THE FOUR SEASONS

There’s a widely held misconception that we don’t experience the four seasons here in the Balearic Islands.  The transitions may be very different in appearance to those experienced in the UK, but we still enjoy spring, summer, autumn and winter.  

Spring is notable for its profusion of wild flowers.  No daffodils or bluebells but spring is around the corner when there is a sudden explosion of bright yellow flowers that seem to happen overnight.  They pop up everywhere, every nook and cranny, every crack in a wall or pavement will be filled with them.  When the sun bounces off the carpet of yellow blooms it is dazzling and you have to look away.  Then just as suddenly they are gone to be followed by oxide daisies and a proliferation of wild orchids including the fascinating bee orchid, mimicking female bees to trick males into mating and thereby pollinate them.

This year however, spring suddenly became summer without warning.  Half way through May we were enjoying the warmth of early season’s sunshine when suddenly temperatures soared into the low 30’s, and it stayed that way all through June with high levels of humidity.  June became July heralding killer temperatures way off the scale, reaching the low 40’s in several places. 

We took showers several times a day but it was futile, just toweling off was enough to get the sweat flowing again and sleep was almost impossible.   

August was unbearably hot and humid, we could hardly remember the last time it rained. Then on the very last day of the month the rain came.  Temperatures plummeted as the skies clouded over and at last the garden hose was redundant.  

Yesterday the thunder rumbled and skies turned slate grey.  Strong winds heralded more rain and it   I remembered many years ago when we were running a country bar/restaurant in August and at 6.30 in the morning a storm broke the drought.  In an instant the gutters were overflowing with rain, water streaming off the roof to create a waterfall .  I leapt out of bed, grabbed a bar of soap and stood naked under the gushing water, filling the patio with suds. I had never felt so alive.

was delicious.

This morning the grey skies are gone as have all the puddles.  The breeze is still quite perky but the temperature was up in the low teens when I exercised our dog at 8.00 but quickly climbing to a manageable 28⁰ by midday.  The humidity has gone and the air is crisp.  Hopefully, in spite of this sudden shift from Summer to Autumn, we will have a few weeks of this wonderful weather before the winter chill arrives.

THE ACCIDENTAL BUDDHIST - RETIRED

Four years ago my wife and I left the UK to live in Menorca.  The reason for us emigrating was threefold.  Firstly, financial.  Now retired on a very basic state pension, rent and council taxes would be much lower there - an important consideration.  Secondly, we had family in Menorca; my wife’s son’s family lived there with our two grandsons.  Finally, it was the year of the big floods in the Somerset levels.  Luckily we lived high on a hill, safe from the floods but for months and months we looked out over the saturated levels hating the grey, leaden skies and desperate for some sunshine.

We knew the island well, in fact some 20 years earlier we had lived there for a few years struggling to make a living as artists and interior decorators.  Having failed, we returned to the UK but continued to take our holidays there.  We owned a primitive ‘casita’ literally ‘small house’.  It had running water, flush toilet, a fair sized plot of land, but no electricity.  We couldn’t afford to install solar but we enjoyed summer evenings by candlelight.  We always looked forward to our annual holiday in Menorca visiting friends and family.  When we landed at Mahon airport we felt the stresses of day to day life in the UK immediately begin to fade away.  After a couple of weeks laying in a hammock or swimming in the sea, we were totally relaxed and ready to face the world once more.

But now we live here – our pensions converted to Euros and paid directly into our local bank.  At first everything was rosy.  Sterling was probably over valued as we were receiving over 1.40 to the pound and with a single client left over from my freelance days adding to our income, we felt that we had made the right choice.  

Then came the referendum.  Even before the results were known, sterling was already on the move downwards and it continues.  Now not far short of one for one, we have definitely felt the pinch.  My stepson lost his job with a local nightclub and unable to find alternative work, took his wife and children back to the UK where work was plentiful.  We missed them terribly and this combined with our diminishing income began to create stress.  In the past we would counter this with a short holiday in Menorca – but now we lived here and there was no escape.

This reminded me of the piece I wrote on this blog a few years ago about the Wordly Winds I read it through again and remembered how much I enjoyed leading classes at the Bristol Buddhist Centre and also the pleasure in writing these notes afterwards.  So I have decided to revive it – maybe not writing as regularly as I did when I lived in the UK, but just now and then.  Quite what I will write about and who I will write it for, I am not sure.  

Maybe just some very brief notes from a retired Accidental Buddhist living on a very small Mediterranean island.

(pictured is Calas Fons at Es Castell)