If there's one thing that Swedish residents and tourists love, it's showing us mere mortals that cold, sea water is only an unfounded rumour.

They do this every year by trotting down the beach in Almuñécar, specifically, Playa San Cristóbal, and plunging into the surf, modestly dressed in a swimming costume and a Santa’s hat.

Meanwhile, locals, suitably toggled up for a winter’s day, look on, amused, bemused and ocularly abused at the sight of impervious Swedes frolicking where one simply shouldn’t at this time of the year.

It has become a New Year’s Day custom only interrupted by the Covid years: around 100 Scandinavians use their bodies to prove the point about the difference in sea temperatures between the Baltic and the Mediterranean; with the former cold enough to bounce off and the latter a piece of paddling doddle. This has been going on for the last 30 years!

This year, they have been blessed with a relatively warm Christmas with daytime temperatures over 20ºC and a sea temperature of 16ºC, which, ladies and gentlemen, is a good temperature for serving red wine, so wholly civilised for dipping your naughty nordic knees in.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo & Video: JM de Haro)