The Costa Del Sol Ecological Farming environment has taken a severe hammering by developers in the last twenty years, but nothing on the scale that the last five years has seen in the way of building.

Vast areas of countryside in the Costa Del Sol have been torn up along the coast to make way for huge urbanizations of apartment blocks and golf courses.

This if course has caused a huge strain on the water supply in the Costa Del Sol with the last few years seeing severely low reservoir levels and no solution in sight.

Despite the current real estate market slowing down to an almost standstill on the Costa Del Sol, with the very real threat of an imminent property price crash the developers continue in their relentless destruction of any spare bit of land they can get the greedy hands on to build yet more unwanted apartment blocks.

Why these developersdon't see the obvious is mind boggling. They will not be able to sell the apartments once they're completed because the Spanish can't afford the high prices on the Costa Del Sol and the foreigners (who are the developers' target) from northern Europe who were previously buying property in the area are no longer speculating because of several factors.

1. The high prices on the Costa Del Sol

2. The property prices in their own countries have stopped rising, so there is less disposable cash around than there was a few year ago

3. The Costa Del Sol itself has become more expensive as a holiday resort and there are much cheaper alternatives in Bulgaria and Turkey.

So we, the residents of the Costa Del Sol are left with less and less open countryside (or campo) and dozens of ugly unfinished apartment blocks and cranes to look at.

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Well, the socialist PSOE under the watchful rule of Rodriguez Luis Zapatero, el Presidente de Gobierno (President of the Country of Spain) have won the general election held on Sunday 9th Match 2008.

That means another four years of socialist rule for Spain, but what does it mean for Andalucia and the Costa del Sol?

Not all that much really. The PSOE also retained a majority in Andalucia which means just that life goes on much the same as it did before!

Entertainment on the Costa del Sol can only be described as many and varied.

Most holidaymakers to the area come for the almost guaranteed sunshine and hot, rainless weather that we get here during the summer months of June, July and August. But even outside these very hot months, the weather on the Costa del Sol is usually sunny and warm, thanks to the vital statistic that on average we get around 320 days of sunshine per year.

That means out of 365, only 45 of them are going to be rainy!

As for live entertainment, you could always catch a great show, in fact here is a report that Paul Anka to perform live in Malaga, so we're not in the backwoods completely!

...more to follow...

Eating out on the Costa del Sol can be a bit of a lottery when it comes to quality and price, so the newcomer to the area needs to be aware of some of the common pitfalls awaiting the unsuspecting tourist.

First one is avoid the obviously English bars especially those along the beach roads. They will be the most expensive and generally the food is, well, English! If you have a mind to sample the true Spanisg cuisine, go to a Spanish bar. They are generally cheaper than the foreign run bars for drinks and coffee and contrary to popular belief, they do not tend to rip off tourists.

Of course the best Spanish eateries are to be found away from the tourist areas and generally inland in the pueblos, but not always.

Even quite close to the coast there are some real gems to be found. In what was once a pueblo (village) called Los Pacos, there is a particularly good and unbeliveably cheap bar/restaraunt right in th ecentre of the village. Of course, it is slowly but surely being swallowed up by the expanding urban sprawl of Fuengirola and the developers, but the village mentality still remains there, at least for the moment.

... more to follow...

There's no getting away from it, the climate on the Costa del Sol is vastly superior to that of most of the rest of Europe.

Winter temperatures on the Costa del Sol rarely drop below 10 degrees Celsius for the most part, and the rainfall is low on average throughout the year. Even in those winter months, rainfall is patchy and there are far more warm, sunny days than cool, cloudy or rainyt ones. That said, when it does rain on the Costa del Sol, it lets you know all about it!

Several inches can fall in a matter of minutes, not hours! That often causes havoc on the roads as they are not designed to cope with a lot of water and the drainage systems are soon overwhelmed.

Of course, as in most countries, spring is one of the most beautiful times of the year, when everywhere are flowers, green fields, tre3es in blossom and the temperatures are mild to warm and people start to emerge wearing shorts and rather cooler clothing.

Summer is where things really start to hot up. July and August sees some of the hottest temperatures of the year with Malaga often creeping into the high 30s and sometimes even above 40ºC. Occasionally, we get a hot wind that blows over from North Africa which is called a Terral. This is a very uncomfortable wind and if you happen to be outside its like trying to walk into a hairdryer!

When this strikes, there is not much you can do about it so most people stay indoors or go to the beach or pool and stay wet!

Not such a bad thing...