Every year around this time, there’s a day when I wake up and do a double take: has there been some kind of chemical attack over night to account for the fine yellow powder covering the whole village?
It lasts for a week or more and the dust gets everywhere. Cars are covered with it and it forms a scum round the edge of any puddle that happens to be around. Obviously it’s fine enough to pass through the mosquito screens we have on the doors and windows, so when I sweep the floors I find the dust is tinged with yellow. Which is slightly disturbing.
The first couple of years, I seriously wondered if it was the fall-out from some dubious crop spraying activity. (If you read the small print on the packets of insecticide that are blithely sold to all-comers at the local garden centre, you’d realise that no one in Spain pays much attention to health and safety regulations where chemicals are concerned.)
I’m beginning to think, though, that it’s actually nothing more sinister than pollen. And I can only be glad that I don’t get hayfever.
don't confuse the narrator 