If I were a doctor specialising in alternative treatments, and someone came to me feeling depressed, I wouldn’t send them off with a herb-based elixir or a bunch of St John’s Wort. I wouldn’t cleanse their chakras or refer them to an acupuncturist. I’d send them off to Málaga’s annual fair, which this year runs from 16 to 23 August.

Summer in Andalusia is feria season – the best cure that I know of for a bout of the blues. Usually lasting three or four days, or an entire week in the regional capitals, ferias are occasions of pure alegria (joy) and inclusivity. Happiness is taken very seriously in Spain, especially in Andalusia, and nowhere is this more evident than at a summer fair (Spaniards from the north like to say that all Andalusians are idle hedonists, more likely to be found in

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