Greetings from Vélez-Málaga, Spain

Turning 57 in Spain...

Hola from Vélez-Málaga, the place I made home 2 months ago today! Set about 6kms north of Torre del Mar beach on the Costa del Sol in an area called Axarquía in the autonomous region of Andalusia in the south of Spain, Vélez-Málaga is a beautiful Spanish town of about 83,000 people steeped in history and culture and where the economy is shared between tourism, local trade and agriculture. To the north farms extend in all directions and to the south near the beaches apartment blocks, shops, restaurants etc. cater for Tourism.
Vélez-Málaga is the birth place of Juan Breva 1844-1918, one of Flamenco music's most influential figures who's singing and guitar playing was highly sought after at the highest levels, including the royal court of King Alfonso XII. Flamenco music is just as important to the town today as it was back then with schools and regular concerts in the various venues and halls scattered around the town.

Vélez-Málaga has a deep religious aspect to it with beautiful Churches and Shrines at every turn. There is an old 10th Century Moorish Fortress (Fortaleza)  that stands on a hill overlooking the town. Here is a selection of photos I have taken since I moved here...

So what have I been up to? Well once I got all the moving in stuff done and settled into a routine here I pretty much hit the ground running with regards to my book and I also took up Flamenco guitar lessons which has been a dream of mine all my life and now it is a reality, scratch one more off the bucket list!

It's really difficult but if it was easy everybody would be doing it lol! I practice for at least 2 hours every day which gives me breaks from my writing and I also go for walks to the beach every other day, it's approx. 7kms from my place to the water and I get the bus back and stop for supplies on my way home, a simple life for a simple soul! I love it!

On the techy side I've been playing around with AI generating videos. I used an AI by Kaiber to make a video for my song "The Sun Still Shines". There will be more... They will add nicely to my live show which is growing in size every year, now up to 22 songs and videos which would be about a 3 hour show! I'm hoping to find a venue here to do a show in very shortly! Time is ticking away... 

A few people have been asking me about this year's "Scene on the Green" Festival in Kenmare, well the fact of the matter is I don't know any more than you do. I sent 2 messages to KMEG requesting information since January which have so far gone unanswered so at this stage, 2nd March, too much time has been wasted, I have decided to focus on my own journey and just see how this year plays out... In the meantime I put 2 pages together as a tribute to last year's historic Festival that will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time! Check out SOG '23 and the SOG '23 BACKSTORY pages for the juice! Also some of you have asked me for copies of the festival poster to print, here's a link to the print file, A3 size, 300dpi, JPEG 18MBDownload Poster File Here

And that's that for this edition, I know I haven't been great at being regular with my blogs but I'm hoping to change that soon. There is much going on behind the scenes, I'm delighted with my move here and it has opened up a whole new world to me.

I turned 57 here last January and that was a difficult number to swallow because I feel eternally young on the inside but the years are ticking away on the outside, it's probably just as well I live my life in the moment (as much as i can).

Being creative and active keeps me going in this Illusion/Matrix/Whatever existence we're all going through. It's all good though! Rock on!

Until next edition...

Peace & love & Music!