Spanish views from a small town

Today is a grey, wet, dark day. A typical winter's day here in Galicia. Every once in a while, a day like this isn't such a bad idea. The best scenario would be a day with little to do, and nowhere to go, with a couple of good, interesting books awaiting. The only downside would be waking up after finishing the books and realizing that now, there's nothing interesting to do, and the sun could try to come out a bit, if only to cheer the place up. Of course, it depends on what the reading matter is. When I was a little girl, one winter's day when I was home, perhaps with a fever, or during February or Christmas vacation, I was alone with my mother. My mother was in the kitchen, I was in the living room. I had a high school literature book of American short stories in my hands, which still had some tales I hadn't read earlier. My father's workmate had given him lately another box of old books that had belonged to his grown-up kids, for me. As my mother tinkered in ...

Summer has abandoned us, and left us to the low pressure systems wandering in off the Atlantic. Yesterday, a holiday, it rained mostly in the morning, with breaks in the afternoon. But today, except for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, it's been raining continuously.  And it's going to rain for most of next week. The Azores high pressure has moved, and is now letting in all the low pressure systems. So far, I can't complain much about the summer. Except for the month of June, which was mostly grey, July and the first half of August have been beautiful. There were some hot days, but along our stretch of coast, the sea breeze held off the asphyxiating heat felt inland. This is the first stretch of rain we've had since June. I just hope any storm system we have doesn't get too strong. This year, the hurricane season is supposed to be quite active. As of this month, the hurricanes have reached the letter I, Isaias being the last one so far. At the moment, the...

Rain is a primal part of Galicia from late September onwards. My husband tells stories of winters that began in the middle of September and let up only when June arrived. Winters of days that awoke in rain, and went to bed in rain. Winters of only a few days when the sun could be seen. Winters of water. The weather is now changing, and in these past years, October has been an oasis of summer. Perhaps that is also changing our mindset, and we have begun to assume that the rains of winter won't arrive until much later. Which is why, when a cold front with its associated rain and wind passed by last week, we were surprised.  We were mostly surprised because we were caught off guard. The morning after the intense rainfall, I went out and saw many people cleaning the debris from gutters that had overflowed, and saw where rain and mud had crossed the road because of stuffed up ditches. Most of the small floodings that happened were due to ditches and gutters that had filled up with t...

Today is a typical winter's day in this area. The rain is pouring, the skies are dark, and one has the feeling of a perpetual twilight. It feels like one should be getting ready for supper rather than getting lunch ready. There's a brewing storm offshore forecast for today, an explosive cyclogenesis, that is going to bring much needed rain, albeit in not too subtle a way. Already the tree tops are bending, and the winds are raising their voices in strong gusts that will approach hurricane force this afternoon. The rain is whipping into everything sideways, running from the clouds, trying to burrow into the ground as if to make up for more than a year of drought. There is nothing strange about this storm except its lateness. The first storms of fall generally come at the beginning of October, end of September. This year it's come at the middle of December. Climate change, working its insidious way into our present.  Meteorologists say we'll need about twelve storms l...

Late August rain. Nowhere to go. Much to do. Very little initiative to do anything.  Drip, drip, drip. Rain knocks on the roof. Drops splatter on the ground. Rivulets run down the windows. Grey surrounds everything. Light is strained. An eight o'clock look to everything. Not sure whether morning or evening. Lights will not be turned on. Quiet broken by the refrigerator motor. Cars grow, splash, and fade. Tic toc tic says the clock. Clickety-click says the keyboard. Cats sleep. Rain is needed. Drought is killing the reservoirs. Rain feeds boredom. Longing for yesterday's sun. Summer fades. Winter comes on nigh. Nature begins to close shop, pulling down the shutters halfway. Please, may I buy one last warm day? I won't be long. Go right ahead, I'll wait for you. The forecast says sun day after tomorrow.  

A meme on Facebook caught my eye t hi s past Sunday and I had to share it. It goes, "O final, tiña razón Rajoy cando decía  que cando chovese iamos aforrar en luz. Xa levamos dous días sen ela." Roughly translated, it means, "In the end, Rajoy was right when he said we would save on electricity when it rained. We've been without it for two days." It all refers back to about a week and a half ago. They were the coldest days of the winter, and the deregulated electricity market raised prices to maximums of over €100 per megawatt. That translated into harsh price increases in most people's electric bill. A medium ho usehold's bill was expected to go up by ten to twenty euros. Then there is the fixed part of the bill, which includes the kilowatts contracted (The more things you can plug in simultaneously, the more you pay. We have the smallest possible, 2.2 kw, and can't turn on the microwave and the hair dryer at the same time.), having th...

When one thinks of Galicia in the winter, images of rain soaked grass come up. Dark clouds scudding in the sky, and drizzle working its way into every crevasse it finds. Our weather is much like that on other western shores. Western Ireland and the Pacific Northwest have similar weather. My husband says that the rain would appear at the beginning of fall and last until late spring. Depressing, but that's what gives Galicia its verdure and temperate climate.  For the past few years, though, things have been changing. We have had dry winters and wet summers. Months when not a drop of rain has fallen. Our well has almost run dry a few times, and springs that were never known to not have at least a trickle of water have dried out. This past summer was extremely dry. There were no immediate alarms until towards the end, because it followed upon an abnormally wet spring. But now the dry weather has continued for too long. A dry summer led into a dry autumn, and now a dry winter has b...

This Carnival is turning out to be a wet, sopping, mess. Parades and celebrations have been postponed to next weekend, as rain and high winds laugh at our attempts to enjoy ourselves. But, very possibly, next weekend celebrations will have to be postponed again . Rain and windy weather have been promised through the coming weekend. We had been having a mild, temperate winter till now. Yes, we have had days of rain, but it hasn't really been violent. Until yesterday. Wind gusts of over a hundred kilometers per hour in the entire region. Red alert on the shore with waves of over twelve meters. Persistent, hard rain. In some northern cities seawater and sand have invaded city streets and destroyed stone benches and balustrades. Airplanes have had to be detoured from Vigo to Porto in Portugal. Worst of all, a 20-month-old child was ripped from his grandfather's arms when they got too close to the raging sea.  Apparently the weather this week is due to a stratospheric warming. W...

This is getting ridiculous. It has come to the point of keeping a lookout for the mailman so I can collect the letters from the mailbox before they become a sopping mass of wet paper and colored ink. Mopping becomes an all-day event. I mop but it doesn't dry, even after passing newspaper over the area. Clothes can only dry at the stove, slowly, piece by piece. Which leaves the kitchen looking like a laundry most of the week. I'd almost forgotten what a partly sunny day looked like until today that the rain decided to give it a rest.  Unfortunately, tomorrow another front will waltz through the region, setting off alarms and swelling swollen rivers just a little bit more. A high pressure area is supposed to come in at the end of the week, but more rain on Sunday. And on it goes. Yes, Galicia is the land of rain. Yes, rain is what makes this land so green. But 257 liters per square meter in just three days is a little too much. That is the amount of water that fell in Cuntis be...

It's just two days before Christmas and I have things to do and buy before tomorrow evening, but my mind and my body don't feel like moving, thinking, or dealing with what needs to be done. It's a dark, pearly gray outside. It seems as if the world has shut me in my house, which has shut me in my mind. In the morning the darkness does not let me wake up until almost lunchtime. It doesn't matter that I'm out of bed. I am waiting for the daylight to reach me, but it doesn't. In the afternoon I will probably set out as early as possible, but most shops won't open until four or five in the afternoon. And by then night will be falling, and the gray light will simply get darker until night enshrouds all. I envy those who like days like today. People who seem cozy with the dim light, the eternal moisture, and the early darkness. I may ask for a day like this one once every eleven months. No more. I am more of a sunlight freak. On days like this whenever I notic...

It's the weekend, the moment of washing clothes that will be needed during the week. Correction, of washing and drying . Therein lies the problem.  I don't have a dryer. Normally, I wash the clothes, take it out, and hang it outside to dry. During the mostly dry months that's not usually a problem. The problem begins now. The eternal rains are upon us. That means I hang the clothes in the cellar to dry. There's no problem with that - if I don't mind waiting three or four days for it to dry. The problem comes on the weekends, when my husband's clothes needs to be dry for early Monday morning.  Then, we scramble. Or, rather, try to. The clothes comes out of the washer and to the kitchen. We light the fire. We hang the clothes in front of the wood stove to dry. There are points where clothes dries faster and points where it dries slower. So, I rotate. When one piece is dry, another piece from another section is put there, and a piece from the basket is placed w...