Cat Gaa and Hayley Salvo met in Spain, having left the United States to embark upon new lives in the country. They found they had a great deal in common, amongst others just how complicated and challenging it was to tackle the paperwork, bureaucracy and the official documentation before they could relax into the laidback Spanish way of life. To help others avoid the same pitfalls, they decided to work together and compare an e-book guide to moving to Spain. (more…)

July 20^th 1969, the day ‘the eagle landed’ and Neil A. Armstrong took his famous “one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind”, was humanity’s proudest moment—or was it? So incomprehensible was the news that we had landed a manned craft on the moon, that it temporarily brought together a world steeped in political conflict. The moon landing was born out of the space race—in itself yet another manifestation of the cold war—and it was certainly a major coup for the USA, but the sheer accomplishment of it had a profound effect on people the world over. For a brief moment, the world came to a standstill as images were beamed from the moon in a testimonial to what humans are capable of. (more…)

Originally published in Essential Magazine

Marbella has been through many economic cycles, most recently a pretty intense recession. The question now is, are the encouraging signs we see about us evidence of a new growth cycle or simply a temporary easing?  

When attempting to answer such questions one must always qualify answers with the incantation Ceteris Paribus (all things being equal). In other words, any conclusion reached is naturally subject to us not knowing what might happen next in economic or political terms. Events in the Ukraine indicate as much, and in an increasingly globalised world it needn’t happen on our doorstep to have an effect on us. (more…)

It sounds like an adventure story and it is, only this is an epic not experienced by Harry Potter but the backdrop against which our lives are being played out.

I recently attended a conference in Frankfurt that highlighted some of the main economic issues of our times. Surrounded by the gleaming towers of the Deutsche Bank, the Sparkasse and the ECB a lot of things came into perspective during an enlightening session of speeches delivered by leading economists who were not only knowledgeable but also passionate and capable of placing it all within the wider context of society. (more…)

As writers, designers, marketers and social media people we are members of various organisations in these fields. One of these is WABAS – Writers And Bloggers About Spain – which links professionals active across the length and breadth of Spain through the medium of a Facebook group. The latter is of course an ideal medium for this, as it allows members to interact, exchange information, give advice and enter into dialogue on a far bigger and more interactive scale than the bilateral forms of communication we’ve been used to so far.

The members of WABAS, now numbering around 150, do all these things, and while some are more active than others the one thing that is required of them is that they contribute in some way or another. (more…)