We went to Mombeltrán for lunch the other day and I stopped to snap a picture of the “autumn colours” on the local mountains.
We hadn’t been that way for a few months, and it was shocking to think that the fire this summer had come that close to the town and destroyed so many of the pines.
Continue reading “…as the year grows old”
The weather in Spain is very predictable. Not just what weather there will be, but when it will happen. Last year, on September 10th I wrote about the first torrential rains of the autumn. This year, I received an email on September 13th including the phrase, “Greetings from stormy Madrid.”
As you can infer from the photo, a lot of the rain in Spain has fallen in my back garden. Whether the rains will last long enough to do much good remains to be seen, but, for the moment at least, I don’t need to do any watering.
Continue reading “having a good time”
Today, almost a month after it was started, the wildfire in the Valle del Tiétar has officially been declared over.
It started at lunchtime on the 28th of July and was under control by the 3rd of August. On the 13th it was described as “técnicamente extinguido”, but there have been people deployed in the area since then, damping down and making sure that it didn’t flare up again.
Two people died and 4211 hectares were burned, including a large area of the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park.
I can’t help but wonder how the person who started it feels now.
Today, after six days, they have finally announced that the fire in the mountains is “controlado”.
In the end, the area of land destroyed is said to be around 4,200 hectares. That sounds vast to me, but Agustín González, presidente de la Diputación de Ávila, has described it as “un rinconcito” – a tiny corner – Continue reading “ash Monday”
I went outside on Thursday morning before the sun was up, and what struck me most was how quiet it was. It felt like an autumn morning in the UK: chilly, with a slight blur to the air. In the UK, that would have been from bonfires; here, of course, it was from wildfire smoke.
The helicopters started again soon after 8am, and a walk to the village showed that all was not over: the polideportivo was ‘occupied’ by soldiers and firemen, and the fire was still the main topic of conversation everywhere.
Continue reading “‘tranquilo’”
don't confuse the narrator 