Websites and getting Optimised

The more I read and study on the Internet, the more I begin to understand that there are many forms of getting "noticed". Be it submitting articles (of which I have done several on Moving to Spain and registering a UK vehicle in Spain to name just a couple), but there is also this Bogey Word called Web Site Optimisation!

YIPES! What a MINEFIELD.

I have friends who don't live here in Córdoba, and who DON'T run a Bed & Breakfast (there - a perfect example of optimising - Córdoba and Bed & Breakfast are two really important words for us, but I can't sit here repeating them over and over, and use the example to prove a point) - who do have websites offering services, and who have their website details or connected details filling up page one of Google!

IT'S VERY ANNOYING!
So, I am now spending several hours each day writing articles, and working on this issue of Optimising. I am writing about Pamper Weekends, or the fact that I personally love to be pampered. I am writing about being a single parent, and the pitfalls and joys of such a life. I am joining forums and clubs that have relevant members - others with a bed & breakfast perhaps, or are running their own successful businesses. Needless to say, none of them have ever heard of La Celada, or Iznájar for that matter . But I hope, that with time and my efforts, they SOON WILL!

Gathering Olives

This is a photograph of Iznájar, taken through the branches of an olive tree in La Celada, where we now live. I am posting it because it is relevant today as, in my finery, I found myself grovelling around on the floor picking up the olives that have fallen for a friend. It is a very humbling experience to spend time with people who break their backs doing a job that pays so little in reality. These people earn between 50 and 70 cents per kilo of olives, even though the machinery they have to use is expensive, the time they need to get the olives off the trees is seemingly never ending, and they do it all with a happy and humble heart.

My son was in his element - climbing trees, hurling olive bombs as us as we worked around the children, all the while occasionally coming down from his squirrel nest to "help" a little - and every little really does help in this work!

I will write a longer post about the process in due course, but now it is WEEKEND OFF, and I am going to enjoy every single moment of it!

Frenetic Yoga ????

I'm sure it shouldn't have felt like that! But I was so hopelessly overexcited ! I have my first weekend "off" this weekend since some wonderful friends and I have decided to do "Child Swaps". NOT like wife swapping I can assure you ...

The Spanish are such a toughened people that they really don't, ever, take time off. They clean if they are not cooking; they look after their families in a way that puts the British "stuff 'em in a home and forget'em" publicity to shame ....

However some friends and I have all agreed that a weekend off every month or so DOES do the soul good. AND IT'S MY TURN STARTING TOMORROW!!!!

So why have I called this article Frenetic Yoga I hear you wonder as you scratch your head and peruse this ...

Well, because a mate of mine is organising himself as we speak to leave his work at 1am in Barcelona, take a glass or two of wine with a friend after work, then take the dawn flight from Barcelona to Málaga where I will meet him and we will have a party-filled Robbie Burns noticing weekend of adult (probably) drunkenness and debauchery ..... IT WILL MAKE A CHANGE I CAN TELL YOU!!!

I am SO looking forward to it that I decided I would clean the house from top to bottom in honour AND get my legs waxed (think Highland Cow) for the event ... so when it was time for my Thursday morning Yoga class I was so frantic and hyper with the excitement of starting to see my home looking tidy again, I got a bit "pepped out" and had to breathe - that´s

b-r-e-a-t-h-e - slow and deep, in order to bring myself back down to Planet Normal again ---

But it is very exciting to have time all to myself I have to say - and even more exciting to have made a plan so that I have a few more of them this year!

Musician Inspires Monthly Healing Meeting

Okay so I know it's an unusual photograph for this blog, but being as I have been a bit slothful these past few weeks, I thought I would put in a good picture to make up for it ...

This photo was taken outside (and no I did NOT eat there) Burger King in Torremolinos - where I went for the weekend with my son and my mother to get a bit of mental-ness.....!

That may sound strange, but living in the beautiful, peaceful, unspoilt mountains of Spain, I have learned that every so often I like to go to the coast, the cities, or the generally looning places where there are more British people than indigenous locals, and remind myself of why I LOVE rural Spain.

And this man, whose name I am sorry I don't know, is from Peru, and has the licence to do his thing throughout the season, and we LOVED listening to him - his music was so peaceful and tranquil and beautiful, even though he was literally flying from one instrument to the other to make up the effect.

Since being there, we now have a musical healing night here in the Guest House pretty much every full moon now with several people who choose to come each time, and others who come when they feel like they need a musical pan pipe drumming rattling healing and talking session. It is absolutely wonderful! Although totally NOT obligatory!

If you are interested in coming specifically for a healing / pampering holiday, do let us know - we have access to Chiropractic, Reflexology, Healing, Shamanic Healing, Massage, Manicures, Pedicures, Waxing, Hair Styling, Full Facials and Body Treatments ... and of course we have the Hot Tub up on our roof terrace where you can be hubbled and bubbled before your treatments and after with a glass of bubbly!

Shooting Stars

The adventure continues! My son and I have escaped the humdrum of our school term life for a few weeks with our wonderful although less than reliable campervan! Bless her she is 12 years old after all so I can´t complain, but it is a little tiring when we have no means whatsoever of cooling our fridge! So we have stayed put in one place for 3 weeks, and I have to say I am loving it. Loving it for a zillion reasons, but most of all because it is the first time since I met my ex husband thirteen years ago that I have been truly having a holiday doing what I want to do, rather than going along with someone else´s idea.....

So here we are, on the most beautiful campsite in Jaén, Andalucia, on the outskirts of a very typically southern spanish village called Cazorla (Cathorla). Cazorla is a gateway to the immense, breathtaking and HUMUMGOUS national park that spreads up and all around Cazorla. It offers something for everyone, from hang gliding, to 4x4 mountain trails, to horse riding, to river swimming, to rock climbing, to natural health holiday retreats (visit my lovely friends Diana & Roger Birch´s website http://www.losabedules-cazorla.com/ for the MOST magical location for a holiday out here with everything available that you could possibly want including the most gorgeous salt water swimming pool ....).

We have been enchanted by this village / town with its lanes that are only JUST wide enough to get a car through with an inch or two to spare on either side (used only for donkeys laden with their baskets on either side), with the balconies overhead heaving with geraniums and asparagus plants to name a few of the leaves I recognise!

It is a painter and artist paradise here with the nearby beautiful cities of Úbeda and Baeza, and we haven´t as yet got much further! But what I have done, after lights out, is quietly creep out of our lovely wagon up the terraces of the campsite to where the sky opens above your head - and on my first night here, the sky honoured me with FOUR shooting stars ..... Beautiful.

More to come .....