Phil and I had always said that when we retired we would move abroad - we just did it slightly earlier than anticipated.
Where to go? We thought about Florida (too expensive to fly to the UK/USA), France (I taught French!) or Spain. We had never had a holiday in mainland Spain, only in the Canaries and Balearics, but I had had three years of evening classes to help with the language during our holidays.
In the Spring of 2004, we had a week's holiday in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol and an Estage Agent brought us to the Axarquia, where we now live.
The Axarquia is a small area within Malaga Province, which in turn is in Andalucia.
We have no regrets about choosing this area, which is very Spanish and very pretty. We had decided that we didn't want to live in a small Britain within Spain, although there are places like that available.
This is the view from our garden towards Riogordo. Our development is surrounded by olive groves, oil being the local speciality. There are many herds of goats wandering around, shepherded by a goatherd with his dogs. There are also numerous lizards, snakes and other creatures. Because of the trees, there are many birds. We have several sparrows' nests nearby.
One spectacular bird is seen frequently in these parts - a hoopoe.
In Spanish it is an 'abubilla', pronounced aboobeeya, more or less: