10 reasons why your own home cinema rocks!

Easy social distancing with an outdoor home cinema

We have set up a projector on our balcony to screen films on at night time. You can read all about how easy it is to set up your own outdoor home cinema over on Ciaran's blog - click here.

Here's my top 10 reasons why a home cinema is awesome:

1. You get to choose what to watch and not have to pick from whatever is showing in the local cinemaplex
2. You can eat whatever snacks you want!
3. You can talk during the movie :-)
   
4. You can have an adult beverage
5. You can switch off and watch something different if you don't like the film
6. You can watch the film under a blanket to get all cozy
7. Your dog can watch the film too - yes Bones likes to do this!
8. You can enjoy looking up at the stars if the film is boring
9. You can binge watch a whole series on Netflix
10. You can press pause when you go visit the bathroom!

Can you think of any other reasons why a home cinema rocks?! Leave a comment below

What I've been working on: PIGSY website

PIGSY Art Website 

The big project that I'm currently working on is PIGSY's website. Ciaran gave it a major overhaul and design upgrade when Ireland went in to lockdown at the start of the pandemic.

The piece of work that I am now doing on it is I am going back over all of the content and optimizing it for search engines (SEO). Along with all of this I am amending and adding to current content. I recently added a new page which shows PIGSY artworks on walls in homes. This is a really great way to showcase the artwork and it also emphasizes how contemporary they are and what a feature they become when hung in a space.  

Importantly the website is both desktop and mobile friendly. From looking at stats I can see that more people visit the website using a mobile device than on a desktop computer. Sign of the times and this really doesn't surprise me. I'm open to suggestions or critique on the website so get in contact with me if you can offer any advice for improvements - particularly if you excel at SEO as I am a newbie to it!

Additionally I would like more backlinks to the PIGSY website so that's probably the next stage of this project. Get in contact with me if you have any helpful suggestions on how this can be done.

The most beautiful bookshop I've ever visited...

Mapas y Compañia
Calle Compañía, 33, 29008 Málaga

I've visited lots of nice bookstores on my travels.... but I think this one is the nicest! 

I was planning on visiting a second hand shop on the same street but it did not open at 5pm as was indicated on the internet. I sat outside the shop for a couple of minutes to see if they were opening a little late but there was no signs of life within so I left. 

As I walked towards home I passed this beautiful independent bookshop and decided to pop in for a visit. I was wowed when I stepped in. It felt like being on a film set. The books and other small items for sale were displayed in the most beautiful cases. It is mainly travel related books that are for sale but other selections too. There was a big collection of Tintin books in different languages along with Tintin merchandise - I wanted to buy it all!

As this was an impromptu visit, I did not stay too long - but I plan to visit again soon to enjoy it's charms. I may also buy a Tintin book in Spanish as it may help with my language study as I can follow along with the story using both the pictures and the text.

Sea glass

Collecting Sea Glass 

One of the things I have been enjoying lately is looking for sea glass after my daily swim. I spend a couple of minutes when I get out of the water taking a wander a long the shore and pick up a few pieces if there is any to be found (sometimes the waves are very close to the shore and they pull all the stones back to sea so there is no chance of finding any glass.)

Generally I only find orange, white and green glass but I was hoping to find a blue piece. Well guess what?!

Today's the day - I found a blue piece!

Here's the blue piece that I found today (see below). It's a gorgeous colour. 

Look also at the little green piece that I have put to the front on the white pieces. It's in the shape of a heart!! I found the heart shaped piece on my first day of collecting sea glass so it spurred me to keep going with the collecting. 

I am now on the look out for a nice glass bowl or jar to put the sea glass in. Watch this space!

Coffee time in Malaga

Tassimo Coffee Machine 

As I wrote before, we have got in to a nice routine of going for a swim every morning and then going for coffee and a little breakfast (pitufo). I was enjoying this except for the fact that we had difficulty finding somewhere that served good coffee. The first few times I ordered a Cafe con Leche and I ended up with a short coffee (which seemed hopeful) with lots of milk. I was hopeful about it as it was short so I reckoned it might taste strong, but unfortunately it just tasted like warm milk with a barely there taste of coffee. I then moved on to ordering a Cortado which was better but still not great in some places. 

So after a lot of mulling it over I decided to get a coffee machine for here in the apartment. I've always had Nespresso machines at home in Ireland but after talking to a few people and getting recommendations I decided to order a Tassimo machine as they have a much broader range of coffees - for example you can buy pods to make cafe au laits and machiattos and even chai lattes and hot chocolates!

And here it is our shiny new Tassimo Suny

With our breakfast we had a L'Or Espresso which we both really enjoyed. Short, strong coffee - just perfect.

I look forward to trying other flavours and will order some online as when the machine arrived it also contained a money off coupon for when you place your first coffee pod order.

Lunch in Malaga Market

Yesterday I wrote about buying food in the market in Malaga and today I am going to let you know about another fun thing that you can do at Malaga Market.

Lunch!

You can stand at a counter inside the market have a drink while looking at different fresh fish and order what takes your fancy. We didn't even look at a menu but instead ordered what everyone around us was ordering.  It was typical tapas style, so we ordered one or two and then a few more after we had eaten them. Some items needed to be cooked while others were served to us cold with some salt and lemon juice. All were delicious!

An Electric BBQ - who knew?!

When we started making plans for our year away in Spain, one of the things that we both said we wanted to do was get a BBQ and cook out every night. Over the years we have considered having a barbecue in our garden in Ireland but we always discounted it for one reason or another. Early on when we got married we bought a charcoal barbecue which I think put us off barbecues as it was difficult to use and to be honest more hassle than it was worth. It took an age to heat up and then the food didn't cook properly and then it had to be cleaned etc. 

However, when we moved to Spain we planned to do it differently. We planned on getting a gas BBQ which seemed WAY more convenient than the charcoal. 

So when we arrived, we started doing research on what barbecue to get and where to buy it. And that's when I discovered electric barbecues!!

You can probably tell I am all about convenience and when I discovered that there was such a thing as an electric bbq and that it was rated as being a good alternative to gas I decided that this was the bbq for us. Not having to bother about gas bottle replacement seemed like a brilliant option - literally just plug in and go!

So this is the one that we settled on: the Weber Q1400 with a stand

As you can see it is a gorgeous little bbq and sizewise it is perfect for us. It cooks enough food for two people with no issue and probably could cook for 3/4 with a little bit of a squeeze. After delivery of the BBQ we ordered the Weber gridle / hot plate to go with it which will enable us to cook bacon and eggs with ease on it!

So far we have cooked T-Bone steak that we bought in the Malaga market. We had this on two nights along with grilled vegetables (again will probably cook better on the gridle when we get it) and chicken on skewers for the past two nights along with romaine lettuce cooked on the barbecue which is so delicious!

My secret ingredient on the chicken marinade is lime juice!! I squeeze a whole lot of it over the chicken along with olive oil, garlic powder, paprika and salt & pepper. So tasty!!

Buying food in the market is a little overwhelming at first but a lot of fun. There is so much to choose from and it is busy busy busy. But it is spotlessly clean and the food is beyond fresh so it is definitely the place to go for the best food. For us, we just need to decide in advance what we want to buy and then look up the Spanish translation for it so that we can practice speaking in Spanish when we visit.

And after we did our food shopping, we sat out in the sun and enjoyed a glass of wine and a cana of beer and made plans for the rest of the day.  

Enjoy your day where ever in the world you are!

Mornings in Malaga

 We've settled in to a nice routine here in Malaga. 

To start the day, the first thing we do is cycle to La Malgueta beach for a dip in the sea.  No matter the weather, it's always a great way to start the day. Today was cool and cloudy and the water was colder than yesterday (it rained overnight) but still the water was refreshing and rejuvenating.

After our swim, we go home and get Bones and then head out to get a coffee and a little breakfast if we are feeling peckish.We have a few different cafes that we like and we can get some food and a drink for about 4 or 5 euro.

Once we have drank our coffee, we make our way back to our apartment where we do an online Spanish lesson. Sometimes we follow this by listening to another Spanish lesson podcast while we are sunbathing on the balcony.

Later in the afternoon, Pigsy heads to his studio to paint and I knuckle down to doing some work. Things are going well with promoting Pigsy and his work. Last week, he gave an interview on an Irish programme on a Spanish Radio Station and he was also featured in Sur in English which is the expat newspaper in Costa del Sol.

In other news, I played my first padel tennis game which was A LOT of fun!