Spending winters on the road gives Nicholas Scott more sunny summer days to be with his family

Most people have a career in Britain before they even think about moving abroad to live. It wasn’t like that for Nicholas Scott. In fact he’s never had a permanent job in his home country, though that hasn’t stopped him working his way up to a senior position with a British holiday company. Nicholas, his wife Helen and their two year old daughter Zara live in the small coastal town of Begur, on the Costa Brava, where he has spent most of his working life.

Nicholas trained as a chef in his native Cardiff, but he never got the chance to pursue a full-time career in the kitchen. He and Helen met when they worked as reps at a campsite on the Côte d’Azur in 1992 and they returned for four more summer seasons – though it took them three years to get together as a couple.

More and more couples are dreaming of a wedding in the sun, with the whole family around them, and Spain could offer the perfect blend of both

“When we first got engaged, we quickly realised that it was going to be difficult to arrange our wedding within a year. All the reception venues in the UK we were interested in seemed to require at least 18 months’ notice and we just didn’t want to wait that long.”

Susannah Rayner from London was married in Granada two years ago and found that marrying abroad opened many doors. Her now-husband is Roman Catholic so they chose to have a full service in Granada’s spectacular Santa Ana church, a converted 16th Century mosque. “It was really something to be able to take our vows, gazing up at the original Moorish ceiling of this beautiful church,” says Susannah.

Spain Magazine has secured an amazing prize for one lucky reader and a friend to win a two-night stay at one of Mallorca’s best hotels, Hotel L’Avenida, with return flights courtesy of Monarch. The hotel opened in March 2007, having been meticulously transformed from a century old Modernist-style private mansion into an elegant eight-bedroomed boutique hotel with the latest in luxury living.

L’Avenida is located in the heart of Soller on Mallorca’s jet set north-west coast. From every window of the hotel there are views of the dramatic Sierra de Tramuntana mountain range, whose peaks are popular with mountain bikers and walkers.

One family’s dedication brought a crumbling cortijo back from the brink of disaster to become a thriving business

South of Seville the road to Jerez bisects the great fertile plains of Andalucía, where rotating crops of cotton, wheat and sunflowers paint ever-changing colours across a table-flat landscape – issuing continually from a canvass of rich, burnt-umber soil.

Here, tucked away in a shallow knoll beneath the spirit-level horizon is a hidden treasure, screened from view until the last moment by a long drive flanked with tall banks of oleander bushes. The drive opens suddenly to reveal the front of a building with a façade as broadly flat and impressive as the surrounding countryside.

This is the Hacienda de San Raphael, an immaculately restored ‘cortijo’, the Spanish term for a grand country farmhouse that sits within its own estate. Hacienda de San Raphael is a breathtaking example of such a property. Built in the 18th century the Hacienda was originally used for pressing and storing olive oil from the groves across the 350 acres of accompanying farmland that encircle the property.

Re-writing the rulebook is all in a day’s work for the first-ever female British ambassador to Spain.

In May 2007, Denise Holt was inaugurated as the UK's newest Ambassador to Spain, making her the first female ambassador to the country in more than 500 years of diplomatic history. However, it wasn't her gender that concerned her -- it was that looming number: 500 years; the longest-standing relationship the UK has with any secular country. "You arrive as a slightly small, middle-aged woman who's never been posted to Madrid before, and with quite a lot of difficult challenges on the desk, and you think, 'Oh, my God! How am I going to get on top of all of this?'" However, by all accounts, Denise has risen to the challenge.

Discover a wonderland of Roman villas, ruins, tombs and bridges on Andalucía’s Ruta Betica

In Rome there is a hill called Monte Testaccio, formed entirely from the broken shards of millions of clay amphorae, which had been used to import olive oil. Analysis of Monte Testaccio reveals that most of this small mountain of waste, around 85% of it, originated in Andalucía.

It took a long time for Jim and Emma Porter to get back to the country that they love, but now they couldn’t be happier

When Jim and Emma Porter left Santander to return to Britain after a year of teaching in the mid-Nineties, they vowed they would be back sooner rather than later. Until, that is, their intentions were waylaid by marriage, the birth of two children and the setting up of a successful business. In the end, it was almost 10 years before they said goodbye to Britain and headed back to Spain – this time for good.

The little town of Valls celebrates its Catalan love of food with a messy festival dedicated to an unusual vegetable

THERE we were, more than 30 adults lined up on either side of a long thin table, hands blackened and faces smeared with a reddish sauce, getting stuck into piles of charred vegetables. This was the highlight of the calçotada – a Catalan gathering of family and friends that revolves around eating large quantities of a long, straggly green that gives the event its name.

Spain magazine and VillaDirect are offering one lucky reader and a friend their chance to win a fabulous trip to the Costa del Sol to stay in a VillaDirect holiday town home. The prize includes return flights for two to Malaga, two nights’ accommodation at one of VillaDirect's fabulous holiday town homes - offering you the enjoyment and facilities of great accommodation with the freedom that only a holiday rental can provide. In addition Record Rent A Car are making a car available for your use during your stay.