Rather than give a recap on everything that happened in 2025, we thought we’d look forward instead of back. That said, it is worth mentioning that 2025 seemed to fly by faster than any year since we have lived in Spain, and here we are in our 10th year! It is hard to believe that almost a decade has passed since we left the UK for what was intended to be a year of adventure! Before I go into what 2026 has in store for us, if you are considering a year of adventure at some stage in 2026 just do it; you never know what might happen and the ways in which it can completely change your life.

“Each year holds a special energy, but the numerology of 2026 suggests that this will be an especially dynamic year. As a Universal Year 1, 2026 is all about taking bold new steps, trusting the unknown, and moving into a fresh cycle—without forgetting the lessons of the past. Think of it like the first spark of a match: the trailblazer and the pioneer who sets a new course.” – Christina Pérez, Vogue.

I was looking for a snippet that best summed up what 2026 might have in store, and the above seemed to be perfectly representative of the year we are hoping for. In some ways, 2025 was our reset year, as events certainly proved to be a catalyst that expedited our plans for the future. Last year was, for the most part, all about Amanda and Alan’s Spanish Job as the BBC programme brought with it a huge amount of publicity and we had to assess how best to utilise that level of exposure. Whenever you get that rare opportunity of a project such as Amanda and Alan, you know there will be intense interest and you can plan for this to a certain extent. However, you can’t possibly know exactly what that interest might be, so you have to be prepared to be reactive. We had expectations and wishes. We became involved in the production back in 2023 because we saw an opportunity to highlight the problems surrounding rural depopulation and we hoped that the interest in the village would attract investment, thereby creating jobs. Ultimately, it was up to us to turn the interest in the direction that would result in these objectives being met. The production team are merely creating a programme; what happens afterwards is not really of huge importance to them.

The entire project made us realise that we should focus a great deal of our attention on our estate agency business.

We started marketing houses in a very low key way almost as soon as we arrived in Spain. A friend was trying to sell her €1.3 million home and suggested that we might like to try and help. Through our PR efforts, we managed to get 3 articles printed in glossy magazines about this property, and so a business was born. When we moved to Moclín, one of our Spanish friends said that she could help us to find properties for sale and a loose partnership was formed. It was through this partnership that we eventually sold the house to the BBC production team for restoration by Amanda and Alan.

We rebranded what had been GC Property Consultants into Granada Village and Country, and steadily grew the portfolio of properties we had on our books. We never lost sight of our core philosophies which were to highlight villages suffering from depopulation and to find new routes to market for the properties entrusted to us by their vendors.

In a period of just 2 years, we have developed a very solid business and one of which we are very proud. Our aim was never to compete with every other agent in Spain; rather we wanted a business that reflected us as individuals, and our passion for living in this area. We are both creative people, and we hope that this comes across in the way we market homes; certainly, clients have commented on the lovely website and videography produced by Andrew, and long may that continue.

As the agents handling the sale of the BBC house, of course we managed to get a huge amount of publicity but it is the core of our business that has enabled us to start collaborating with some amazing partners. One such collaboration has resulted in our working with some incredibly interesting Spanish landowners at the top end of the market. This has opened up a new direction for us, and one that we are now in the process of developing as a priority.

As mentioned above, one of our objectives behind the BBC project was to attract inward investment and create jobs. We now manage Casa Alamanda, the BBC house, for holiday rentals on behalf of the new owners. A local Spanish colleague is taking over this side of the business as we eventually get more properties to manage, and this will eventually become her responsibility that she and we can develop. The estate agency business now dictates that we need an extra pair of hands, and we now have another friend working with us in that capacity. We have set up a new Spanish company, Agencia Creativa Moclín ESPJ as the financial umbrella covering all our ventures.

Casa Alamanda Moclin. Now available for holiday rental.

As a result of all this activity, 2025 was the year in which we took, in the words of Christina Pérez above, “bold new steps, trusting the unknown”.

It’s always slightly nerve-wracking taking new steps and we have had to have a lot of courage in our convictions. We both still know that the recent changes are and will be for the best. These changes have resulted in some reassessments.

We are minimising the number of guests we have in our own home, Casa Higueras. We were slightly overwhelmed last year when floods of visitors came to Moclín following transmission of Amanda and Alan, and suddenly realised that we wanted our home to ourselves. As a result, we have turned our energies to the creation of a new Asociación Alojamientos Turísticos Pueblos de Moclín - an Association for all those providers of tourism accommodation in the municipality. Through this association, we aim to market all the accommodation in the area and create events and initiatives to draw visitors to the area to enjoy this beautiful corner of Andalucia. This dovetails neatly with the new wave of buyers investing in property in the area for holiday rentals. This is not a tidal wave, by any stretch, but the buying of empty village homes as part of a cultural tourism strategy does bring opportunity - new bars and restaurants see opportunities based on demand; shops open to cater for the increased number of visitors and residents; a new infrastructure linking villages can be sustainably developed. This is an exciting time for us and we are looking forward to getting the association up and running from mid-January.

Esperanza 9, our self-catering house, will undergo some remedial work early in this new year. The pool had a slight leak, but this is now being rectified and the exterior will be redecorated ahead of a new season. That property is a good, solid business and one of the other services we now offer is advising new property buyers what can be achieved through the purchase and restoration of old village houses. Again, this all brings new business to local people - construction companies, carpenters, plumbers, cleaners etc.

It’s going to be a busy year and to make room some things have to be sacrificed. The month of May will see the last of our cultural and creative courses holidays. This may not be the very end of these holidays, but it is certainly a pause. There were many highlights running these courses, and we met some incredibly lovely people, some of whom remain very good friends to this day. They are, however, very labour intensive and as we find ourselves with full time work on the estate agency, we simply can’t sustain that level of commitment. I expect that we will reintroduce creative holidays again at some stage in the future, but in a different guise. Creativity will always remain at the heart of what we do here.

Andrew and I want to travel more. Since 2023, we have been a little tied to the village due to the BBC project and all that entailed. We are off to Morocco in March, which is a start! One of our creative holiday painting tutors suggested we might like to join a small group of painters at her brother’s venue near Essaouira, and we accepted the kind invitation. We may not do much painting, but we are very excited to be going on a new little adventure together.

There are many places we still want to explore in Spain, and we hope to have time this next year to be a little more spontaneous. Following last year’s fantastic trip to see the Kylie concert in Seville, we are going again this year to see Moby and will spend another couple of days exploring the city.

We do need to return to the UK early in the year to see Andrew’s Dad and my daughter who has just announced that she is expecting her second baby (my 4th grandchild!). We spent a wonderful New Year’s Eve skiing in the Sierra Nevada and will definitely fit in more trips up there this winter (updated Sierra Nevada Blog post coming soon!). We are SO lucky that have that wonderful resort on our doorstep and we are determined to maximise our enjoyment of it.

Rather than looking back at a hectic year, we will take that “first spark of a match” and gently fan the flames. I think we both feel that this year has a huge amount to offer and we are excited to get cracking. It is the first time in a long time that I don’t feel slightly overwhelmed by things beyond our control, and there is a sense of emerging from a maelstrom into calmer waters.