Tag Archives: weather in Spain

Clouds gathering

Is there rain up there in those clouds? Will it be the last rainfall until November?

Coming from the UK where in an average year 133 days of the 365 are rainy or snowy and we get a measly 1200-1600 hours of annual sunshine, I longed to move to Spain for the warmth and the sun. Here, where we get a staggering 2500-3000 hours of sunshine a year [see table below] I don’t mind the occasional downpour, the day or two of rain. And the earth, the sponge that it is, soaks it all up.

[Metro Maps]

5 to remember
¿hay? – is there?
viniendo del Reino Unido – coming from the UK
mezquino/a – measly/paltry
ocasional – occasional
un aguacero – a downpour

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Clouds gathering, but I don’t care #secretvalley #Spain via @Spanish_Valley http://wp.me/p3dYp6-226

Four minutes of the sky at night…

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…during four minutes on March 26^th, 2013.

At 19.22, grey night-time sky at one side of the valley… … still some blue sky to the west. At 19.24, the dark of night falls to the east… … but fine clouds high up still move on the wind in the west. At 19.25, the grey gradually pushes the brilliant blue into the west at the end of the day. 5 to remember
durante – during
cuatro minutos – four minutes
el marzo – March
dos mil trece – 2013
gradualmente – gradually

Access by track

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The first time we ever drove to the house on our own, in a hire car, we simply turned off the main road, followed the rough track past a few houses, and set off downhill through the olive grove. We were confident we would recognise the way. It was October 2007 and we had last visited in August. Thankfully the earth was dry and rock hard. We followed a straight line, between the olive trees, trusting our memory that the valley was somewhere vaguely below us out of sight. Somehow we negotiated the holes and cracks in the dry land, without damaging the hire car.

The track is rather different now. To enable 365 day access we improved the section which, during the January rains can be the slickest and muddiest, with hardcore and concrete [below].

The more easily navigable sections of track [below], we simply lay down gravel which evens out the bumps and adds a little grip.

We took a deep breath and made the improvements after our first winter, when the rain hammered down and visitors were unable to reach us without driving 4×4 vehicles. Our predecessors at the house had learned the hard way – the rough track above the house had literally washed away during a storm in 2004 [below] – and we were determined to learn from them and not wait for another storm to do its worst. So we carried on improving the track where they had left off.

[photo: Europa Alpacas]

After another storm in 2006 which damaged the track at the back of the house, our predecessors improved this too [below]

[photo: Europa Alpacas]

5 to remember
el coche de alquiler – the hire car
cuesta abajo – downhill
agradecido/a – thankfully
en línea recta – straight line
vagamente – vaguely