On another outing, (the Gazette knows no bounds in bringing you all the news) we took some visitors from the UK up to the Rules Dam. As former Salobreña residents, they had moved away prior to the completion of the dam, and were suitably impressed by what really is a considerable feat of engineering.

Somewhat less impressive, although making for a spectacular sight, was the fact that literally thousands of cubic metres of water per second were being flushed out of the dam, because it was literally full almost to overflowing. Now, you really don’t want the dam to overflow; not, all things considered, a good thing. So where was the surplus water going? You guessed it. Straight into the Rio Guadalfeo – where all the rainfall used to go before the dam was built! Why? Because there is still no infrastructure in place to distribute the valuable resource! No pipes to carry the water to towns and farms – nada, nothing. I was telling the Ed about this astonishing discovery (investigative reporting, y’know) and he languidly replied that he had reported this ‘oversight’ back in 2007, in these very pages. So it’s not exactly groundbreaking news.
To date, there is no firm plan or timetable to complete the installations needed to make the Dam practically effective for the purpose it was intended. So there you have it; you honestly couldn’t make it up, could you?