We have to cross our arms during the Spanish national and regional elections and simply observe passively, as our hosts decide who will govern over us. There are only two occasions that Europeans can vote and that is during the municipal and European elections. So, on the 14th of June, for those of us who could be bothered or simply managed to remember to enter our names on the electoral lists, we have the opportunity to vote.

In the UK, we tend to think of the European elections as a waste of time and of little importance but living on the continent, it is far from a waste of time. There are only two options: participate and complain about the results if we're not happy with them, or do nothing, in which case we have no right to complain about the results at all. If we made the conscious choice to come to live in Spain, it was a possibility afforded to us by the European Union.

A women's association is going to hold a medieval fair up in San Miguel Castle. This was done to great effect in Salobreña last summer and was really excellent. Motril, however, attempted the same but fell short. The Salobreña Medieval Fair was a torch-lit affair with straw strewn on the cobbled stone of the Paseo de las Flores. All the stall holders wore medieval costumes and exhibited traditional handicraft and wares. There were jugglers and even a snake charmer, and to set the final touches, small children marvelled at the punishment stocks and falconry. If the Asociación de Mujeres Futuro Costa can pull something similar off with the backing of the Town Council, then it will be well worth visiting. The date for this summer event isn't until the 9th and 10th of July but we will remind you in the July issue of the Gazette. The castle will be an excellent setting, which, if rightly done, is an even better setting than Salobreña's Paseo de las Flores. Pottery, saddlers and basket weaving are just some of the stalls that will be included.

The huge hotel that sits like a walled town on the Loma de Baúl is now (finally) open for business. It boasts 326 rooms, 10 x 90sqm suites and a presidential one that has its own swimming pool. Yes, the once open hillside of olive trees and grass now has 35,000sqms of five-star hotel sat splendidly upon its summit. And the walled town simile is fitting because there is a mini town within: two restaurants, two convention & banqueting halls, five bars, reading rooms, games rooms and swimming pools inside and out. The Mayor's happy and the owner (Hoteles Playa) is happy. Don't forget that this same company bought out the owners of the hotel that Sol Meliá occupied, so that they have two hotels in Almuñécar. The Town Council praise the fact that this will provide jobs for the town, which in practice, is not always the case. The 150 waiters etc, who were employed for the opening were allegedly dismissed the following week to cut down on expenses. They had been promised permanent contracts but the company used the three-month trial period clause to throw them all out on the street, alleging that they hadn't come up to the mark. Most of them weren't from Almuñécar anyway. Fortunately, the workers at the ex-Sol Meliá had the sense to hurriedly affiliate to a union, when they heard of the move to sell the hotel. They are relatively safe. So, Almuñécar has another hotel but, if you should ask anybody who has lived in Mallorca, where a veritable plague of hotels exists, the locals might tell you that it is a nightmare. The more hotels there are; the more competition there is. The more competition there is; the more desperate they are to fill their quotas. And finally, the more desperate they are; the worse the clientele become. Lager Louts abound and local identity perishes. I guess they won't be employing me to promote their establishment (sigh!).

There's only one way to describe it - it's a bloody mess and a crying shame. Almuñécar's infant schools are shamefully understaffed. The Regional Government sent them 2,000 piece puzzles, as essential equipment, for their many three-year olds - and of course, they're still in their polythene wrappings, collecting dust. In Santa Cruz Junior School, for example, primary school teacher, Angustia Molina, has a class of 25 four-year olds, one of whom suffers from Down's Syndrome. Should one of her toddlers need to use the toilet, then the child has to pass through an adjacent crowded classroom, causing a vast amount of natural distraction. The trouble is that you can't let the child go alone, because that would mean leaving the 24 remaining children unsupervised. So what do you do? To put it crudely, you just have to let the child mess itself and phone the parent and ask them to come and attend the discomforted child. Matilde Sierra in San Miguel Infant School, just down the road from Santa Cruz, has 26 three-year-old children instead of the maximum of 20. The kiddies play in the school playground where there isn't even a drinking fountain or toilets. Taking all the town's infant schools together, Almuñécar does not have one school that meets the minimum educational requirements expected of them, thanks to understaffing, under funding and just tight-fistedness of the regional educational authorities. Are you happy with this situation? No, of course not. So write to the schools, even if it's in English, and complain. This will give David at least a few pebbles to fling at Goliath, even if the giant does have armour-plated heels.

Chris Bytebier is an 18-year-old painter, who is exhibiting in the El Meson in the Town Hall Square, Almuñécar until the 15th of this month. She was born in Africa, where she spent the first five years of her life. This period seems to have embedded itself in her soul, as her abstract paintings have almost a tribal feel. Her exuberant use of colours, combined with the texture that acrylics (her preferred medium) display, smack of, rain forest and deep feelings. She has spent time with Belgian artist, Leon de Smet, though she has a unique and captivating style, which is immediately evident. She can be contacted through the Meson or the Gazette.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Lone Ranger couldn't give a toss... However, our illustrious Mayor, who didn't end up getting elected to the regional government, has recently been promoted to Provincial Party Secretary. Besides being the Mayor, he was already the National Secretary of Municipal Politics for the PA. This last one sounds pretty impressive but I can't think why they bother calling the post 'National Secretary,' if it is only a regional party? The PA is, as its name implies, the Andalusian Party and although their ideology might be classified, 'nationalist' it certainly can't be considered as such in a geographical context. Never mind... each title brings a separate wage packet, which is the important thing.

It won't be long before they come up with Master of the Universe and Supreme Progenitor of Creation for the Wheel Tappers and Shunters' Club of the Almuñecan splinter Socialist Party, will it?

There will be work going on up in the castle as the Town Council has approved restoration work. Work will be carried out under the instruction of two architects from the School of Arabic Studies and they will be working with a budget of 166,391 euros. This work belongs to the second phase of an agreement signed between the local council and the central government. Most of the work will be on the west wall and the northeast tower.

You can tell that summer is just round the corner because the new 'beach law' has come into effect. This 'law' is controversial, mainly because it is virtually impossible to impose. It was written up to stop people either setting up their towels and sun beds first thing in the morning to claim a spot, but not turning up till much later. In some cases, people ask friends to stake out a patch for them. The result is that people who genuinely want to bake on the beach in the morning can't find a space although the beach is apparently empty. It is important to remember that all beaches and rivers are public domain. So how do the police check out whether a sun bed and parasol are 'legally' placed? The beach at the height of summer looks like a penguin colony, so how can you control it? If they find an ownerless plot, they can't just pack it up. What if the owner is out in the sea or has popped over to a bar? Are you going to go back every 15 minutes to check? And Almuñécar doesn't just have one beach - there are about 12kms of beaches, for God's sake! With a summer population of around 150,000, you can reasonably expect 50,000 of them to be on the beach. We are masters here, of having inconvenient laws that nobody obeys. In the UK you have laws that are imposed and obeyed in a robotic fashion - they work because everybody plays the game. Here, if Brussels comes up with something preposterous it is quietly ignored, even by the police.

There will be a few more flats for rent this summer, not because more have been built (which they have) but because the last 58 families from the Barrio de los Marinos have returned to their homes. Barrio de los Marinos is the cascade of houses on the hillside next the Chinasol apartment-hotel on Playa San Cristóbal. These council houses have undergone extensive renovations in four phases. The last one, affecting the last 58 families, started in autumn 2002. For the duration of the building work, the families were moved to rented accommodation around town at the expense of the Council, which reduced the rental offer to normal clients noticeably. This council estate was originally built 40 years ago but in the 90's concrete cancer was detected, as well as a damp problem, which made them virtually uninhabitable.

Nobody who was around that night would have missed the storm at the beginning of the month. The La Herradura Insiders cover the subject but it's worth mentioning here that probably the most visible damage caused in Almuñécar was on the Escollera, which is just past Chinasol, on the way to Cotobro. Motril, also received a good pasting. The new arm of the port was wrecked and questions are being made as to whether the construction had been badly carried out, which wouldn't be a surprise, would it? Apparently, the old fishermen had told the young, suited men, who had designed and were overseeing the new structure, that it needed an escollera (barrier of large boulders, placed before a cement construction to protect it from the waves). The young men chuckled and said that the new philosophy was not to break the waves, but to deflect them. It's clear who is doing the chuckling now. Another complaint about the new, vertical-sided quay was that it threw the waves back at the boats - where as an escollera absorbed them.

After having spoken with several people concerning the Gazette Jam Nights at the Taberna Flamenca, it is pretty obvious that there is always confusion over which Sunday is a Jam Night. Accordingly, and after having spoken with Ricardo, it was decided that the Jam Nights would always fall on the first and third Sunday of the month - couldn't be easier! So, for example, There is always a Jam night on the same weekend as the flea market in Almuñécar, which always falls on the first Saturday of the month.

Great news for scrambling, motor cross and other motorbike sports. The 26th June will see the 1st stage of the Spanish Championships for Supercross... and it will be held in Almuñécar! This is the fourth consecutive year that such an event will be held in the town but this year it will be bigger than ever. For a measly 22 euros you will be able to witness this spectacular motor sport at the new foot ball stadium, just off the main road, in the P4. Yet, this year it will be even more spectacular because there will be a motor paragliding exhibition, a firework display and plenty of national television coverage. Hopefully, the firework display won't begin until everybody has landed, mind. And then, when you are just about ready to go home, a fiesta starts with music, drinks and dancing - so what are you waiting for? There has been a lot of preparation and to give you an idea how much, the stadium's turf (which was in a sorry state anyway) will be ripped up to make way for the earth jumps. The organisers will have to lay new turf afterwards. Some of the names of the competitors are household names in Spain and are leaders in the Spanish Supercross Competition: Javier Remacho, Manuel Rivas and Xavier Hernández. The rider who is considered number four in the world will also be present, Edgar Torrontera. So, there you have it: 22.00hrs on the 26th June at the Almuñécar football stadium. Tickets at the door or contact the Gazette for more info.

I had to take a second glance because something was just not right - you know, like catching through the corner of your eye a glimpse of a red elephant hanging upside down from the ceiling, grinning at you and humming Bing Crosby hits. Incidentally, if this particular example has happened to you, then perhaps you should change your brand of cigarettes. I had just left the CK PhotoShop next to the Paseo and happened to see Father Christmas in his civvies, sporting a construction site hard hat. Hmmm. I thought, strange! In fact, another thing that didn't sit too well with conventional reality was that he was sitting up on a ledge in an office chair. "Perdone," I said, "¿Habla Usted Español?" He grinned and shook his head. I tried again, "Do you speak English?" He said that he did. I pointed out that I couldn't help noticing that he was wearing a hard hat and was sitting on a chair perched beside a busy pedestrian way. "Yes, that is right," he confirmed, so I asked him if he worked for the Paseo parking construction company. He didn't - he was just watching them work. Hmmm. Anyway, further investigation uncovered that Erik Witthchen - popularly known as 'Papa Noel' by his neighbours, had a first floor flat overlooking the construction site. Erik has spent the last five winters here for health reasons, the climate being kinder to his arthritis. One day, he discovered small bits of rock on his balcony, which he pointed out to one of the workers. Within moments the boss of the site had turned up and had jokingly given him his own hard hat, apologising for the inconvenience. Erik is also armed with ear defenders because the constant noise is deafening. Yet Erik isn't disturbed by all the bustling activity - he is fascinated by it, so much so that he has a collection of 74 photos covering just about every stage of the work so far. He must be the only resident of the Paseo del Altillo who isn't complaining about the noise, dust and general inconvenience of the building programme. I immediately rang Juan Manuel de Haro, who is the local Ideal newspaper reporter, telling him to come quickly and get a photo. Erik invited us both up to his flat to see his grandstand view. The huge crane structure stood only a couple of metres away from his balcony. Once, the exhaust fumes from the crane had come pouring onto his balcony. As soon as he mentioned it to the crane operator, the man immediately change the orientation of the exhaust pipe. Erik doesn't miss much that goes on within the site. He gleefully snapped a JCB operator with binoculars, more intent on the splendid bit of human fauna on the beach than operating his machine. Life, it seems, is what you make it!

The 6th Gastronomic Fair
Nobody will nor can deny that it is a very good idea. The Feria Gastronómica de Almuñécar went very well for the 6th consecutive year. Twenty-five restaurants set up a stand in the Majeulo park, where the fair was held between the 14th and 16th of May. Each restaurant could decorate its stand how it wished but were obligated to present a minimum of three dishes. Just some of those present were; Jacaranda, Muralla, Gabbiano, Chambao de Joaquín, La Barraca, Argentina Steakhouse, and El Tinao.

The fair was organised by the Asociación de la Pequenña y Mediana Empresas (Apyme) and the Asociación de Hosteleros, Restaurantes, Pubs y Discotecas de Almuñécar y La Herradura, (Ahrpd). Certain conditions were imposed to create uniformity and accessible prices for all. For example, all beers and refreshment were sold at one euro per glass and the dishes - which would have cost you handsomely in the actual restaurants - were all priced at three euros. What more could a visitor ask for: sample the food of the best restaurants that Almuñécar has, all within a few metres of each other and at bargain prices? It's an excellent opportunity for visitors and residents to get to know what the town's restaurants can offer, and at the same time, for restaurants to exhibit their handicraft outside the four walls of their premises.

With over a thousand chairs and a couple of hundred tables, there was plenty of room. But the stands weren't only occupied by restaurants because there were four ice-cream parlours present too, as well as Bodegas San Pablo Moriles, who were offering their finest finos. After the fair, it was calculated that 7,500 visitors had turned up to sample what Almuñécar's collective cuisine had to offer. In fact, the organisers are finding that the Majuelo Botanical Gardens are perhaps a little too small for the occasion, as more and more people attend each year. Of course, the weather was benevolent, so that the huge marquee protected all beneath from the sun rather than the rain.

All in all, the Sixth Annual Gastronomic Fair was a huge success, even though some political bickering arose over why the beer supply had run out on Sunday afternoon, which was sad really.... The bickering, I mean. The beer running out was more along the lines wrist-slashingly depressing rather than simply 'sad'. So, if you missed it this year, don't forget to make a note of it for next year!

Well, the Virgin was ceremoniously borne on shoulders up to the Ermita de El Cerval, which is in a little hamlet up above La Herradura. A hundred odd villagers from La Herradura and El Cerval took part. Up there, the Ermita is a lovely little chapel, which some of you might remember as we did a report on Dave Janssen's wedding last summer. The Virgen de Fátima must have enjoyed the airing - ladies like to be taken out now and then, don't they? In reality, it's not El Cerval, but Los Cervales, as there are two separate hamlets that are distinguished with by the title El Cerval 'Alto' and El Cerval 'Bajo.' The chapel stands in the lower hamlet. Fortunately, for those who have to bear the weight of the throne, the distance is quite short, although rather steep. The trouble is that the return trip is uphill and by then everybody is well lubricated and fed - it's a wonder that she isn't sent home by taxi so that some serious festivities can continue without interruption!

After all the fuss at the beginning of the school year at the lack of progress over the secondary school in the village, the last thing that parents want is for the present building work on Las Gaviotas infant school to drag on into the coming school year. In fact, they have already officially complained about the slow progress of the construction work. The parents association cannot understand why such a simple and limited building project should be taking so long. They can only look on with envy at the accelerated pace at which the new high school in Almuñécar's P-4 is going up - the basic structure is already finished. The way things are going, the children, for whom the La Herradura school is being built, will be married and working for a living before the bloody thing is finished.

Following up from last month's front-page article about the illegal buildings in the Marina del Este, we have further information to report. The Andalusian Supreme Court (TSJA) has decided to investigate to see if there have been any criminal activities connected with the licences that were issued to Jardines de Adnania by the Town council. The decision to make inquiries into the affair was taken after the relevant authorities were presented with a lawsuit, containing accusations of irregular practices by the Almuñécar Town Council. The Public Prosecutor has been asked to investigate alleged perversion of the course of justice, i.e. issuing a building licence, knowing that the proposed construction was illegal and pedalling favours in general. The accusation puts the blame on the municipal council for a decision taken in May 2003.This, incidentally, fell under the jurisdiction of the previous council, which was headed by the PP). It also blames the municipal architect, who approved the project. The prosecuting council belongs to the recently constituted Andalusian Network of Prosecutors for the Environment, whose prime function is to investigate and prosecute building irregularities. Again, according to the accusation, the Aida and Horia buildings, which are part of the Jardines de Adanania complex, contravene building regulations because they 'occupy public space;' destroyed a natural beauty spot known as the 'Mirador' and transgressed the Andalusian building regulations & the municipal PGOU (General Plan for Urban Development). The other four buildings of the Jardines de Adanania have already been declared illegal.

The Royal Wedding was impossible to miss - the run up to the event plagued television screens and popular conversations. In fact, it even displaced the topic of football - not because men were also talking about it, but because they couldn't get a word in edgeways or, if they could, couldn't be heard over the din. I had already left England when Charles and Di got married, so I can't compare the atmosphere. I imagine that it must have been about the same. I made the mistake of mentioning the blanketing of TV time with every trivial detail about the couple - his brand of underwear and her choice of deodorant, for example. The person to whom I had uttered this blasphemy was the woman who should have been marking up the goods that I had bought in her corner shop, had she not been ensconced in front of the CCTV monitor that had been hurriedly converted into a normal TV set. "We haven't had such a wedding in over a hundred years and we are very proud of it," I was witheringly informed. I hurriedly dropped the subject before my goods were returned to the shelves before my eyes and my unsavoury presence removed.

What's this got to do with La Herradura? Well, I'm telling you all this, so that it should come as no surprise that La Sardina had gone to the bother of obtaining lots of silver commemoration coins for the occasion. Customers were amazed and delighted to find that when they received their change, it was in this special coinage. Ten points for initiative, Jose Luis, although I, for one, was so glad when the event had come and gone.

Even after ten years of petitioning and waiting, the village has not managed to obtain a paediatric doctor/nurse from the Regional Health Service. After a deluge of promises from politicians of all colours, the village remains void of even the faintest rumour of this sort of doctor, specialising in infants - and there are over a thousand children in the village! If a child should fall ill, to date, a parent has to take the child to Almuñécar. A year ago it seemed as though their prayers had been answered, when the provincial delegate for the Regional Health Service, Francisco Cano, promised that the village would have a specialisist when he announced the he was running for office as a PSOE candidate for the Regional Congress. Now, the elections are long over... and nothing has been heard since. However, at the end of last month, Francisco Cano came out in his own defence, no doubt having read the article in Ideal newspaper, where it made plain his amnesia. "Our pledge during and after the elections remains valid and the village will receive its child specialist," he said. He also said that the arrival of the specialist depends on there being a surgery in which to practice - something that wasn't mentioned when he made his flamboyant promise, high on votes. The Town Council responded, "Two weeks ago, we offered various possible sites but were informed that the acceptance of said premises by the regional authorities was conditional on there being a child specialist already in place." Buck passing, no less, and plenty of administrative contradictions.... But no child specialist in sight!

Perhaps the idea of restoring the old Guardia Civil post in La Herradura is a case of 'castles in the air,' but this particular castle is so firmly on the ground that it is in danger of sinking into it. Two years have passed since it was abandoned by the police contingent that manned it. Two years in which nothing has been done to rehabilitate it. There is hope, mind, that Spain's new President, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will take a hand in the affair. Sr. Zapatero spent his summer holidays in the village, when he was still only the main opposition leader. Provincial party members took him to see the castle and he said that he would look into it, which he did - he peeked through the window. The castle is not private or municipal property, as it belongs to the Ministry of the Interior. The Town Council has offered to find a permanent office for the Guardia Civil in exchange for the handing over of the castle to the town authorities. Something has to be done, and rapidly, because the recent heavy rains and the rampant appetites of workaholic bugs are carrying out a pretty effective demolition job on this architectural survivor from the reign of Carlos III (1759-88).

News that illegal immigrants have been intercepted off our beaches, have been washed up drowned, or are working illegally here is hardly 'news' anymore. Yet it should be. The Spanish use the term Subsaharianos when referring to people of tropical Africa, to the south of the Sahara Desert. I explain this because on the 26th of May, 31 immigrants, who were adrift 15 miles off La Herradura, were captured. In desperation they had used a mobile telephone to alert the very people who they were trying their hardest to dodge - the Spanish Coast Guards - because they could take no more. That immigrants who were adrift and at the end of their tether had no other option than to sabotage their own desperate efforts in such a way, is not uncommon but, in this case, the nationality of the immigrants in question was. For the first time Subsaharianos had attempted to come this far along the coast. There were people from Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leona, Uganda and Sudan on board, in other words some of them had begun a journey of four and a half thousand miles, only to give up a mere fifteen from their objective. You can say what you like about the immigrants - about how much of our crime is immigrant related, for example, but you must admire them for their courage and determination. For the same reason you cannot but pity them for their plight. We load up our furniture in a furniture-removal van, jump on a plane and initiate the transfer of our lives to Spain. We complain about bothersome paperwork and about how unreliable 'Pepe' is when it comes to getting a tap fixed. We fuss over getting our kids into school and whether to empradronarse at the local town hall. We might have a good moan about how the flight was delayed two hours and how there was no in-flight meal unless you paid ridiculous prices for a curling sandwich. What we don't do is write home to tell relatives how Mohamed's body was pushed overboard because it was beginning to smell and, besides, we needed the legroom. We don't have to lament that the savings of our parents and uncles, painfully accrued during a whole year were lost when the Guardia Civil 'turned us back at the border.' Neither do we sit in a hovel, complaining to our compatriots about how our Spanish boss pays us misery wages because we dare not approach the authorities to complain. And finally, we don't hide the news from our ageing parents that our sister 'Susan' or 'Jill' is in the hands of a prostitution ring and probably has Aids by now. Yep, it's tough being an expat!

The La Herrdura Insiders
Crash, bang, wallop. The first weekend in May will certainly be one to remember. We were hit by the most horrendous storm during the night of the first Sunday. The weather that day was pretty miserable anyway, although there were no signs of what was to come. The storm peaked at approx. 03.00 with wind gusting and all sorts of unusual crashes and noises. It was clear that damage was being done but no-one wanted to venture outside until things calmed down. Morning duly arrived and bewildered home owners set about the tasks of retrieving patio furniture from neighbouring properties, sweeping up pot plants that had been smashed and generally tidying. It was on arrival at the beachfront that we realised just how bad the storm had been. It resembled the aftermath of a bomb. Traffic slowly picked its way through the huge rocks and tree trunks that the sea had spat out. Many of the bars and restaurants along the front had sea water inside which carried sand and other unidentifiable objects. Most establishments had to close for the day for a major clean up. At the Rosa Nautica end of the beach boats had been dumped on the road. The owner of one car will have to call his insurance company and claim that a boat ran into the back of his car, likely story sir. Credit where its due, the authorities had the whole place cleaned up in two or three days. The only remaining evidence being the two big palm trees in Rosa Nautica's grounds, which were felled, one of which narrowly missed the building. Other than that it was a fairly quiet weekend.

Buba Playa, the late bar on the beach, has had the workers in lately creating a roof terrace. Just along the road a bit the Clipper bar will soon get to work on the popular beach bar, which stays all summer. The staff at Vicentes has also been preparing their roof terrace. A coat of paint and some new pot plants.

Last month El Ancla launched a curry, quiz evening which attracted a full house. This success has prompted another such evening only this time the food will take on a Mexican theme. The event is planned for mid-June. Call in for details or watch the board outside.

The residents of El Gallo on the Punta de la Mona have achieved a certain amount of success by rallying together and stopping the building work in front of them. They are now planning to take the protest further and we wish them luck. Any developments come to light and we will let you know.

A house owner in Peña Parda applied for planning permission to extend the house and put in a swimming pool. The reply was yes, as long as we can have 2 meters of your garden to widen the road. This request, obviously, was rejected by the now irate owner.