Cold comfort

Sixteen gigantic illuminated angels will adorn the main thoroughfare, Calle Larios, while elsewhere, many more of the city's streets will shine seductively through the darkening days of December. It is, quite literally, a brilliant sight to behold.

What we really need in order to complete the joyful Yuletide scenes, however, is for the appropriate weather to make an appearance in order to complement the decor.

A worrying number of people are still swanning around town in shorts and, in some unbelievable instances, flip flops. It's not right. These are the days of the year that should be reserved for scarves, bobble hats, big coats and hands cupped around steaming mugs of soup, but the summer sun has insisted on sticking around like your uncle Dave at a wedding with his tie on his head after all the other guests have toddled off home. Let's face it, we've never dared to dream of snow in these parts but the sight of your own breath hitting the cold night air for a couple of months a year isn't too much to ask for, I wouldn't have thought.

I feel for the roast chestnut vendors who rely on a cold snap each year to drive their sales. It must be demoralising having to gaze upon a parade of passers-by slurping on their ice creams through a billowing haze of your own roast chestnut smoke. Temperatures are predicted to reach as high as 27C over the next week or so, although the average will be less than that.

Twenty years ago, winter in Malaga generally began in October, usually ushered in by a few days of torrential rain and a big coat would be required until at least the end of February, although I do remember people commenting on the fact that there were sunbathers on the beach one December in the late nineteen nineties. Then it was the exception; now it's becoming the rule.

We really need cold and we desperately need rain - if only there were sixteen angels somewhere who could put a word in.