Giles Brown
IT was one of those beautiful spring mornings up at the Casita.
You know, the ones where you are supposed to ‘count your blessings’ as it says on the covers of all those unread self help books that I have in an ever increasing stack in the corner of the library.
The lake was looking beautiful, for once the cats weren’t casually dismembering some unfortunate rodent in the living room and the first cafe solo of the day was going down beautifully.
In short, life was good, and it got even better when I nipped up to the village to get a few bits and pieces. Istan was holding its annual food fair with a range of homemade breads, chorizos, vinos dulces, ecologically grown vegetables and spices. The village’s tiny main street was heaving and smelt delicious.
Needless to say, as a highly trained journalist specialising in ‘lifestyle’, I didn’t need a second invitation.
Several hours later I waddled back to the car to find one of the four village policemen about to slap a traffic fine on my car.
A rather heated exchange followed with me eloquently arguing that the whole socio-economic-touristic impact of the food fair would be somewhat negated if he fined me.
The policeman pondered this for a second, put his hand on his truncheon and called for backup on the radio.
As the advert for a certain credit card used to go
Local honey €4
Pan casero de Istan €2
Herbas de Istan €2
Multa de Trafico de Istan €50
Getting the police to get on the radio and his baton out when I dispute the fine ….Priceless
Next time I’m sticking to Mercadona.
I wanna sex you up…
I know that Marbella has a reputation for being a little, ahem, risque, as a quick tour of the second line of Puerto Banus of throwing out time will confirm. But even I thought that the addition of what appears to be fishnet stockings on the remaining Marbella Arch is taking things a bit far, as my photography shows.
The town hall claims that this is fact, netting to stop large chunks of concrete crashing onto the road below. But it strikes me as an undercover attempt to sex up the town. I shudder to think what they are planning to put over the Copper Tower!
