Well, the (extended) holidays are now behind us, and we now move into a New Year full of optimism and hope. 2024 will not necessarily be remembered with great fondness, as many of us struggled in a very difficult economic climate. We have our fingers crossed that 2025 can only be better!

To be honest, once the flurry of Christmas orders has passed, it signals the start of what is, traditionally the quiet time of year. Outside our bodega the only real activity is the tough annual job of pruning. The weather has not be particularly conducive either, the early part of December being quite cold and wet. It was not until the latter half of the month, and over the holidays that we saw a number of drier, sunny days, albeit that once we entered the New Year, the rain returned (and included a few quite wild and stormy days).

I briefly mentioned ‘extended’ holidays because in Spain there are actually three holidays – Christmas, New Year and ‘Reyes’. Reyes is twelfth night (celebrated on 6th January), when the Three Kings arrived to present their gifts. Many people exchange their gifts on this day, although some are known to do it both at Christmas and Reyes. Whenever they chose to do it there is always a lot of eating involved too!