Morriña

Contrary to what those of you reading from England might believe, I do not spend my days on terraces sipping cocktails and soaking up the sun. In fact, this is the first day in a while that it hasn’t been overcast and rainy.

In a huge contrast to the time I spent living in Galicia, Barcelona just can’t handle the rain. People stand around looking angrily at the sky. Plans are cancelled or moved to what will hopefully be a drier day in the future. The metro leaks and the trains are delayed. As someone who dislikes being enclosed in underground tunnels, I am constantly planning my escape route for the moment the drips accumulate into floodwater.

The most dangerous aspect of the rain is the Catalan people themselves. Brought up without the rain survival skills which come as second nature to the British and the Galicians, they struggle with umbrella etiquette. When two umbrella’d people meet in the street, they are at a loss as to how to get around each other. Even when their umbrellas are folded away, the Catalans prove themselves to be unwieldy handlers of their rain protection devices, and it is best to give them a wide berth. Such is their desperation not to have one drop of water touch their skin that they often open their umbrellas indoors, only to discover they can’t fit through and curse the sky in helpless desperation.

To be fair though, Barcelona isn’t suited to the rain. Palm trees don’t look natural against a grey sky, and I feel sorry for the parrots. This isn’t the weather they signed up for! They probably wish they could move back to the jungle. Santiago de Compostela though, that’s a city built for awful weather. I’ve been told it looks more beautiful in the rain, and I’m inclined to agree. Only two weeks to go until I get to see for myself again!

Rainy Barcelona from my window

Be careful what you wish for…

Be careful what you wish for.

Hello all, apologies for the shortage of posts while I enjoyed a brief Madrilenian interlude (of which more later). I arrived back to Catalonia very late last night, only to discover that, all of a sudden, the season had finally changed to autumn.

I say finally, dear readers, because for me this has been a long awaited moment. I have a wardrobe stocked with jumpers, and a longing to wear socks. My eyes are tired of watering in the glare of the Mediterranean sunlight. I yearn to snuggle up in my 13.5 tog duvet. But most of all, I wanted the chance to wear my coat.

Some might call it foolish, buying a winter coat in August.

Indeed, some did.

 “A waste of money!”, they cried. “You’re moving to Spain!” they chorused. Perhaps rightly so, there being no need for a wool-lined hood in a city with parrots and palm trees, at least for a few months more. So I have been willing the weather to grow colder, glancing at my overpriced abrigo hanging forlornly from my bedroom door. The arrival of autumn would silence the coat critics, I thought, as the beauty and warmth of my coat prevailed.

So autumn finally, finally decided to arrive in the form of dangerously high winds across Spain, lashing rain and a two hour delay to my flight back to Barcelona. When the airport was finally in sight, the turbulence was so bad that I thought one more gust of wind could easily have nudged us into the sea beside the landing strip.

But I have to say, I do look rather dashing in my winterwear.