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Since my recent review and cull of this website, www.help-me-ronda, more issues have come to light. I shut down the WhatsApp link some time ago, because it became unmanageable. In the light of further feedback and discussion about the Facebook link, I have decided to axe that also.

It’s some 15 months since I started my website www.help-me-ronda.com. It has grown and grown and is a pretty comprehensive one-stop-shop” for information about all aspects of life in the Serranía de Ronda. It’s time for a review of the website, it’s aims and objectives and its fitness-for-purpose.

The Spanish Fly and his German wife often go to Germany for Christmas and New Year. They visit her family, which is distributed throughout the country In 2023 they visited Dresden, the city that rose from the ashes of the allied bombings at the end of World War II.

Just as I am preparing to apply for Spanish citizenship – deadline end of January – the country is doing its best to put me off going ahead! First of all, two of Spain’s police forces have p**sed me off big-style and on top of that two places have convinced me never to visit again. What’s the story?

That’ll be different. My first-ever Christmas "de Rodriguez" or "Home Alone"! "Footloose and fancy-free". For the first time in 74 years! What’s going on? Has my wife left me? Or is there a simpler explanation? This is what I'm planning .....

As I write this at 19.30 on the day itself in my local bar, there is nobody about! I’ve spoken to a few of my Spanish neighbours, and today is not important for them. They’re just glad to have a day off!

Today celebrates the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Christians the world over consider today to be one of the most important days in the religious calendar. In many Roman Catholic countries, it is an official “feast day” or bank holiday.

I am basically a law-abiding citizen, a democrat, who fully understands that society needs rules in order for life to function. And that therefore a police force is required. However, it’s odd that Spain needs three. Although when it comes to which force is responsible for what, the lines are somewhat blurred.

In a similar manner, “Mazón lunched while Valencia flooded”. Regional president Carlos Mazón enjoyed a three-hour lunch with a female journalist while floods were laying waste to the Valencia region. In a piece in the HuffPost journalist Rodrigo Carretero highlights the main points of an article in the Financial Times.

After the devastating storms and floods in eastern Spain last week, which washed away cars, people, livestock and buildings, the authorities have estimated that some 100,000 vehicles have been turned into scrap. And they are in the way of clearing-up operations.

The Spanish Post Office is quite unlike the UK equivalent. There are no sub-post offices as such. Big cities in Spain have a main Correos and maybe a few others dotted around. Ronda (pop: 34,000) now has two.

With the cold and wet weather we have been experiencing in southern Spain since the clocks went back, people are turning their thoughts to heating their houses. The DIY Guy has lived in a number of properties in the Ronda area, so he knows a thing or two about keeping warm.