Sometimes I forget how new the internet really is in comparison to newspapers, magazines and even broadcast media. I’ve been thoroughly reliant on it all my working life (how on earth did journalists manage in the old days?), yet websites and e-zines are a relatively new, if crucial, part of the media industry.

Most people find it easier to search online that devote time to wading through books and magazines. However, the internet is still enough of a novelty for the usefulness of websites to vary enormously. Some look slick and glossy, yet are impossible to navigate. If I can’t find a tab titled info, contacts or location within five minutes of entering a site, I generally move onto the next one. In our time-short existences, convenience is pivotal – we want data delivered instantly, preferably in bite-sized, easily digestible chucks.

Another unhelpful factor of many websites is that their features are undated. I read one recently that was revealing all about a newsworthy event that had happened ‘last week’, but I had no way of knowing when ‘last week’ had been.

Sometimes I’m caught out by this and find myself reading an exciting story about new developments in the Spanish property market, only to realise that the context is wrong – the ebullience is out of place amid the current crisis.

The credit crunch has created a sort of ‘before and after’ perspective that makes dating news stories easier, often with shocking clarity. Since this time last year (August 2007, for those who can’t be bothered to check the date at the bottom of this feature), the world has become a remarkably different place, and I think that for most of us the full extent of the crunch are only just beginning to have an impact.

As many of us face redundancy, or at best, frozen incomes, prices are rising on the things we need most: food, fuel and utilities. Six months ago I was growing quietly excited at the prospect that the property slump might be the opportunity I needed to get on the property ladder. Now, as each pay-cheque has to stretch that bit further, my monthly savings have been diminished to a pitiful trickle of change that’s unlikely to be transformed into a home any time soon.

Disposable income is becoming a less disposable all the time, but recent research showed that while we cut back on luxuries, the one thing we are clinging to is the annual trip abroad.

The fact that the UK seems to have forfeited the summer season makes the urge to escape stronger than ever. Endless grey days in an increasingly penny-pinching economic climate make it hard to give up on holidays overseas, but the costs can be crippling, especially as fuel costs prompt even budget airlines to raise their fares.

There is an answer though, and it’s one that’s saving the property market in many areas. Owning a holiday home is a great way of minimising the costs of holidays, while earning a rental income and possibly planning a retirement overseas.

As property prices in Spain and other southern European countries continue to flounder, you could turn the crunch to your advantage and invest in a buy-to-let home.

Of course, if you do decide to go down that route, you’ll need to do plenty of research, which is where the worldwide web comes in handy. Just try to make sure that the pages you’re browsing are as up to date as possible.

I seem to receive more press releases about property in Dubai every day. The United Arab Emirates’ commercial hotspot is transforming continually, with job opportunities and property developments attracting increasing numbers of newcomers all the time.

In fact, according to a report by Profile Europe (UK) Ltd, the majority of Dubai’s 1.37 million population is comprised of expatriates.

The most recent email to pop up in my inbox from Profile Europe declared: “A staggering 25,000 foreigners are relocating to Dubai each month! That’s 800 new residents a day which equates to 33 an hour!”

What the press release doesn’t mention is that the majority of the 800 people who arrive in Dubai today will have packed up and gone within the next five years. For most immigrants this is a place to work hard, earn high and play hard.

People I know who have sampled it first hand say they had the time of their lives, but couldn’t have coped with such a high-octane existence long term. And with only 22 per cent of the population being female, most head back to their home country as soon as the urge to settle down kicks in.

The counties I know and love tend to be made up of regions that each have their own cultural identities dating back generations. Yet in Dubai, so many immigrants have been in the emirate for less than a year that the collective identity is constantly changing. As far as residents are concerned, it has no past and an indefinable future; an alien land where everyone is an outsider and the only shared value is money.

Dubai’s saving grace is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is – and as the credit crunch continues to sink its teeth in, that seems to be exactly what many of us are looking for.

Dubai, or an alien land © Shutterstock

This week I spent rather a lot of time proof-reading a guide to golfing holidays around the world. I’m not a fan of the game, though I am rather fond of golf courses, golf club restaurants and all the bits and pieces that come with them.

The thing I liked about the guide was that although it twitters on about the strategically placed bunkers, water hazards, par 3s and all those other peculiar golfing terms, it also tells you useful things, such as where you can take your kids to wear them out.

The lovely thing about golf courses is that they are often set in the most glorious countryside and many of them are in coastal areas, leaving the non-golfers among us with plenty of other sporting options.

If exercise isn’t your thing, you can retreat to the closest spa for a thorough pampering session instead. Every good golf course has a great spa, as well as somewhere to sip a few cocktails while you’re enjoying the post-facial glow.

Some of the most impressive courses in the guide from an aesthetic point of view cling to cliff tops in New Zealand and Australia, where the naturally rugged terrain has been used to enhance the challenges of the course.

Having been reading about the real estate market in Australia recently, it occurred to me that homes built around these courses tick most of the boxes on an Aussie homeseekers’ wish-list.

According to a feature published in Money Magazine last year, the key thing many Australians look for are ‘blue sky properties’. These are homes in a prime location overlooking a river, harbour or the sea.

As opposed to the crowded skylines of cities, ‘blue sky properties’ are surrounded by space and sky, so that the only overcrowding above them is from birds and the occasional cloud. I can see the appeal.

The other major price-pushers mentioned in the article were lifestyle features, which make golf course developments a strong contender for the dream location award.

I’ve always thought that people who buy a home on a golf course are also buying into a way of life, and many golf resorts are so lavish that if you live on one, you’ll never need to leave. Of course, if you’re a golfer, you might think differently, because there’s a whole world of courses out there to discover.

I recently reviewed an Argentinean film called La Antena for Spanish Homes’ culture pages. As vibrant as Spanish cinema is today, the wealth of offerings from Latin America makes it irresistible to cover films from other Spanish-speaking countries.

Watching foreign films, with or without subtitles, is a great way to build on your language skills. In fact, La Antena proved to be one of the best for this, despite, or even because, it’s a largely silent film, Created by Esteban Sapir, the film is a dark fantasy in which the main characters have had their voices stolen by an evil media boss, providing an intriguing comment on the industry.

To keep the story moving, the characters communicate by mouthing to each other, with each word appearing as an animated subtitle. While Esteban’s dialogue danced around the screen, English subtitles lay sensibly beneath, giving the opportunity to follow the story in both languages.

Building on this further, the few characters who still spoke used simple phrases even I could grasp, and at one point a young boy pointed to items in the room and named them in turn, giving me a flashback to my brief stint in a Berlitz language school.

As well as developing my ability to understand Spanish, I’ve also found watching Spanish films a great way to absorb the nuances of every day culture. There are some distinct differences between Spanish and British or American cinema, which I particularly noticed when I watched The Oxford Murders a few weeks ago.

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia, this should have been wonderful romp of a murder mystery, but placed in an English setting, with a British and American cast, the result was an odd mishmash of stilted acting and incongruous scenes. Give those same scenes to a Spanish cast, and the result, I believe, would have been very different.

As a viewer, I expect different things from a Spanish-language film. Gratuitous sex and violence are almost mandatory, while a touch of the fantastical that would knock you off kilter in an English-language film seems right at home even in the most mainstream of Spanish-language cinema.

At the same time, the stable British rom-com would probably seemed fluffy and sickly sweet if produced in Spain or Latin America.

There are clearly more cultural differences between Spain and the UK than we realise. Get past the clichés and you’ll find a wealth of characteristics indigenous to each nation, enriching each country’s charm without us even being aware of it.

I'm not saying that we shouldn’t head abroad to sample some of those idiosyncrasies firsthand, simply that we shouldn’t be surprised if a few things are lost in translation.

The only way to immerse yourself truly in another country’s customs is to cast off the one you’ve grown up with, and why should you ever do that? Instead, anticipate the fact that cultural misunderstandings will occasionally arise, and when they do, employ the famous British sense of humour to see the funny side.

I’ve been receiving a lot of press releases recently about green housing. As we all become more eco-aware, it seems that houses that meet certain environmentally friendly criteria are the ones beating the property market’s downward spiral.

The most recent press release to end up in my inbox was from the owners of El Gouna, an Egyptian resort town that has recently launched a scheme called the Green Star Hotel Initiative.

Apparently the goals of this project are to usher in a new era of eco-tourism for the town, reducing the waste produced by the 14 hotels and minimising water and energy consumption. Interestingly, part of the plan will be a training school to educate hotel staff and enable them to raise awareness of the issues among tour operators, guests and residents alike.

Of course, part of the motivation is financial. Eco-tourism is becoming increasingly trendy, luring a whole new breed of holidaymakers to destinations where they can have fun without worrying about their carbon footprint.

Money has always been a primary motivator for any business sector, and the fact that eco-tourism is finally fashionable bodes well for the future.

And the movement has gone beyond the tourism market to the property market. The website www.whatgreenhome.com provides information on eco-friendly housing options all over the world. Each property description is broken down into five key categories, explaining what the homes are doing with regards to carbon, waste, water, building materials and transport, with green ticks awarded for the criteria they meet.

Though, disappointingly, there are none in the UK, there’s an encouragingly high number across rest of Western Europe, with commendable developments in Portugal, Austria, Greece, Spain, France and Italy.

Examples include Las Torrentas in the region of Murcia, Spain, which receives a green tick for each item apart from Sustainable transport, though biofuels will be used for onsite vehicles and machinery, and local buses will run on solar power.

Crucially, for such a hot part of Spain, waste water from showers and sinks will be cleaned and used to water the green areas of the site, and rainwater will be harvested. All rubbish will be recycled and geothermal heat pumps will heat the houses in winter, and cool them in summer.

Quite frankly, living as I do in a poorly insulated, traditional, eco-unfriendly home, it makes me green with envy.

These issues are going to become increasingly important as resources become ever more limited. A house is likely to be the biggest purchase most of us will make in our lives. Would you really want to pay out several hundred thousand pounds for one that doesn’t enable you to minimise your global footprint?

Almost 4,000 Britons move abroad every week according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). That seems like a phenomenal number of people, and is even more shocking when you consider that, according to the Institute of Public Policy Research, there are now more Brits living overseas than foreign residents living in the UK. Apparently the rest of the world is more appealing, regardless of where you are born.

Relocating to another country is almost as common now as moving from one part of the UK to another, and far more tempting. The world seems smaller than ever, with budget flights giving us easy access to foreign countries for little more than the cost of a train journey from Bath to London.

Of course, there are still some people who are so content in their corner of the Britain that they will never set foot in an airport, and I find myself envying their frame of mind, just a little bit.

Having been infected with the travel bug at an early age, if I dont board a plane for a few weeks, I begin to suffer from withdrawal symptoms. I get irritable, restless and have irrational cravings to experience something new.

The number of people who crowd onto Easyjet flights with me shows me that Im not the only one who needs a regular travel fix.

Yet, in the villages surrounding Bath, there are people who have never ventured as far as London. They have everything they need in the small shops, supermarkets and pubs of their immediate locality. Generations of their families have lived and died in the same place, and they see no need to leave this secure haven and go in search of the unknown.

And as I mentioned before, part of me envies them their complacency. How much easier life would be if I didnt have a constant urge to explore the unknown! How much money and energy I would save if I wasnt constantly on the look out for the chance to travel.

But on the other hand, how much smaller my life would be, and how much less exciting. Human beings are curious by nature, and finding out about life in foreign countries is simply an extension of this.

As long as there is a world out there, many of us will be heading out to explore it at every opportunity. And some of us will like what we find so much that we decide to relocate for good.

As a huge fan of travelling to new places and seeing new things, I’ve always found it a bit strange that people would want to buy a holiday home abroad and return to the same place again and again. There’s a whole wide world out there, and most of us won’t even get to see a fraction of it in our lifetimes.

However, I’ve recently come to understand the pleasure of returning to a place I’ve been before. As a travel writer, I’ve probably had more than my fair share of whirlwind tours, getting a fleeting taste of the best a city or region has to offer in a few brief days. I’ve loved each and every one of these trips, but as I’ve boarded the plane to fly home, I always have a small sense of frustration. It’s like being allowed a taste of chocolate cake, then having the slice taken away: it leaves you wanting more.

I think this is something many of us experience. With the average Brit receiving 28 days holiday compared to Spain’s 36 or France’s 40, most of us don’t indulge in more than a week away at a time, and weekend breaks are becoming increasingly common. This is a great opportunity to make the most of your holiday allowance, but it can leave you feeling the need to go back and see the things you missed out on first time around.

I had the chance to do that last weekend in Lisbon. Last October I had a fantastic gastronomic tour of the city, and fell in love with the elegant streets, dramatic monuments and friendly ambiance. So I was pleased to go back with my husband and visit some highlights I’d missed first time round.

The beauty of returning to somewhere is that you can miss out on most of the floundering you do on the first day in a new place. You know how to get around and you probably already have an idea of the places you want to visit.

For me, having spotted the glorious St George’s Castle on the hillside above the city last time, visiting this ancient building was a priority, while I was keen to return to the exquisite Jerónimos Monastery and allow myself a bit more time meandering around those exquisite corridors. Viniportugal and Praça do Comércio were other places to return to, while I had the pleasure of visiting Torre de Belém and discovering various restaurants for the first time.

Who wouldn't want to return to somewhere so beautiful?

When you’ve been somewhere before, you don’t have the same need to rush around and pack everything in, especially if you know you’ll be back again.

Many of the people I speak to who own holiday homes overseas talk of the simple pleasure of returning to a favourite café and drinking coffee in the sunshine, or walking to a particularly spectacular view at a time of day when they know everyone else will have gone home.

Simple pleasures like these are something few holidaymakers get to experience. Local knowledge is worth a lot, and you don’t have to become a local to gain some.

I don’t envy the people whose job it is to promote London’s Great Outdoors campaign. As rain lashes down with such vigour that a wet patch is seeping across one corner of the office, all I can do is sit here and daydream about moving to a country where summer actually means something!

On 3 and 4 July, Visit London boldly gave office workers “the opportunity to ‘branch out’ from their usual ‘9 to 5’” as St James’s Park hosted an Outdoor Office for two days.

While those days were heavenly compared to this dreary week, I distinctly remember needing an umbrella to make it to the pub across the park from my house. I don’t think my laptop would have enjoyed the drizzle in St James’s Park, and nor would I!

Much as I love London, and the 600 garden squares, 148 parks and gardens, 122 heaths, commons and greens and 16 city farms Visit London is keen to remind us of, I can’t say I love the climate. There’s a reason why London is one of the greenest capitals in the world – plenty of liquid sunshine, and not nearly enough of the other sort.

I do admire Visit London’s ethos though. When you work in an office in the UK, it’s easy to spend so much time staring at a computer screen that you forget there’s an outside world, even when you’re writing about it. Sunny days can slip by without a whisper, and if you don’t pay attention it’s easy to reach September and realise you’ve missed the entire season, including the few truly sunny days.

Part of it is the long hours we work. Nine to five would feel part-time compared to the hours most of us spend in the office. Visit London’s goal was to make sure we get out as often and enjoy as much time outside as possible, seemingly regardless of the weather.

But the lifestyle and climate of Mediterranean countries such as Spain is much more geared to a life lived outdoors. Even the working day is more amenable, with a four-hour slab of time in the middle of the day allowing workers to head out, socialise and shake off their sedentary morning with some exercise.

The reason for the working day evolving this pattern, however, again comes back to the climate, as in many parts of Spain the four-hour lunch break is a way to beat the heat. And we simply don’t have that excuse in the UK.

Liquid sunshine seems to be the closest we’ll get to the real thing this year, unless, that is, we pack our bags and head for the nearest airport, Eurostar station or ferry port.

Where I live in Bristol, there sometimes seem to be more immigrants than locals. It’s a phenomenon that masses of Brits seem worried about, yet while people whine about the foreigners invading our streets, they think nothing of heading abroad to buy homes.

Some Brits even claim to have been motivated to move abroad to get away from all the immigrants, which is ironic considering that they’ve become immigrants themselves!

From a better climate to a lower cost of living to a more family-focused society, countries across the world offer plenty of incentives for packing up our lives in the UK and starting afresh.

As we become increasingly discontented with the UK’s rising living expenses, flagging job market and the diminishing quality of public services, there doesn’t seem much to keep us in Britain, let alone lure foreigners here.

Personally, I love the UK, despite its flaws. It’s the place I did most of my growing up and I believe it still has a lot to offer. But I can see the attraction of moving abroad and experiencing another culture. Sadly journalists aren’t in great demand overseas, which makes obtaining a visa for more far-flung places something of a challenge.

However, if you’re a qualified and experienced nurse, doctor, medical specialist, electrician, carpenter, construction worker or engineer, countries across the world will be vying to welcome you in.

Canada has taken this one step further by sending over the employment minister of Alberta, Canada, Hector Goudreau to recruit 50,000 of our workers, promising that anyone with the relevant skills will be fast-tracked for visas.

I’ve been to job interviews where the benefit of a company pension scheme has been enough to make me sign the dotted line, but Goudreau is offering a whole new lifestyle.

Calgary, Alberta, is one of Canada's most vibrant cities © www.pwidling-photography.com

The Daily Mail reported that Goudreau said: “Somebody from London might be able to sell their small flat and come to Alberta where they can buy a detached house with a huge back yard and huge front yard for the same amount.”

He went on to say: “The cost of living is considerably less than in the UK. Our salaries are comparable or even higher, so anyone who moves over would be able to make money and set some aside.”

Considering that the average British resident owes £3,175 (statistic from Datamonitor), this image is pretty irresistible.

However, according to the Canada Post, there are currently 200,000 Canadians live in the UK. If life in Canada is so darn fantastic, why are they all here?

Perhaps Goudreau should try offering qualified Canadians incentives to come home instead of courting foreign workers.

Canada becomes home to around 260,000 migrants every year and nearly one in five Canadians were born abroad, compared to one in 20 Brits. It seems clear to me that the reason for this lies in Canada’s laidback, welcoming attitude. And with so much space to fill, their generosity is understandable.

In the meantime, six Polish families are squashed into the house next door to mine. Perhaps if we lose 50,000 members of our workforce to Canada, if will give us more room for immigrants. I have a feeling that’s exactly what most Brits are afraid of.

Catching the train to work this morning, I passed hordes of people lugging backpacks bulging with wellies and bottles of sun cream; a sure sign that the Glastonbury festival is well underway for another year.

It’s such a different phenomenon to the sun-dizzied music festivals that erupt all over Spain at this time of year. One of the highlights is the Benicassim festival located on the Costa del Azahar, where you can laze on the beach between songs and your biggest concern will be staying cool.

Given that choice I think I’d have to give the magic of mud-churned Glastonbury a miss in favour of a summer paradise.

Aside from the lure of the music festivals, there is plenty that attracts me to Spain. As I’ve mentioned before, there really are still property bargains to be found, if you know where to concentrate your house-hunting expeditions.

For starters, it’s no good looking in the traditional tourist hotspots. The influx of British buyers along the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca has been boosting prices for years, giving these sunny shores some of the most expensive properties in the country.

Secondly, steer clear of homes that are front line to anything, whether that’s the sea or a golf course, as these prime homes are always in high demand, allowing developers to charge highly.

Thirdly, don’t expect to find a cheap apartment in a city such as Madrid or Barcelona, where the wealthy Spanish professionals buy homes to avoid a long commute to work.

Simple really!

It may sound as though that doesn’t leave much to choose from, but that’s far from the truth.

If you travel just a few miles inland, you’ll find plenty of affordable homes, especially if you have the skills, time and energy to take on a home in need of renovation.

If you’re happy to buy off plan, you can also make massive savings, provided you have a good independent lawyer who can verify without a doubt that the home is legal and that bank guarantees are in place and up to date.

In fact, you can find affordable homes within easy reach of most cities, beaches and tourist attractions, not least because the excellent roads and public transport infrastructure make getting around so easy.

According to Propertyshowrooms.com, as far as bargain hunters are concerned, the state of the property market presents the ideal opportunity to find an affordable home in Spain, with some developers willing to sell homes for up to 50 per cent below the asking price.

For the first time in decades, Spain has become a buyers’ market, and if you want to go after your dream and relocate to there, now is the prime time. So what’s stopping you?

We’ve known for a long time that Spain is no longer the cheap option when it comes to buying property overseas.

The markets busily emerging in Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and, more recently, Albania, mean there are plenty of places to choose from if your sole aim is a bargain home.
 
Simultaneously, the flood of foreign buyers swamping Spain pushed prices sky high, hence the gradual downward trajectory over the last year. If the concept confuses you, throw a tennis ball into the air and watch it fall back down.

The rise and fall in the Spanish property market is very similar, really, and the only thing that has surprised me about this is how surprised everyone seems to have been.

Regardless, the truth is that Spain’s property market has taken a bit of a battering recently, not least from the British media, who have been eager to interview anyone with a sob story about their lost savings, to be replayed endlessly on prime time TV.

Despite all this, though, one corner of the Spanish market has remained robust throughout. With barely a flicker of concern the country’s more luxurious properties, the ones at the top end of the market, have continued to retain their value in the face of a slowing economy.

According to Expatica.com, the reason for this is that the kind of people who can happily hand over several million euros for a palatial sea-view home with a pool, sauna, and lots of security, are so darn rich that the world’s economic crisis hasn’t touched them.

Madrid is thriving at the moment due to this, as are more exclusive areas of the Balearic islands.
 
While I’m very happy to hear that the likes of Annie Lennox, Suzie Quattro and Michael Douglas will be able to continue buying up portions of prime Spanish real estate, I can’t help feeling that this is a bit elitist. Surely there’s still a place in the market for first time buyers with less than €300,000 to play with, isn’t there?

Well, yes, there is. If you know where to look there are still plenty of bargains to be had, and I’ll let you know more about that next time.
 

Caption

Occasionally, just occasionally, I wake to the kind of day that makes me wonder why we’re all in such a hurry to buy property abroad. For a few weeks each summer, or, in the case of last year, a few brief days, I wake to bright sunshine and the kind of temperatures that make me forget my yearning to move abroad and revel in the UK instead.

The last week has been like that. On Friday June 6th, I was hurtling down the motorway to Cornwall where I spent two magnificent days staying in a friend’s caravan, meandering along coastal paths and admiring views that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a postcard of Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Every beach looked as though it had been shipped in especially from the Mediterranean.

The Amalfi Coast or Cornwall?

It was, in short, the kind of blissful weekend we so rarely experience in the UK. As we strolled along, admiring views of sun-strewn coves and cliff tops fringed with vibrant pinks and foxgloves, I found myself wondering why I always daydream about moving overseas. Why not just move to Polzeath?

But then, as we admired the houses overlooking the shore, I realised that house prices is a big part of it. Most of the homes we were salivating over cost closer to €1m than my savings would stretch, while a similar home on the Amalfi Coast would only set me back about €310,000.

But more important than the cost is the dependability of the weather. My friend and I spent most of our weekend congratulating ourselves on choosing the one weekend when the Cornish sea wasn’t grey and stormy, wind-buffeted and lashed with rain. Sunshine in Cornwall is such a novelty that even in June every walker we passed was beaming with smug contentment.

While owning a home on a Mediterranean coast might rob you of such unexpected pleasures, at least you’d have a fair idea what you were in for. Travelling to Cornwall our car was laden down with clothes for all eventualities, and my friend confessed to habitually bringing both a woolly hat and sunglasses, never knowing which would be more appropriate. For a similar weekend on the Amalfi Coast you could pack the lightest of suitcases, containing only what you needed to protect you from sunburn.

Owning a home on the Mediterranean coastline of Italy, Spain or France would give you one enormous advantage over owners of holiday retreats in Devon and Cornwall – a high likelihood of good weather. And for me, that wins every time.

If only the weather was always this good...

While researching the Italian Red Guide, I’ve discovered a fab website containing all kinds of fascinating statistics about Italy. The one that caught my eye was about population density in various regions, showing the number of people per kilometre.

On my street in Bristol, with terraced houses each divided into up to three or four flats, there are probably about 60 families living within the closest ten houses. In some parts of Italy there are less than 60 people living in an entire kilometre.

It reminded me of a press release that ended up in my in-box a while ago, spouting the importance of landscaping and green spaces in housing developments. At the time this seemed like a fairly redundant point to make.

We all know it’s nice to have some open areas around us, don’t we? But then I considered the number of urbanisations that spring up with only a few handkerchief-sized lawns for the residents to share, and I realised not all builders prioritise the environmental appeal of their homes.
 
Living in a first floor flat, I’m always grateful for my small balcony, even if it does overlook a busy road and other houses. There’s something about being able to go outside, yet be relatively private, that’s very important.

However, if I want to be able to go for a walk amid greenery, I have to go to the nearby park, which is one of several in the densely populated area where I live.

Sometimes even that isn’t enough, however, and I find myself craving vast swathes of countryside without a motorway in sight, the kind of place so many of us are driven overseas to seek. I can see the appeal.

Consider Tuscany, and you’re likely to be imagining sweeping hillsides and vineyards, while Spain’s Costa Verde, containing Asturias and the Picos de Europa, brings to mind untrammelled wilderness as far as the eye can see.
 

Tuscany © shutterstock

One of the least densely populated parts of Italy is the gorgeous island of Sardinia, where each kilometre is home to only 38 people. No wonder it’s called Italy’s undiscovered island!

Me, I’d be happy with something of a compromise. I’d hate not to be within walking distance of my closest neighbour, not to mention closest shops, restaurants or bars! On the other hand, I would love to be able to walk from my house until all I could see in every direction was nature, green and untamed.

From what I’ve seen of Spain, there are parts of Huelva and Valencia that would fit this description, while in Italy I’d be best off in Umbria, where thriving towns give way to rural views within the space of a few kilometres.

To me that sounds like heaven.

This week, while balancing my workload for Spanish Homes Magazine, I’ve been putting together and editing the Red Guide to Buying a Property in Italy.

Red Guides are in-depth bookazines published annually by Merricks Media, containing the facts and information you need to know to purchase a property abroad.

And, yes, there is a Spanish one as well. Just go to the travel section of your nearest WH Smiths to find them.

It’s a fascinating project for me to work on, as I’m usually so absorbed by the goings on in Spain that I’m not sure what’s happening in the UK, let alone other parts of the world.

But in many ways, Spain and Italy are very similar. Aside from obvious qualities such as the Mediterranean climate and verve for life, they have more in common than I’d ever considered.

From Milan to Barcelona, Florence to Seville, each country has its share of sophisticated and romantic cities, and culturally, they both offer fantastic gastronomic experiences, fine wine and an abundance of festivals.

But get away from the built up areas and the parallels are even more striking. This is a pair of astonishingly diverse countries made up of regions as varied in landscape, temperament and culture as the whole of Europe.

Umbria © Herman Brinkman

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that their main likenesses lie in their differences – in the unwillingness of each to merge together as one country with one mindset and one personality. This stubbornness means that in each country you have a disproportionate chance of finding your ideal corner of the world, regardless of what you’re seeking.

In the last couple of days I’ve been sourcing real life stories for the Italian Red Guide, which has also been enlightening for me. After years of hunting down people to include in Spanish Homes Magazine, I had the misguided notion that a particular type of person chooses to own property in Spain, unlike the type of people who buy in any other country.

But I’ve discovered that’s far from the truth. The people I will be featuring in the Italian Red Guide share a startling number of characteristics with people who buy in Spain.

On the whole they’re ordinary folk who decided to do something extraordinary, motivated by the urge to find a better quality of life, have an adventure and to see more of their chosen country than a brief annual summer holiday could ever show them.

By owning a property abroad, they’ve opened themselves up to a rich array of incidents and encounters that the rest of us only catch a hint of before we re-pack after a fortnight’s break and head home to the UK.

Just typing this gives me a yearning to follow in their footsteps, and head to Italy, or Spain, or anywhere else that will have me, because I have an inkling that on this level the expat experience may well be the same all over the world.

With my first wedding anniversary coming up this weekend, my mind’s been well and truly on all things romantic this week. This has resulted in many long conversations with Spanish friends about Spanish weddings, and the colourful traditions that go with them.

The Spanish adore tradition, and transform any wedding into an opportunity to indulge in every possible ritual to imbue the marriage with love, happiness and plenty of good fortune.

Since visiting Valencia in spring 2007, I’ve been a huge fan of the sweet scent of orange blossoms, so I was pleased to learn that Spanish brides is many regions are expected to carry a spray of these aromatic blooms.

But it isn’t just the fragrance the flowers are favoured for. Oranges are one of the few trees to bear fruit and blossoms at the same time, so its flowers represent all kinds of good things, including wealth, fertility and fulfilment. And what more could you wish for on your wedding day?

A rather lovely tradition that would have charmed my father is the custom of the groom giving a watch to the bride's father when his proposal is accepted. Presumably this is so the proud dad can count down the hours until he gives his daughter away, or simply so he can revel in how much free time he has now that he’s no longer responsible for her.

Other pastimes are more challenging, however, and I don’t think my husband would have appreciated the mess of threads I’d have produced if we’d decided to include the custom of the bride embroidering her groom's wedding shirt.

Although a vibrant red gown tempted me, I eventually opted for the more usual cream silk, which is the colour usually chosen by Spanish brides today. But traditionally they would have worn a black lace or silk gown, while some brides, particularly in Andalucia, choose a full-on multi-frilled flamenco-style dress, topped by an ornate black lace mantilla secured with a comb.

As in the UK, the bride's father escorts his daughter down the aisle, but in a rather lovely touch I think my mother-in-law would approve of, in Spain the groom walks down the aisle with his mother.

As well as her bouquet, the bride carries with her a little bag of 13 gold coins, given to her by the groom. The coins represent Jesus Christ and his apostles (although why your new husband would want you to carry 13 other men with you, I can’t imagine!) as well as representing the groom’s commitment to the marriage and to his willingness to support her.

However, modern brides who will be contributing just as much financially as their groom eschew this custom, in the same way that some British brides choose to leave the promise to obey their new husband out of their vows.  

Though the Spanish bride and groom exchange wedding rings as we do, these are worn on the ring fingers of their right hands instead of the left, which is worth bearing in mind if you’re trying to figure out whether someone’s available or not.

As the newly weds emerge from the church, they’re usually greeted with a barrage of firecrackers, which sounds great fun but would definitely have reduced my four-year-old bridesmaid (and possibly my groom) to tears.

The most important wedding dance is called "sequidillas manchegas." This is a rather mercenary affair, as guests who dance with the bride traditionally give her money for the privilege, while the groom’s tie is cut to pieces and the fragments auctioned off.

As well as throwing her bouquet in the British manner, the bride also gives a pin to each of her unmarried friends, who attach them to their clothes upside down in the hope that the pins will fall out while they dance, apparently guaranteeing them to be the next to marry.

After such a rich array of traditions for the actual wedding, I was agog to learn what couples would do to celebrate their first anniversary, but when I explained the British custom of giving something made from paper for the first year married, my Spanish friends looked bemused.

“In Spain we normally you go for dinner to a romantic dinner,” said Vanessa from Málaga, “Usually the man gives his wife a bouquet of flowers such as red roses. After the dinner you can drink cava.’

Sounds very nice, but no more exceptional than any good date.
“But surely you do something out of the ordinary to commemorate!” I persisted.

Vanessa nodded, “Of course! We spent five days in a charming hotel in Bruges.”

Bruges! But Spain has countless gorgeously romantic hotels in iconic locations such as Seville, Granada and Girona, to name but a few.

Ah well, if the Spanish choose to go to Belgium for anniversary celebrations, perhaps we Brits should make the most of it, and take their spaces in Spain!

James and Judy enjoyed a very British wedding

In October 2007, more than 80 per cent of Spanish adults were homeowners, compared to just 64 per cent in the UK. Frankly, as a long-term renter struggling to get onto the property ladder in the UK, these figures seem surprisingly high to me, which is why, when I saw the latest moves to help Spaniards into homes they own, I was positively green with envy.

One of my favourite areas of Spain is the western Costa de la Luz on the border with Portugal, where the beaches stretch for miles, the air is clean and the sunshine bright.

Okay, I may be rhapsodising a bit, but this really is a glorious part of Spain. No surprise, then, that one of the country’s swankiest new urbanisations, Costa Esuri, is currently taking shape here.

However, while the property slow down is making some developers drop prices slightly, a three-bedroom home on the Costa Esuri development still costs around €235,000. Though this figure makes properties in my home city of Bristol seem extraordinarily expensive by comparison, it’s still far more than most Spaniards can afford.

The fact these homes are located on a luxury development with pools, golf courses and a massive commercial centre makes the prices seem even more reasonable, yet Brits are no longer buying here, meaning that Fadesa, the developer, has only sold 1,207 of the 2,150 properties it’s built on the site.

Fadesa is solving this problem by signing an agreement with the local town hall to offer some of these unsold properties to first time buyers aged under 35. These lucky youngster will be able to live in the posh pads for a subsidised rent of €450 (approx £359!) per month until the rental contract expires in 2010, at which point they’ll be given the option of buying their home, with the first two years of rent deducted from the price.

As if that wasn’t good enough, their mortgage payments for the next five years will be fixed at €450 per month, subsidised by the developer.

Unfortunately, the scheme is only applicable to people who are already resident in Spain, otherwise I’d be busy packing right now and preparing to bundle my bemused husband onto a plane.

Costa Esuri © www.costaesuri.co.uk

When I ask people what holds them back from buying property in Spain, most of them say they’re afraid their new home could turn out to be illegal.

Given the number of negative stories that flood the Spanish and British news about homes being expropriated by town councils, I’m not really surprised. Every month seems to herald more tales of Brits who’ve sunk their life savings into a dream villa, only to see it demolished for being illegal.

However, the stories we don’t tend to hear are of all the Brits who’ve made a successful, secure property purchase in Spain. They’re the ones who kept their wits about them, who managed to go househunting in Spain losing sight of the fact they’re on a mission.

They’re the ones who refused to sign any paperwork or handover any money until they and their independent lawyer were confident the appropriate checks had been done and all licences and permissions were in place.

Thanks to the explosion in the Spanish property market over the last few decades, countless developments sprang up on supposedly protected land. However, now it’s all coming to light, and no one wants to admit responsibility.

In Catral on the Costa Blanca, more than 1,300 illegal properties exist that should never have been built. However, while the local town council have admitted they’re unable to help the owners of homes located within El Hondo Natural Park, those in other parts of the countryside will now be saved.

Expats consider this a huge victory, but in actuality it’s a bit of a wimp-out on the part of the local town hall. Every one of these homes was built on green land designated as being protected from development.

Instead, in an interview with Costa Blanca News, Catral's mayor Aurelio David Albero and town planning councillor Antonio Bellido revealed how the homes will be legalised providing the owners pay to have their properties incorporated onto a new town plan reclassifying the plots from rural land into land for development.

So it all comes down to money. The green land will still be lost, with concrete and tarmac replacing verdant wilderness, but the town hall is willing to overlook this in exchange cold hard cash.

A similar process is being set in motion in Murcia where the regional government has frozen plans to construct a golf course and 2,575 properties close to the village of Campos del Río.

The crucial points here, again, is that the site for the Trampolín Hills development is rural land, and that most of the properties were sold months ago, despite not having been approved by the Murcia regional government.

It makes me wonder what these buyers were thinking. Why didn’t they check the paperwork before signing the contract? Why didn’t they ask more questions, and refuse to hand over the deposit until all answers were satisfactory?

Spain’s town halls need to take responsibility for preventing developers building on rural land, but it’s also up to us to stop buying properties that shouldn’t even exist.

If we refused to buy them, developers might stop building them, which would protect Spain’s green areas so we can enjoy them for years to come.
 

As I was waiting to catch my train to the office today, I found myself considering how we Brits take our commutes for granted. Though we whinge about delayed trains and buses, extortionate fares, choked roads and petrol prices, we pretty much accept this daily struggle as the norm.

Sure, a few of us break free, work from home or are lucky enough to find a job within walking distance, but this is a rarity. For most of us, our journeys to and from work errode our leisure time massively – a state of affairs the Spanish would never stand for.

My train journey between Bristol and Bath takes between 12 and 20 minutes. Adding on to that walking to and from the station at both ends, my journey takes a minimum of 45 minutes, and that’s without taking into account the frequent delays and cancellations.

Yet this is nothing compared to anyone who travels to London for work, or even just across the capital, changing tubes umpteen times and arriving at their destination over two hours after leaving home.

London tube train © Christa Richert

When I mentioned the UK’s tangled commuter mess to a Spanish colleague, she was horrified, and when I considered the scenario I’d just described I could understand why.

For one thing, this stressful, traffic-snarled start to the working day simply doesn’t happen to the same degree in Spain.

As Sur In English recently reported, in Málaga, one of the major employment centres of the Costs del Sol, commuters take an average of 21 minutes to get to work. To me, that sounds pretty amazing, yet this is the eighth longest commuting time in Spain.

Even in Madrid the average commuting time is only 35 minutes, which would make any of London’s commuters green with envy. This is followed by Barcelona, where people take 25 minutes to get to work, and Seville, where the daily commute takes 24 minutes. In more rural areas such as Soria in the Castilla y Leon region and Teruel, Aragon, the average time it takes to get from home to work is only 13 minutes!

Ironically, these statistics came to light as part of a nationwide survey carried out by Spain’s Ministry of Development, who are concerned that the country’s transport links may need improving. It makes me realise that Spain is a great place to work, as well as live.

Shorter commutes mean longer lie ins, so no wonder the Spanish have the energy to stay up dancing till dawn!

I don’t know about you, but when I daydream about buying a property in Spain, I find myself imagining living there, setting up a glorious life in the sunshine in a country where enjoyment is still a priority and financial gain is useful but not crucial to this.

The Spanish property market has taken a bit of a battering over the last few months, and it’s no longer the place to buy if you’re after a speedy return on your investment. But surely that isn’t why we look to buy in Spain anyway.

There are plenty of cheaper markets to pick from at the moment, but many of them lack the ongoing appeal of Spain, from the climate to the culture, the nightlife to the national parks, the food to the festivities: all of which have contributed to one of the longest love affairs we Brits have ever indulged in.

The country has been a tourism hotspot since long before most of us even knew Bulgaria existed, and while it seems to have had more than its fair share of corruption scandals (Marbella springs to mind!), an array of new laws makes buying in Spain safer than ever, and far more secure than buying in any of the emerging markets.

The attributes I’ve mentioned above are also the things that make it a fantastic place to buy to let, meaning that you’ll have great potential for rental revenue, providing you can bear to share your bolt-hole in the sun.

However, if you’re anything like me, I think you’ll find yourself wanting to spend more and more time in your Spanish holiday home yourself. And why not? Many parts of Spain are only a few hours away from the UK, with low cost flights from most British airports making nipping over for a weekend as easy as can be.

The only downside may become evident when Sunday night looms and you know you really should be packing up and leaving, ready for real life to begin again on Monday morning. In fact, I think that’s the time when all thoughts of property markets and investment would fly out of the window, across the terrace and disappear into the olive grove below.

Because what does it matter how much you’ll make on your Spanish property when you don’t want to sell it anyway?
 

While we Brits have, for the most part, moved on from our days of cheering on cock fighting and the like, in Spain bullfighting is still as embedded in the culture as ever.

I’ve always been uneasy with the idea, envisioning bleeding bulls staggering around the ring being tormented until they die. But then again, I’ve never actually been to a bullfight, so I don’t feel in a position to criticise, though I’ve been in bars in Andalucia where the TV screens showed bullfights in the same way that pub TVs screen football and rugby matches in the UK.
I’m told that it’s less of a brutal fight to the death than a graceful dance between the matador and the bull, with each thrust of the sword or flick of the cape adding to the beauty of this bloody ballet.

However, the latest controversy has nothing to do with cruelty towards animals, and more to do with the creation of the animals themselves.

While matadors enjoy the same celebrity status of film stars and footballers in Spain, the fighting bulls are equally revered. One of the most famous bulls in recent years was Alcalde, who sired two sons who so impressed the legendary matador Julián López Escobar, known as El Juli, that he kept their heads once he’d slain them, decoratively mounted in his home. Makes you wonder what he’d think of the retro china ducks you see hanging from living room walls across the UK.

Victoriano del Rio, the breeder of this magnificent stud, has decided to clone the bull at a cost of around €35,000. This the first time a fighting bull has been cloned in Spain, and while it will be a some time before del Rio will see whether the perfect genetic copy will produce offspring of Alcalde's fighting quality, the bull breeder is keen to see the results.

Del Rio’s unprecedented plan has come to light just as Britain's first human-animal hybrid embryos have been created. While this move aims purely provide a supply of stem cells for medical research, it opens up a whole array of questions about the possibilities of cloning. Scientists at Newcastle University produced the human-animal hybrid embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg, using a Frankenstein-esque electric shock to then induce the hybrid embryo to grow.

Though these hybrid embryos will never be allowed to mature, this technology could transform Spain’s bullfighting heritage into an entirely new sport. Instead of forcing unwitting bulls to battle with skilled matadors, human-bull hybrids could take to the ring and fight one another to the death. In fact, a few earlobe cells from Alcalde blended with some DNA from El Juli could create an unbeatable matador-bull hybrid.

The victor, however, might prefer to stick to flying china ducks for their living room wall.

Bullfighting: ancient art or just cruel?

There’s been a massive corruption scandal in Spain recently, that for once has nothing to do with property, construction, developers or government officials.

Actually, the latter may not be entirely true, if the government officials in question have offspring.

Spain has always been proud of its child-friendly society, welcoming kids into restaurants and cherishing them with an enthusiasm that makes British parents seem cold and unfeeling in comparison. Family life is far more a priority in Spain, in general.

However, the latest revelations cast some doubt on that, and give cause for British parents to feel a tad smug. While our children’s Spanish contemporaries may have the love of an extended family to revel in, the traditional nuclear family is under threat from an unexpected corner – the schools.

As entry into Spanish secondary schools is based on a points system, ambitious parents have been doing anything possible to earn the points to get their children into the best schools, including getting divorced.

Bizarre as this seems, the family courts in Seville saw a dramatic rise in the divorce rate just as school places were being decided last year, with the number of divorces or official separations rising from 259 in January 2007 to 387 in March 2007. At least some of these were couples with perfectly happy marriages, but an insatiable thirst for the two extra points allocated to the children of divorced or separated couples by the education authorities.

In fact, Andalucia's education authorities investigated 731 claims of parents of faking school place applications, and 26 six cases of fraud were uncovered involving couples who claimed to be divorced or separated in order to win extra school points, but were actually living together.

I remember being at school and hearing about the horror breakdown of friends’ families – surely a worst-case scenario in most children’s opinions. Ask any child to grade in order of importance issues such as the school they go to, having good friends, and being part of a happy family, and it’s highly unlikely that they’ll list the school first.

In 2007, Spain’s children were rated among the world’s happiest, coming fifth out of 21 countries in a study on children's wellbeing carried out by Unicef. Spain scored particularly highly in the section on family relationships, but if parents continue to prioritise schooling over their children’s sense of security, that kind of innocent happiness could soon be a nostalgic memory.

Perhaps it’s time for these parents to value their country's low divorce rates, so that Spain’s youngsters can get on with enjoying the bliss of a carefree childhood in the sun.  

Carefree kids © José A. Warletta

Córdoba was a gorgeous city, filled with the smell of oranges, saffron and sun-warmed stone. Despite being the tenth largest city in Spain, many of the streets are so narrow that only a moped could scoot through with ease, which would make it a great setting for rambunctious 1970s-style TV police chases.

Córdoba's narrow streets would be the perfect setting for a car chase...

A bit of a random observation, for sure, but if you’re a fan of surreal cop show Life on Mars, you might be intrigued to learn that the series will soon be relocating to Spain, hence my train of thought. It’s difficult to image Gene Hunt transformed into a Spanish policeman, but his machismo attitude is perfectly suited to Spain, especially Spain of the 1970s.

While Life on Mars was set mainly in 1973, Vida en Marte will be set in 1978, mainly because until 1975 Spain was still squashed beneath the dictating thumb of General Franco, and women weren’t even allowed into the police force, making the patronising attitudes faced by the British version’s WPC seem positively enlightened in comparison.

But 1978 marked a hugely exciting time in Spain, as the brand new constitution completed the country’s transition to democracy and the Spanish finally began to experience freedoms the rest of us had been enjoying for decades. In fact, if I could choose a time in Spain to travel to, this might well be it.

Antena 3, the television broadcaster who’ve signed a deal with the BBC to remake the series, have no plans to air the show in the UK, but just think what we’ll be missing. Though the scripts will follow the episodes set in Manchester, the concept is being remodelled for the Spanish audience, replacing incidents with the IRA with the terrorist activities of Basque Country’s ETA, adding a few more dodgy moustaches and no doubt inserting the occasional unrelated sex scene for authenticity’s sake.

It would be intriguing to see what the BBC would do to those Spanish television favourites, the telenovela. These melodramatic series have all the angst of a British soap opera, with the addition of some glamour, fabulous overacting, and lashing of tawdry love affairs. If you’ve ever watched Ugly Betty, chances are you’ll have caught glimpses of what I’m talking about, as the character Ignacio Suarez, Betty’s dad, is often glued to these intensively glittery dramas. In fact, these scenes are probably an homage to the roots of the series, as it’s based on a popular Colombian telenovela called Yo Soy Betty La Fea.

It’s difficult to imagine the outcome of crossing such glorious exuberance with EastEnders, but the result may well be that Pat Butcher’s famous earrings would become essential wear for all female members of the cast, while hair would be bigger, clothes would be smaller, and there would be many more lustful, lingering gazes across the Queen Vic.

The differences between our TV-viewing habits may tell us more out the UK and Spain’s cultural differences than any fiesta, bullfight or football match ever could. However, it also reveals our similarities. As Mercedes Gamero, head of acquisitions at Antena 3, explains, Spanish viewers will be drawn to the blend of humour, nostalgia and drama that epitomised Life on Mars, while perhaps our own soaps would benefit from a shot of the glitz and gleam of those alluring telenovas.

The news from Spain has been packed with fabulous quirks recently. My favourite story to date is about Catalonia’s socialist party (PSC) releasing a perfume. Apparently the blend of Mediterranean herbs and fruits, white tea and oriental spices sums up the key attributes of socialism, enabling the wearer to exude “confidence, equality, progress and efficiency”. I’m so intrigued by this story that I emailed the PSC this morning, asking for a sample to be sent to me, but who knows whether it will ever arrive?

The story got me thinking, however. According to Air Sense News, the concept of using smell as a marketing tool is hardly new. A browse through their website revealed that Reebok have developed trainers scented with, of all things, Kool-Aid, a sweet, vaguely fruit-flavoured drink favoured by children and adolescents in America. I suspect the Spanish version would smell more of red wine or sherry, resulting in lots of joggers being intoxicated on the fumes released by their sweating feet.

As reported by FM World, research carried out by Japanese fragrance producer Takasago revealed that the aromas of a workplace influences productivity, with lavender, jasmine, and lemon having the biggest effects.

Currently, the Spanish Homes office stinks of coffee, over-ripe apples and what my Senior Editor calls ‘cake’, but the rest of us know as ‘supermarket own-brand mini rolls’. Despite these odours, which didn’t even get a mention in the Takasago report, everyone seems to be working pretty hard, suggesting that deadlines can be just as much of a motivating factor.

Judy Darley inhales the smell of the sea

Another story from Air Sense News is a report on Israel's Bank Leumi’s decision to introduce scent into its branches to increase customer loyalty. While piping the fragrance of baking bread into supermarket aisles can directly influence you to crave fresh rolls, could the whiff of green tea really encourage you to stay with a particular bank?

The answer seems to be yes, simply because on a subliminal level it makes being in that bank a more pleasant experience. Chances are, you wouldn’t even notice the smell, but you would probably leave the premises feeling more relaxed than 20 minutes of queuing could account for.

Which leaves me with one final question. We have no intention of scenting the pages of our magazine, but it does make me wonder what smell could encapsulate the essence of Spanish Homes Magazine. Sometimes as we near deadline, the stench of the editorial team’s blood, sweat and tears would be most appropriate.

On an average day, however, I think we would smell pretty good. Flicking through our sunny pages, I’m thinking of quintessentially Spanish aromas: the sweet fragrance of fresh, plump oranges, a hint of pine and honey, and the faintest suggestion of the sea – the kind of smell I’d like to inhale again and again.

Next week I fly to Córdoba to investigate property developments in the area. When I get back, I’ll let you know how they smelled – because aroma can tell you so much more than you might expect.

The sweet smell of oranges © Rob Coldwell

With Christmas decorations already up all over Bath now, holding our second cava tasting felt much more seasonal, even if it is still November! Crisp, bright mornings make my journey to the office more beautiful than usual, with frosted fields and chilly-looking sheep providing a gorgeous backdrop to my train journey from Bristol.

It all makes writing about Spain seem rather strange. I spent much of this week writing up interviews with expats who’ve moved to sunny spots in Málaga and Cádiz, as well as writing a feature about my own trip to Málaga. It’s hard to believe that not so long ago I was strolling through exquisite mountain villages such as Cómpeta and yearning for a spot of shade to cool me down!

Along with the gloriously bubbly cavas we tasted yesterday, we also had a collection of Spanish treats to try, kindly sent to us by Delicioso.

Turrón, a sort of almond nougat, is hugely popular in Spain, especially at Christmas time, when huge slabs of it are sold in supermarkets. We sampled a delicious chocolate turrón, along with assorted jewel-like Marzipan 'Panellets', honey and hazelnut biscuits and ground-almond biscuits called polvorones – all of which were perfect with the crisp, fruity cavas. My favourite description this time was that one of the wines was reminiscent of the smell of dandelions!

All of this will be in our Christmas/New Year special, on sale from December 19th. In the meantime, however, our new issue goes on sale next week and is a far greener, sunnier golf special – perfect for fuelling daydreams to get you through the British autumn.

It’s November 2nd and my head is full of Christmas already. I'm in the middle of writing a feature about Christmas celebrations in Spain, and it's amazing how different it all is over there! Christmas day isn't special at all, compared with Christmas Eve and Jan 6th. Some expats celebrate Dec 24th and Jan 6th with their Spanish neighbours, and spend Christmas day with their British friends, so they get to enjoy the best of both sides!

We sampled four bottles of cava yesterday in preparation for our Christmas issue, so that was a fun afternoon, and my colleagues gave me some great adjectives. My favourite was what I thought said 'hints of peas', which amused me greatly, until Miriam, who'd written it, corrected me - she'd written 'hints of pears' not peas! Very disappointing. Never mind, we're going to do another tasting next week or the week after and maybe someone will describe one as having a 'bouquet or sprouts' or something equally incongruous…

With Christmas and New Year approaching I’ve also been toying with the idea of New Year’s resolutions. For many of our readers, 2008 will be the year when they change their lives by buying a home in Spain – an incredible achievement!

I have some friends who resolved a few years ago to try something new each month of the year, and have had some great experiences as a result, from trying canoeing for the first time to visiting New York to taking on the Three Peaks challenge. I seem to inadvertently try something new most months anyway – I suppose this year’s biggie for me was getting married in May – first and last time, hopefully!

I’m currently reading a book called ‘Sally’s Odd at Sea’, by Sally Kettle, about her adventures rowing across the Atlantic ocean from La Gomera, in the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. It’s an inspiring read, not least because she travels with her mother. I plan to pass the book onto my own mum after I finish reading it. I just imagine her expression. Perhaps I should stick a disclaimer on the front – ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’m not planning to make you spend 105 days at sea with me in a tiny boat!’  

Look at the concentration on their faces!

This weekend I’m going to as friend’s housewarming, which she’s combining with a Halloween party. So often, Halloween slips by with barely a mention, and coming from a family who always celebrated with costume parties and ghost stories, it’s nice to be marking it this year. I’ll be dressed as a devil, in case you’re wondering.

Halloween is a huge event in Spain, where November 1st is known as All Saints Day, or Todos los santos. This is best experienced in Cádiz, where the locals feast on mountains of roasted chestnuts and panellets, small almond cakes, plus Pan de Muerto, quite literally Bread of Dead.

After the feasting and a few Requiem Masses, everyone heads to the cemeteries where special offerings called ofrendas are laid on the graves, along with candles, mementos and mounds of marigolds, the traditional flower of the dead, to ensure the deceased know they aren’t forgotten.

And once Halloween is out of the way, we can start thinking about Christmas! Due to print deadlines, we’re already planning our Christmas special, and next week we’ll be sampling some of Spain’s finest cava in preparation for some seasonal reviews. It’s a hard life…

A week ago I arrived home from Lisbon, one of the mot beautiful city’s I’ve ever seen. The trip was a gastronomy tour organised by the tourist board, and I was one of four journalists attending.

It was the first time I’d done the whole ‘group press trip’ thing – usually I’m the only media bod in attendance and get to dictate what I want to see to some extent. This time there was a strict four-page itinerary, but it was so well thought out that there’s no way I could have done better myself.

One the first day we arrived at the beautiful Penha Longa Hotel and Golf Resort, a fabulously luxurious establishment just a short drive from the city. A few hours after our arrival, dinner was served in the assaMassa restaurant, and I don’t think we had more than an hour’s break between mouthfuls from then until we flew home, apart from when we were sleeping.

I never realised this before, but this part of southern Portugal is renowned for its pastries, and we sampled plenty during our four days there, including the famous pastries de Belém, the recipe of which is so closely guarded that only three people currently know the exact combination of eggs, ground almonds and sugar that go into the creamy filling.

Other highlights included riding the ancient yellow trams in Lisbon, hearing the mournful Fados – traditional Portuguese laments – being sung, and meandering through the incredibly ornate Jerónimos Monastery – a tranquil space where I would have like to spend several hours soaking up the stillness.

As always, I saw enough of the city to tantalise me, and make me vow to return. In the meantime, there are magazines to create, and, hopefully, future trips to plan…

Jeronimos Monastery

So, I’m back from my trips to Málaga and Kefalonia, and getting stuck into the next issue of Spanish Homes Magazine.

Málaga was much prettier than I expected. Yes, large areas around Marbella were overdeveloped, but many of these developments were really lovely, especially Los Arqueros and El Bosque. At Puerto Banus I had the opportunity to visit the harbour ogle some of the biggest yachts I’ve ever seen – some were more like apartment blocks than buildings! I also witnesssed some first class flamenco at El Patio de Los Perfumes in Marbella’s lovely old town, as well as indulging in a fantastic meal at the restaurant Limonar 40 in one of the most prestigious areas of Málaga. You’ll be able to read my reviews in the next few issues of Spanish Homes.

Then I flew back to Bristol with just enough time to repack, remind myself what my husband looks like, and head back to the airport to fly to the gorgeous Greek island of Kefalonia – a completely different experience.

I arrived in the middle of the night with little idea of my location. When morning came, I woke up, walked into the kitchen, and the first thing I saw as I glanced out of the window was the sea; so much sea that it stretched all the way to the horizon from the shore just 100 metres away. Unbelievable! I flung open the door to the terrace and discovered a terrace, a hammock and a picnic table.

It was 8am on the first of October, and all I needed to wear was a T-shirt, floaty skirt, and sunglasses.

The house that I stayed in belongs to a Welsh couple that spend only a couple of weeks a year on the island. I can’t imagine owning a home on such a beautiful spot in the world and not wanting to spend every spare moment there. I can’t wait to find an excuse to return!

In the meantime, I’ll be heading for a gastronomic tour of Lisbon for another of our sister mags, Portugal Magazine, this Thursday, returning late on Sunday. I’m looking forward to seeing what this part of Portugal has to offer, as despite visiting Porto, Madeira and various rural areas, I’ve never spent more than a couple of hours in the capital before, which makes this trip even more exciting!

I’m just about recovered now after a fun weekend trying out the treetop assault course, Go-Ape, in the Forest of Dean. If you’ve never done this, I thoroughly recommend it - my muscles have just about recovered!

You’ll find Go Ape High Wire Forest Adventure courses in 12 forests across the UK. I went to the one in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and had a fantastic afternoon swooping through the trees, clambering up rope ladders and wobbling my way across various obstacles, including an exhilarating tarzan swing, which provided the sense of swinging through in jungle into a huge net that I could only cling to until I’d regained enough energy to haul myself up onto the next platform. Great fun!

And tomorrow my next adventure begins. First thing in the morning (well, in the middle of the night – I have to be at the airport by 4.15!) I’ll be on my way to Málaga, and I can’t wait. Today has been mad getting everything done before I go away, but it’s all been worth it for the chance to sample a new part of Spain.

I’ll be staying in Puerto Banus on Tuesday night and in the centre of Málaga city the next, and I’ll be interested to see how they compare. Locals tell me that they’re extremely different, but that both have their own charm. When I return, I’ll let you know what I thought of them.

As the Feature’s Editor of Spanish Homes magazine, editor Miriam decided it was time that I did my bit for the blog-dom of Merricks Media, sharing my thoughts on everything that springs to mind.

This week I’m mainly preoccupied with writing as many features as possible, as after next Monday I won’t be in the office for a while, with two press trips coming up. The first will be to the Los Eucaliptos development at the Los Arqueros Golf and Country Club in Málaga, courtesy of Taylor Woodrow España. I’ve never been to this part of Spain before, and plan to see as much of the surrounding area as possible.

If you have any favourite spots, let me know (judy.darley@merricksmedia.co.uk) and I’ll try to get to them. I’m also pleased about this trip because, despite not playing golf, I love love love golf developments. They’re always so gorgeously laid out, with fab facilities, and I can’t wait to see what Los Eucaliptos have to offer.

The second trip is for our sister publication, Greece Magazine, and I will be flying from Bristol to explore the beautiful island of Kefalonia. As it’s the end of the season, it took forever to find a flight home, and I did suggest staying in Greece until the flights start up again in the spring, but sadly my colleagues, not to mention my husband, disagreed. So I’m heading back to Bristol via Athens and Heathrow, arriving home on Wednesday October 3rd.

At this point, no doubt, I will start plotting my next trip away to satisfy my wanderlust just as much my writing commitments.