1. How long have you lived on the Costa del Sol?

For almost 20 years now. I emigrated from a village outside Nottingham in the UK. I’ve been living in an inland town called Coín since I got married.

2. What made you choose the Costa del Sol as a place to live?

I had friends who lived over here in Málaga city centre and they recommended it. Also they put me in touch with someone who was looking to flat share so that worked out fine for us both. I also chose Málaga instead of another town along the coast because there were plenty of Spanish and very few English-speaking people in the city back then. I wanted to improve my Spanish and I knew that would be difficult if I wasn’t surrounded by native Spanish speakers. A few of my neighbours at the time even bought little Spanish-English dictionaries and taught me new vocabulary every day.

3. What’s the best thing about living on the Costa del Sol in your opinion? 

The varied lifestyle and people. All along the coast, each town and village has its own traits and even type of people. For example, the people in Coín are completely different from the people in Estepona. There are different types of food, you are spoilt for choice with restaurants, entertainment venues, beaches, etc. It’s so easy to go for hikes here in the mountains, in the countryside or along the beaches so you are never stuck for something to do.

4. Give us a brief description of what you get up to on your usual working day. 

I work as the IT manager/technician and in the administration department at Ideal Country Property S.L., where I’ve been since 2008. They are an Estate Agent based inland in Alhaurín El Grande and are a family-run business. My tasks are quite varied but involve a lot of paperwork, making sure that we have all the necessary paperwork to list houses properly, listing properties on our database and website, maintaining the IT network, dealing with invoices from the various utility and service companies we use, translation tasks, updating some property portals and the like.

5. How do you enjoy spending your weekends and free time? 

Normally with my better half. We both love her hometown of Estepona so we are down there quite a lot visiting her family too. We like socialising with our friends so we go visiting a lot and eat out with them. In my free time I like to sing and play guitar, listen to my extensive vinyl record collection, watch old TV series and films (especially sci-fi stuff like Star Trek), keep in touch with the Deaf BSL Community back in the UK, and brush up my different language skills as I love learning about languages and cultures.

6. If you could change jobs with anyone for the day, who would it be and why? 

With any person? No particular person but I’ve worked for several months as an extra in a TV series and I’ve always been fascinated by the world of cinema and TV so if I could get to work in that either as a technician, cameraman or actor, that would be amazing!

7. What’s your favourite food? 

That’s easy: anything Italian. The only foods I don’t like are fish, seafood and pork. So any Italian beef, pasta dishes or pizzas and I’m a happy lad! Plus, if there’s any Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate about, I’m very partial to that!

8. Describe what your perfect home on the Costa del Sol would be like and where it would be. 

My perfect home would be a Penthouse with a nice big terrace but with views of lots of passers-by. That may seem odd as most people I guess would go for mountain or sea views. I find people fascinating so to have a terrace or window that overlooks a busy street and see everyone go about their business would be perfect. Somewhere like Calle Larios in Málaga or Calle Real in Estepona. Maybe someday, if some rich relative I didn’t know I had leaves me an inheritance!

9. If you were to appear on “Come dine with me”, what theme would you choose?

Never seen it. Is it a cooking program? A Star Trek theme then with Italian dishes but also with a futuristic twist!

10. Who would be your perfect dinner guest? 

Christopher Walken. He always seems to think outside the box and has such a random train of thought and plenty of stories to tell. He likes to cook too so it would be nice to chat whilst preparing something together.

11. What would you like to ask the next “30 Minutes with…” guest? 

How does living here compare to where you’re from in a positive way, and do you/would you consider calling this your home?