Truly it could be a four word blog to cover Christmas and New Year 2016 - Peace/Quiet/Food/Drink. But that would be a) just too short and b) boring. So to that we could obviously add pressies to each other (new watches and some jewellery), long walks on the beach which we love (though strictly speaking on the promenade next to the beach - so much better without sand in shoes). There are our usual outings too - the Saturday flea market and the Tuesday 'new' & fresh market. We've been particularly blessed that the holidays haven't interfered with our markets since both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fell on Saturdays this year (and the shops tend to be shut on Sunday anyway). Our roamings have taken us to both ends of the Paseo Maritimo - right down to Castillo Sohail/Sohail Castle in one direction and as far as Los Boliches in the other. We enjoy our walks to that end of the beach because it is home to D'como. The world's best roast chicken shop. Run by a gentleman from Pakistan who doesn't believe in holidays - in fact we're pretty sure he's not had a day off in the 10 years he's been in Spain. We order the same thing every time - large roast chicken, salad, chili salsa, massive chips and a bottle of wine (that's the element of choice... red or white) - all for the grand total of 10 euro. He knows our names. What can we say, we're regulars. So regular in fact that Christmas lunch was a very easy affair - chicken from the shop, tray loads of roasted veges including onion, spud, carrots along with peas and sprouts, a smashing gravy from the resident chef and fruit mince pies for dessert. Allowed both of us to relax after lunch and sit down for our annual viewing of our all time favourite Christmas movie, Love Actually. We've finally enjoyed some local seafood - cooking up a mess of mussels with white wine and garlic bread. We've hung out at our fave little tapas bar and our hole in the wall coffee shop and we're waiting patiently for our 3-course lunch restaurant to open again. Mind you we think it was shut for only a couple of days. Lead up and New Year was quiet though with a decent fireworks show right in our neighbourhood, 'quiet' probably isn't the right term - we even had our annual, very small, bout of homesickness when we watched the NY fireworks from Sydney Harbour. So that is us - we're in Spain for a bit longer now which is lovely - leaving (though who knows where) by 27 Jan. Might be the Baltics. Could be the Balkans. Cyprus and Romania are possibles. Anywhere but the Schengen Zone until we return for our Iceland adventure on 11 March. Exciting. Scary. Footloose. Free. And obviously, foodies.