You will almost certainly be reading this article in an igloo. According to all meteorological forecasts, at the time of writing, Malaga province is about to be hit by a bout of cold weather so unmerciful that even people from Newcastle might have to put a jacket on.

Having drunk enough 'caldito de pintarroja' to sink a battleship, wrapped themselves in 5,000,000-tog duvets and set fire to their armpit hair, all to no avail, everybody living here will soon be faced with the fact that the only possible solution is to build an Eskimo house from ice cubes. (I think Eskimos are called something else these days - it's hard to keep up - but I'm sure that among the thousands of them reading this, few will be offended if their new moniker escapes me.)

Anyway, in a nutshell, it's going to get very cold very soon. Well, good. Malaga is at its best when it's cold. For one thing, there's now absolutely no excuse for sitting on a terrace anywhere. It's always a profound folly which inevitably results in three hours of arm flailing trying to catch the waiter's attention, another three for him to bring the beer which, by the time it comes, has less head than Anne Boleyn, and a further phase of gurning and gesticulating in vain, desperately hoping for the bill. When it's all over, it's very late and you're really hungry and someone suggests finding a nice restaurant terrace somewhere nearby to sit on, at which point you beat them to within an inch of their lives with a nearby ashtray which hasn't been emptied since nineteen seventy-two and then spend the rest of summer in Alhaurin prison which, let's face it, is a better experience than sitting on a terrace.

When I first arrived here, it used to get freezing every winter and we'd all don scarves and thick coats and eat 'chocolate con churros' and get a heavy cold and then recover and we'd say things like "I can't believe it's so cold" even though it was exactly the same temperature twelve months previously. Winter at its finest.

In latter years, people have often been seen strolling around in t-shirts on Christmas day, although that may just be the ones avoiding having to wear the hideous jumpers their mothers bought them.

"I'll wear it when it gets cold, mum."

"Oh, ok. Er, are your teeth chattering, son?"

"No, no. It's just the excitement of Christmas. I'm roasting, actually."

"Well, so am I in this fake fur monstrosity your father got me. Let's go and sit on a lovely terrace, then, shall we?"