My Spanish Vida

  ~ Disclaimer - this post is not associated with any ITV centres in Spain or anything that they maybe connected with them. I am also not a car mechanic of any sorts and I would always advise to seek professional advice. This post is simply sharing my experience of an ITV ~ It's that time when Marks car is due it's ITV, which is similar to the UK's MOT. In Spain your car has it's first ITV check when it's 4 years old. Then every 2 years up until the car is 10, then it's checked every year. When living in another country and not really knowing the lingo, these type of things can seem a little daunting at times and it may feel easier to just throw money at things to get someone to do it for you.  Which I think happens a lot when it comes to getting your cars ITV. A lot of garages offer a service where they will do a pre-itv check and then take your car to the test centre and do it for you. Sounds great doesn't it. Which it is don't get me wrong at all, it&

  You've probably heard me talk about La Mirada before or seen some pictures shared on my  Instagram  page as La Mirada is still one of our go-to places for coffee/breakfast/lunch and even dinner too. For the last 6 or 7 years ever since we first bought our house on the Costa Blanca South and even now when we've moved a little bit further up to Pilar de la Horadada, La Mirada at La Zenia beach is somewhere we still love to visit regularly.  Name & location ~  Restaurante   La Mirada, Paseo del Mar 2, Urb. La Zenia 03189                                           (situated next door to Hotel Servigroup La Zenia) To Eat ~ We love Tapas. Such a huge variety. Magra con tomate is my favourite and Mark loves the      Calamari alla romana. The meatballs and garlic prawns are very tasty and their patatas fritas (chips) are really good as well. I can also recommend the Chicken caeser salad and the pizzas. We are also partial to stopping by for a breakfast croissant, usually ham &

Campoamor Beach has always been one of our favourite spots here on the Costa Blanca South. The two restaurants that sit right on the edge of the beach are La Barraca and Montepiedra. We actually haven't got round to eating in La Barraca yet even though the menu looks beautiful and we have only ever had snacks in Montepiedra, but that aside they're both such perfect places to sit with a coffee, soak up the sea air whilst watching the world go by. Sadly when we went for a walk there the other day they were both closed up for the season. Covid aside I think they would be closed anyway, as many places do shut from January into February here. It doesn't stop us from spending time at Campoamor beach though. We love to walk along the beach promenade and then around to the marina. Back in September 2019 when the 'gota fria' hit it damaged the beach front in Campoamor pretty bad. They've had a temporary wooden walkway there for quite a while now. It was definitely there

Happy new year ~ Sorry I'm late ~ I know it's 9 days into January already, possibly 10 by the time I publish this post, but I am still positive for the new year ahead of us and I think you should be too. The world is still a crazy place. At the stroke of midnight on December 31st we didn't suddenly bounce into a Covid free, everything springing back to normal fluffy bunny place again, but we did enter a brand new year.  Even though I know you can have a fresh start any day, any month and basically anytime of the year, but there is something refreshing about January isn't there? It does feel like the slate is wiped clean somehow with twelve fresh months to explore.  The world is still grim regarding Covid. There's no two ways about it and there's no way of putting a fluffy positive spin on it because it sucks. But what we can do is this. We know it exists. We know they're working on vaccines. We know we all have to be super flexible, like super star yoga teac

As the Summer is officially coming to a close Mark and I decided we needed to have some sort of vacay/mini break before the end of the season. For obvious reasons we haven't had a holiday this year like many of us and after our stay at the Caleia was a bit of a flop, to put it nicely! (you can read the post about it here )  We decided to treat ourselves to a night away at one of our favourite hotels not far away from us in La Manga.    - this post contains affiliate links, please see my contact/disclaimer page fro more info - We first stayed at the  La Manga Club Principe Felipe   way back in January for Mark's birthday. We really enjoyed our stay back then and it didn't disappoint at the weekend either. We had a standard room, which we didn't get an upgrade this time, but even so the room was spacious and comfy. We had a beautiful view overlooking part of the golf course with the mountains in the distance. It was perfect. We spent Sunday afternoon relaxing around the

Last week seemed to have whizzed past in a blink of an eye. I had all good intentions to share the photos in this post on  Instagram  and post to the blog, but the days just ran away with us. During the week we did manage to squeeze in a lovely lunch at our favorite beach cafe,  Max's Beach Restaurant   in Lo Pagan.   We shared our usual chicken tikka wrap, had a diet coke each followed by a coffee. It was a lovely couple of hours soaking up the sunny Spanish sea air. We then drove all the way along the beach promenade into Santiago de la Ribera. It's so beautiful all the way along there, perfect for winter walks. As we reached the end of the week we decided a 'holiday day' at the pool was needed. On Friday we went to our favourite pool  La Mirada   in La Zenia. Which was the perfect way to end a busy week.  Here's a few picture's from Lo Pagan and La Zenia before they disappear into the phone's abyss! x Heather also find me on  Twitter ,  Instagram  &