I initially wrote this blog post on 12th December 2024, but now there are a few updates that I have added in italics! However, let me take you back a month or two to just before Christmas 2024.

“Andrew has just made the most delicious Christmas Flapjacks and I have been in the kitchen making our traditional sausage rolls - fabulous for freezing and taking out whenever you fancy a snack!

Over the past day or so, it has just dawned on me that September, October and November disappeared without my even realising. I honestly can’t remember what happened to those three months, they passed so quickly. I do know why they seemed to vanish, as towards the end of August the BBC TV crew departed but there was another project scheduled for the end of November and we immediately had to start thinking about that. So, in effect, this entire year [2024] has been dominated by Amanda and Alan, from January right through to the end of this year. There is little else we can do now apart from wait for the programme to be aired from 24th January 2025, and handle whatever might happen next.

Has all the hard work (and it has been hard work) been worth it?

The year, and all the activity surrounding the filming, resulted in our reassessing our business and lifestyle priorities, and our adventures here are taking on new directions.

Firstly, since selling the house to the BBC for Alan and Amanda to restore, we have certainly changed the direction of Granada Village & Country, our estate agency business. This started with a rebrand that better suited what we are aiming to do, and we have spent the year establishing the brand and how we want to be perceived. All the time, we have been bearing in mind that statistics suggested that more than 150 properties were sold in Tuscany when ‘Amanda and Alan’s Italian Job’ Series 2 was first broadcast. Given our involvement in the programme, we are aware that the impact could be enormous for us, Moclín and Granada Province as a whole, but how big that impact might be, we have no idea. All we can do is prepare for whatever might come, and make sure we don’t miss any opportunity. Marketing the restored property at the end of the series will be the biggest promotion we can ever hope to have. We will also get a mention in an article in The Times and will ensure that we get as much of our own press coverage as we can muster.

Update: we were mentioned in a full-page article in The Times and had a more recent article published in the Mail Online about some of the properties we have for restoration in Moclín. This is even before the press machine ramps up for the actual sale of Casa Alamanda, from 14th March 2025. We’ll wriote more about that in a future post.

Our Granada Cultural Holidays Flamenco course is also appearing in the programme, with Alan and Amanda taking to the stage with our tutor and guests at the end of the Flamenco week. It would be wonderful if this short televised scene ensured that there is new interest in Flamenco across Andalucia as a whole, and attracts visitors to come and immerse themselves in this passionate and emotive art form.

Finally, from a marketing perspective, Esperanza 9 was filmed as being a source of inspiration for Amanda and Alan’s own project, so we are rather hoping that the holiday bookings will start to roll in once the programme is aired.

Update: as soon as ‘Amanda and Alan’s Spanish Job’ appeared on BBC iPlayer on 24th January, we received a flood of reservations for Esperanza 9 and, apart from a couple of 3-day slots, we are fully booked until the end of October 2025. We are now taking bookings for Autumn/Winter 2025/2026 and throughout 2026. Casa Higueras is also very heavily booked for this year. Esperanza 9 appears on BBC One in Episode 7 (to be broadcast on 7th March) and we are prepared for another influx of reservation requests.

From a personal viewpoint, I am sure that we will benefit and the ensuing successes will allow us to do all sorts of new and exciting things. Andrew has already decided to stop designing children’s books, his career for the past 20 years, in favour of other creative channels such as videography and returning to his own design work.

However, this project was never just about us. We have discussed in earlier posts that the reason we became involved was that we believed the programme would highlight the beauty of inland Andalucia from a travel and cultural angle. It will also highlight the plight of many rural villages that suffer from the effects of depopulation and, we hope, drive a wave of sustainable cultural tourism that will attract investment and create local jobs.

We have always been very conscious of the fact that we feel responsible for the BBC choosing to come to Moclín to film this programme. For the year leading up to filming, we did our best to illustrate that this village would be the best location, for so many reasons, and we relied heavily on the support and willingness of our Spanish friends and neighbours. We have always felt that the villagers were excited by the project, as the BBC is obviously known worldwide, and this would be one of the largest TV filming projects to have come to this corner of Spain in recent years. However, we are not Spanish and we have only lived in the village for 7 years; our friends and neighbours have, for the most part, lived here all their lives and their families have been here for generations. It would have been very easy for them to question the right we have to invite in a film crew and two famous faces to present their interpretation of life in and around Moclín. We felt a strong obligation to make sure that the village was seen in the best possible light, and manage expectations across the board both with the local people and the production team. I’m a control freak anyway, so spent months trying to ensure that everyone was happy! It was important for us that the crew and Alan and Amanda had the best time here, as this would come across in the programme. It was equally important that the local people felt able to trust the crew to handle Moclín with the deep-seated love and pride that everyone here feels in relation to every aspect of the place. Clearly, the production team’s job is to create an entertaining programme that will draw viewers from around the world, but once filming is finished they go back to London and on to the next project. We, on the other hand, live here and life will continue.

Paella for 14! Entertaining Alan, Scott and the entire crew from Voltage TV on the terrace at Casa Higueras.

I doubt we have had support from every corner of Granada, but we hope that we have had the wholehearted support of the people who matter most: the people who live here in Moclín. I hope they see the opportunities that will arise, and how best to shape these opportunities to their advantage. I hope our own experience can help channel the way we collectively manage any significant waves of change so that we never lose our identity and integrity, and the village thrives in the way the locals feel it should.

If the village manages to safeguard its future, and encourages young family members to return here with the promise of employment, then every moment of hard work, stress, anxiety, doubt and elation will have been worth it. As we say repeatedly when we discuss this project with the villagers, now it is all down to us what we do with our 15 minutes of fame.

You can read earlier posts in this series by clicking on the links below:

Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 1
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 2
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 3
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 4
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 5
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 6
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 7
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 9
Our Summer with Alan and Amanda 10

Follow us on Instagram:

Andrew @awatsonone
Ian @ianrutter
Casa Higueras @casahiguerasmoclin
Esperanza 9 @calleesperanza9
Granada Village and Country @granada_villageandcountry
Granada Cultural Holidays @granadaculturalholidays

‘Amanda and Alan’s Spanish Job’ is being shown on BBC One from 24th January 2025 and will be available on iPlayer.

For the programme, Amanda and Alan bought their property through our estate agency business, Granada Village & Country and we were instrumental in putting together the building teams who completed the renovation of the property.

The property will be available for sale through Granada Village & Country, and featured on Rightmove, at the end of the series.

Our other businesses as featured on the programme:

Casa Higueras Bed & Breakfast
Esperanza 9
Granada Cultural Holidays

With enormous thanks to Amanda, Alan and the entire team at Voltage TV for choosing Moclín and for your enthusiasm, love and consideration throughout the filming of the series. We loved having you all here!