Mijas woman celebrates 100th birthday in the house where she was born

"She doesn't use WhatsApp much, but she loves phone calls," says Isabel María Bernal Díaz de Quintana, her daughter.

Pepita lives "in the prettiest house in Mijas". It may not be the best, she says, but it's hers: the same house where she was born on 22 August 1926 and where both her mother and her daughter Isabel were also born.

It also has five balconies, which is no small thing. Pepita still climbs up to them to water the plants, take in the view, greet the neighbours and, when the occasion arises, watch the religious processions.

So on Tuesday, the feast day of the Virgen de la Peña, the patron saint of Mijas, when the annual procession takes place, anyone who knows Pepita and wants to see her will know where to look.

She enjoys foods that were virtually unknown in Spain during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, which lasted from 1923 to 1930, including pizza and sushi. She still drinks coffee and refuses to have it decaffeinated. "If I make her coffee, I mix it for her, but if I'm not at home, she has it normally," her daughter says.

And if she goes out for a walk and stops at a bar for a drink, Pepita would rather have a small beer than a soft drink. "What's a Fanta? A little beer," she replies. And she drinks it.

What can you say to someone who's already blown out 100 candles? As for the question that almost everyone is tempted to ask someone who's reached such an age, Pepita has an answer that's probably similar to the one most of us would give in her position. "I don't have any secret."

Although genetics may have something to do with it. Her brother died at 89, "and was still driving until the day before he died", while an older sister, who was also Isabel's godmother, lived to 107.

Perhaps her longevity also has something to do with her refusal to see herself as old. She doesn't want to walk with assistance and, if she does use one, prefers to call it a "stick" rather than a "crutch". "Until recently she used to cook for herself, but we don't let her do it any more, although if you're not careful she'll start frying herself some 'boquerones'," her daughter says.

Pepita is clearly resistant to the idea of getting older. "I'm not going back. They've put me with a load of old ladies," she told her daughter after a visit. It's not difficult to imagine that, in reality, she was the oldest of them all.

For anyone looking for further clues to the secret of longevity, Josefa gets up at around 9am, has breakfast, on the terrace in summer, washes and gets ready before beginning to receive visitors. Her daughter comes to see her, as does her niece and goddaughter Encarni, while neighbours sometimes drop by.

She has lunch at around 2pm and then takes a nap lasting no more than an hour, a habit she's always kept. Afterwards, she knits. Pepita still has the dexterity, memory and eyesight needed to do it. Her doctor can vouch for the latter: during her most recent check-up, she was asked to read a leaflet and ended up reading "the smallest print", according to her daughter.

She also watches television and enjoys series. Her current favourite is Valle Salvaje, a production set in 1763 that's broadcast on TVE in the afternoons. Between knitting, watching television and receiving more visits from family, she spends the afternoon until dinner at 9pm. A couple of hours later, she's already in bed.

The same letters she read on the leaflet at the doctor's were the ones she taught during her time as a teacher in Osunillas, an area on the outskirts of Mijas Pueblo. "I spent some time standing in for another teacher who lived in Melilla. Her name was Otilia and she asked me to take over because she was ill. She had asthma. I taught them to add, to subtract... and to pray because they were going to make their First Communion," she recalls, as if it happened yesterday.

That was before she married. After getting married, she devoted herself to her children. "I had three, but one died," she says. The baby didn't survive the birth, but she's never forgotten. How could she?

A widow since 2005 and grandmother to three "very handsome" grandchildren, Pepita admits she didn't make a wish when she blew out the candles on her 100th birthday cake. "I didn't think of it," she says with a laugh.

Asked which period of her life she's enjoyed most during all the decades she's lived through, she gives an enviable answer. "I like them all. I've had a very good time."

And so Pepita has now spent 100 years having a very good time.