguette at the weekend in the marina.

When traveling though I tend to work on the advice I was given years ago ….. always eat when you can as you don’t know when your next meal will be. So a cooked breakfast is a ‘must’ on trips like my recent one.

Last week I had an extremely pleasant day out with Chris & Kris on the bikes. What started out as a ‘couple of hours’ (to quote Kris), turned into 6 hours and a Paella lunch!!!

As I recall the original plan was to pop along to Cabo de Gata to shoot some video of the ride along the coast, and grab some photos for their site. I was to be the photographer and Kris was going to be the video guy with his helmet mounted camcorder …… which is very cool indeed.

I read about CallUma recently and thought it was a great idea. Uma stands for Universal Multilingual Assistance, and in effect gives you access to 120 languages at the end of the phone 24/7, 365 days a year.

There appears to be no restrictions to the type of activity they will translate:

• lost something and need to report to the police
• translate a whole meeting
• tell the waiter how you want your steak

Yesterday I went down to take some photographs and video of the Junior Beach Football for Inés and Juan Carlos as Jaunmi (son of Jaun Carlos) was playing. Things didn’t go so well …….

This is a ‘chicken or egg’ type post in a way. I thought it would be interesting to detail all the technology that we use in running Almerimar Life. I am guilty as charged in that I love technology, but not just for the sake of technology ……. it has to serve a purpose for it to excite me. I am guilty at times though of buying the technology and then creating a need to justify it! In many ways that is how I got into blogging with my own personal site. I wanted a Mac so after giving up on the full time work gig, I bought a PowerBook. I then needed something to do with it so I started my own blog which at the time focussed pretty much 100% on reviewing Apple applications and associated hardware etc.

First posted 25th July

Enjoy a Taste Of Spain thanks to Al-rruz and Almerimar Life for 10€! Starting this Tuesday (the 29th) and running through the summer Al-rruz are offering you the opportunity to enjoy a Taste Of Spain in their excellent restaurant for the incredible price of 10€.

The menu for the first evening on the 29th July (Tuesday) is:

Starter
An assorted plate comprising of:

• 1 Chicken Croquette

Two of our favourite and most frequented bars and restaurants in Almerimar, La Plaza and Al-rruz have joined together to work with Almerimar Life to add a further Taste Of Spain for residents and visitors to Almerimar.

As of Sunday (27th July) La Plaza will be offering paella provided by Al-rruz as a Extra Tapas from 2pm. What a great way to try paella if you have never tasted it before.

Yesterday we spent a very interesting, pleasant and eventful day in the mountains with our friends Lorenzo and Luisa.

Lorenzo’s farther set up and runs an amazing winery that specialises in environmentally friendly wines called Barranco Oscuro. Lorenzo is following very successfully in his father’s footsteps, as they continue to produce very interesting wines indeed.

We have written before about the Foro De Almerimar and support it as much as we can. We attended the first (or second) meeting that they held and informed them of the blog and invited them to use it as much as they wanted (for the record we have received two items direct from the Foro this year, everything else has come through our own endeavors or via business contacts). We even offered to design, host and run a free site for them ……

Please note this post has been edited since it was originally posted on the site to include Pam’s information as well.

Thanks to Irene for this information on their trip to the above festival:

This was our fist visit to this annual spectacle held on the grounds opposite the new Market site in the centre of El Ejido.