What brought me to Almerimar?

If I’m totally honest we moved to Almerimar because of my husband. Chris had come here initially because he was working with a small company doing consultancy work into peppers and pesticides! They had rented an apartment for 6 months and that gave me the chance to take a look. Apart from the dreaded greenhouses, I loved it, but I was also pretty attached to my life in England, and as Chris did a lot of his work through the internet and travelled regularly, when we bought our apartment 6 years ago the plan was to split our time between here and the UK.

At that time I had mainly been a lady of leisure for 2 years apart from some very sporadic marketing consultancy. I had become very interested in health and fitness and done some training in diet and pilates, but spent a lot of my time at the gym, with friends and playing golf … not a bad life! I know Chris fancied a little bit more leisure time himself, and had always wanted to leave England, so as life appeared so much cheaper here, he pushed pretty hard to move to Almerimar full time.

That was actually nearly 4 years ago but life doesn’t always work out as planned. We then spent the next 2 and a half years splitting our time between Almerimar and the US, and I spent a lot of last year in the UK for family reasons. So for me 2007 is my first year to live full time in Almerimar!

What are the main things in my life here?

I am still very into health and fitness. I run a lot, cook-up lots of veggies, have joined the little gym here and have my weights and pilates stuff in my ‘study’ room. I like to go out and socialise, love red wine and paella, but I’m very rarely the one dancing on the table at 5am! At home, I read, surf the internet, try to avoid housework, and now I blog! More seriously, I have done a little personal training and I am trying to study my Spanish more. We also have a beautiful black cat, Moreno, that we rescued from our road at the end of last year. He is our anchor to stay put!

How has my life changed since coming here?

I think it has slowed down, (certainly since we stopped traveling so much), but mainly in a good way. I still do a lot but I am more home based and spend far less time rushing from A to B. Part of this is definitely because Almerimar is like a village compared to where I lived in commuter belt Surrey. My gym and most of the people I know here are within a 2 mile circle. But the pace of life here also feels different, and I no longer wake up in the morning with my whole day already scheduled.

What are the main things I like about Almerimar?

Ok the sea, marina, weather and fantastic view from my apartment etc. are a given! I largely like the more relaxed less commercial way of life (which I believe has a lot to do with Spanish people’s values) and the fact that we can live here and work less. I like the fact that everyone here seems to have more time, and that I can sit and chat with a friend for hours if we feel like it without having to rush off to the next thing. I even enjoy having more time with my husband! I love being able to run down the beach instead of a busy road, buy fresh in season food that hasn’t travelled hundreds of miles, walk home after a few glasses of wine, dry my washing in the fresh air, ring someone up on speck to see if they fancy a coffee etc. …

What do I miss?

Apart from people, the English countryside and yes! crisp winter days! I do miss access to more shops, books, clothes etc., being able to see the latest movies, sometimes the theatre, sometimes the buzz and rushing around! my lovely big gym, and all the other options to join things and take part which either aren’t here or I can’t do because I don’t speak the language. YES I do miss being able to communicate effectively with everyone. I also miss little things like nice mangos, seedless grapes and smoked haddock!

Do I feel fully part of the Spanish way of life here?

Getting there! I love Spanish food, my favourite bars and restaurants are Spanish (partly because when we first started coming here there were no English bars), and I have some Spanish friends. We have also easily switched our meals to Spanish times, and I am trying to buy more of our food at the markets, Spanish butcher etc. However I still need to focus on learning Spanish now that my life is more settled here, as I know that this will sort a lot of my frustrations, and enable me to better enjoy everything that this area has to offer.