There is no doubt about it – winter has been tough all round, with many businesses finding that February 2011 was the worse month since the crisis began.

But now spring is here, but not only bringing a change of weather and higher temperatures, but also the hope that things will pick up from Semana Santa onwards – and it’s not only the Easter, throne bearers in the cartoon that are praying it doesn’t rain, come Semana Santa, because the coast badly needs good beach weather.

The government recently announced that advanced flight and holiday bookings for this year already show that foreign tourism is up on previous, hard-hit years. Yet nobody would be so naive as to suppose that this is because Spain is more attractive, but more likely because unrest-beset cheaper options, just across the Mediterranean, are too risky.