Gecko Towers 01.09.20 – plus later updates.
Cooler nights and breezier days herald the start of the end of the summer season. Both May and September are particularly lovely months on Spain’s Costa del Sol but they sandwich the months that tend to blaze, particularly, the scorchers of July and August.
The reliability of the weather was, as in most years, no exception. Indeed it was, perhaps, the only certainty this year. 2020 so far has been anything but predictable.
2020 will be seen – with a sensible degree of 20/20 hindsight – as a benchmark after which much moved on, much changed and a lot of what we had previously understood to be entirely usual would no longer be so. On the plus side, and we do need to inject some positivity in an otherwise entirely gloomy landscape, this will give rise to opportunities. Invariably catastrophes have an upside and, make no mistake for many thousands of reasons 2020 has been catastrophic, but whether the likely opportunities are personal, commercial, social or environmental the positive fall-out remains to be fully understood.
Like blooms that emerge after the winter’s thaw, now is the time for those with a passion for golf to return and for the retirees, who prefer the cooler months, to take up residence to enjoy whatever the autumn and winter may hold. It seems that this year’s preference may involve returnees to the Costa del Sol driving to take up their seasonal residence.
As the AW 20 collections start to fill the pages of online retailers, returning national and international visitors, for whom the Costa del Sol is an annual holiday pilgrimage, make their way back home. Those who made the trip now confront obligatory protective mask wearing, possibly quarantine, regional lockdowns and more months of home or furloughed working.
This New Normality may have fallen short of an anticipated quality of life that many find acceptable. The rationale being that they have complied, in the main, with the not unreasonable requests of their government, but something is going to have to give if they aren’t – and soon – presented with at least a tunnel if not yet the light at the end of it.
Those staycationers, who forfeited the joys of their annual fortnight or more of Costa del Sol summer sun, deserve an end to inconsistency. Team Boris appears obsessed with avoiding the making of further mistakes after its late arrival to planet Lockdown. I am just not sure how long Europeans – geographic rather than political – will be able to contain their collective patience when confronted by vacillation and confusion.
On 4th September, as dawn broke, it was clear there was a void between the approaches of the Westminster and devolved UK governments in relation to the treatment of passenger flight arrivals from Greece, Portugal, French Polynesia and Gibraltar. Even the UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, described the situation as “Confusing”!
Spaniards have been very resolute in adopting mask wearing and social distancing without default in response to the policy of their coalition government. As a result, the Madrid and Barcelona spikes seem to have have been largely contained although very recent figures suggest further rises in the number of new infections.
So many of the usual beneficiaries of summertime spending will have seen their revenues fall or be minuscule by comparison with previous years. Many will not survive commercially but those who can weather the decline will want a New Normality to include some form of reasonable perspective.
Late last week the Spanish Government denied it was planning a second country-wide Lockdown with reports coming from an English publication being rubbished by health chief, Fernando Simon, calling it a “hoax story”. He also insisted Schools would return in September and was quoted as saying “we have to learn to live with the virus whether we like it or not.” Well said.
While I am not making any case that ignorance should prevail, there will surely come a time when the immediate threat may be perceived as having passed and life can be continued with some degree of realistic normality.
Sorry if today’s blog has been a bit of a rant and having little to do with choosing a more positive lifestyle.
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