Hi everyone, its Michelle, Essex bird here, reporting to you this week's installments of what's been happening here on the Costa del Sol, and let me tell you first of all it's been another very very hot, humid week.

 

I for one I love the sun but I for one will be glad when things start cooling down because it is getting a little bit intolerable now.  Anyway,  we've had a few happenings here. No major rules from the government have come out this week, but bars without food licenses are having to close. If you are a bar and you don't have a food license.

That's it. 

You're done, so a lot of the bars have closed which is kind of a shame because there are a lot of places here that have closed down and it's really, really looking sad. So, if you've got food license you're okay. You can stay open until 1 am, but the last customers as I said to you last week have to be in by 12 o'clock and the other thing that came in was, they've closed brothels. What a surprise ! I didn't even know, I must be so naive. I didn't even know they had so many brothels here, and I had no idea where they are.

 And I've got absolutely no knowledge on brothels, but I'm kind of wondering, how would you social distance in a brothel. It makes absolutely no sense I thought they would have been closed like from the very beginning, but hey, I'm not running the country. We did have a bit of a sad event this week at 6am last Friday morning. The SISU boutique hotel in Puerto Banus, Marbella went up in flames.

Now I'm sure some of you probably saw footage of it. I don't know if it was reported on the news, the SISU is a luxurious hotel, which a lot of celebrities stay

The rooms range from about 200 euros that's about 180 pounds a night, and, unfortunately, it caught on fire, and it took 10 fire engines and 45 firefighters to finally get it under control, and the blaze took three hours for them to do so and for me the scary thing really was seeing guests climbing out their balconies on the outside of the buildingwhere they've got like this ornamental facade, trying to make their way to safety on the ground. Now according to the news here. There was only one fatality. He was a French tourist he hasn't been named yet. Several people were injured, but they were mainly treated for smoke inhalation.

 

Now, as bad as that is it could have been a whole lot worse because that hotel, I think has about 112 rooms, and they were quite close to full occupancy. So, and it's been there a long time. So I do wish the SISU well I'm glad that everybody got out safely.

 

Also, this week.

 

Marbella and Nerja are closing their beaches at 930 at night.

 

Now the reason they're doing this is, once again, it's the young people that are being attracted to the beach to late night party, and it's become the alternative to nightclubs, this is now the new venue. Let's go to the beach.

So, Nerja to Marbella have decided that, as of this week, as of Monday, the beaches are now closed after 930. The aim of the province of Andalusia is to stop people going to the beach late at night and getting bladdered so that they won't make a mockery of the social distancing, which seems to be slowly disappearing with the tourists and I might add, at this point that this is getting up the noses of some of the residents here, both Spanish and English alike, are getting a little bit fed up with this because we have had one of the strictest, if not THE strictest locked down in all of Europe and it seems to be the younger 20s to 30s group that seem to think they're invincible, and try flouting the law, which I might add, is not a good thing to do here. The police do not look kindly on it, and they are out handing fines to people that are not wearing masks. Now  on a lighter note and to my surprise, we have a shopping center in Marbella and it's called La Canada and I always thought it was a little bit you know sort of up market. They were the first or the only to get Marks and Spencers and we all went crazy when they got Marks and Spencer's, and everybody went up there even though the food Hall is like negligible. It's still Marks and Spencers. They now have got a license for Primark. I'm really shocked Primark in La Canada. Now after years of hand tying red tape, they finally got the approval to open in 2021. I think they started like campaigning for this in 2014 it's taken this long to get it going but they now say, it will take six months to build, depending on the COVID situation here. It's going to cost 11 million euros, and it will generate 300, new jobs, which I might add is really badly needed here on the Costa del Sol, I mean, we've had a Primark in Fuengirola for years and it seems to be really popular with the Spanish, and the English. I mean I gotta say, Who doesn't love a pair of fluffy pajamas. Now, moving on. I'm going to Gibraltar Gibraltar is about 45 minutes away from me by car and they came out ruled last Friday that everyone over the age of 11 must wear a mask in all shops and stores. Now the staff are already required to do so. I found this interesting, because of the reason, they say they are tightening their restrictions, due to young people who have been socializing, on the Costa del Sol this summer. Now that's what I've just told you about. So, local residents in Gibraltar are concerned that there are far too many people not social distancing. So as of now, if you are 11 or over, you must wear a mask in all shops and stores. Now on the subject of masks. I came across a very interesting story. There is an Israeli jeweler, who is selling a gold Corona virus mask. You can get one if you like. For a mere $1.5. million dollars. The 18 karat gold, white gold,  white gold. We've got to be classy. The 18 karat white gold mask will be decorated with 3,600, white and black diamonds and fitted with the top rated N99 filters, at the request of the buyer and this was reported by the designer Isaac levy, here now, you know, I'm having trouble wearing a mask in this heat, and we are all required to do so, you know, but this is something else. Levy the owner of this company said that the buyer had two demands. One that it'd be completed by the end of the year. And two, that it would be the priciest mask in the world. Why ?? I have no clue as to why, I think people have got more money than sense. He's declined to identify the buyer, but he did say he's a Chinese businessman, living in the United States. Now, the glitzed up facemask may lend some bling to the ordinary protective gear that we're all used to, but at 270 grams. Now that's over half a pound in weight. It's nearly 100 times heavier than the surgical mask that you are probably wearing now. So for me in this heat, no thank you. I'm not going for one who says money doesn't buy you everything ?? Yeah. How crazy is that ?? 

Anyway. Finally, I'm going to leave you on a happy note. And that is, this event happened in Switzerland, it's not even here but I gotta tell you about it. There was a Swiss town coated in cocoa powder after a factory glitch.  Residents of the Swiss town, got a bit of a shock when it started snowing particles of a fine cocoa powder from the ventilation system at the Chocolate Factory, which malfunctioned. Now you know Lindt the ones that make those cute little chocolate bunnies. Well they confirmed that there had been a minor defect in their cooling ventilation, and they're roasted "cocoa nibs" which sound absolutely delicious.....in its factory in Olton and that's that's between Zurich, and Basal. The "Nibs" are fragments of crushed cocoa beans and are the basis of chocolate, well combined with a strong winds on Friday morning. The powder spread around the  the immediate vicinity of the factory, leaving a fine cocoa dusting on everything and they say that the ventilation system has now been repaired. The company said that one car was lightly coated, and that it had offered to pay for the cleaning of the car, but as of yet the owner of the car hasn't taken up the offer. I bet they haven't !! If it was me, I'd be out there licking the Windows as well. I would become a window licker for sure. Anyway, I'm going to leave you on that note, that's my bits and bobs we'll do this for this week or next week everyone have a really great one. Be kind to each other. Stay safe and Hasta Luego from the Costa del Sol.