I moved to Spain from Ireland’s west coast.
If you’ve never experienced it, imagine standing inside a damp sponge while someone repeatedly throws Atlantic gales and driving rain at your face.
Rain
Rain isn’t an event in Ireland, it’s just ….Ireland! If it stopped raining for twenty minutes you might take the risk and hang some washing out, not because it might dry, just because it might become slightly less wet.
Most of the year was spent wearing jumpers thick enough to stop a bullet, sleeping under a winter duvet that could double as loft insulation, with an electric blanket switched on to “Volcanic.”
Then there were the throws, every Irish house has throws, not one, several, strategically placed around the house so you can wrap yourself in one every time you sit down to watch the television and question your life choices.
Turf
And don’t get me started on turf.
Anyone who grew up in rural Ireland knows the annual turf ritual, desperately trying to dry a fuel cut from the ground in a country where the atmosphere has the moisture content of soup
First you’d be turning it, then footing it (standing the blocks on end against each other like little tepees). Then checking if it was dry. Then convincing yourself it was dry enough. Then realising it wasn’t. Then it all had to be loaded into trailer, then every last sod unloaded into the shed, you were absolutely shattered, but at least you’d warmed up a bit.
Then you’d spend most of the summer, autumn, winter and spring feeding that turf into the fire, trying to get the house above the tropical temperature of fourteen degrees.
Mud
Then there was the mud, dear Lord, the mud. .
There was always mud.
Fields were mud.
Garden was mud.
Gateways were mud.
The dog was mud.
Kitchen was mud.
My wellies lived permanently beside the back door because putting them away suggested an optimism verging on delusion.
Winter
And then there was winter.
Dark when you got up, dark by late afternoon, grey in between.
The first thing to do in the morning was light the fire, with the damp turf, to try and dry the damp clothes, in a damp house.
Then I moved to southern Spain.
For years I’d dreamed of sunshine, turns out I should have been a bit more specific.
I wanted some sunshine, not living on the actual surface of Mercury.
The heat
The first thing you notice is the mornings. In Ireland, you’d wake up hoping today might finally be warm and dry, in Spain, you wake up, look out the window, and think…”Oh no……it’s started again.”
By eight o’clock it’s already hotter than the best day Ireland has produced in decades.
You find yourself checking the weather app, desperately hoping to see a cloud, not rain, just… something in the sky between my head and the giant furnace overhead.
I now spend an embarrassing amount of time in Mercadona’s frozen food section, not because I need frozen peas, because it’s the closest thing Spain has to an Irish summer.
I casually inspect fish fingers for twenty minutes while pretending to compare ingredients, nobody suspects a thing.
Back in Ireland I’d have sprinted through that aisle, now it’s my happy place.
DIY Cooling
I’ve also become an expert in improvised cooling technology.
Wet bandanas live permanently in the freezer. I’ve discovered that if you soak a bed sheet under the cold tap, wring it out, lie underneath it and point a fan at yourself, you can almost convince your body it hasn’t actually died.
You know you’ve reached peak Spanish summer when you stop caring about dignity, at three in the morning you’ll happily sleep wrapped in what is essentially a giant cold dishcloth.
Then there’s the plumbing.
In Ireland you run the hot tap because…well…you want hot water.
In Spain the cold tap has other ideas. In my home the cold water pipes run up the wall outside the house, where they’ve spent the day being gently roasted by the sun.
You turn on the cold tap expecting relief, instead it produces water that’s hotter than the hot tap.
It’s like the house is mocking me, “Oh, you wanted cold water? That’s cute.”
The windows
Back in Ireland, if someone told me to shut every window in the house on a beautiful sunny morning, I’d have thought they’d lost the plot.
Now it’s my daily routine, by ten o’clock the house has been transformed into something like a cave.
Windows shut, doors shut, persianas down, not a chink of sunlight allowed in.
Of course, I’d never even heard of persianas before moving to Spain, they’re the external metal roller shutters fitted to every window. Think of them as heavy-duty roller blinds that live outside the glass rather than inside the house. Once they are down the room is pitch black.
You spend all winter in Ireland longing for the sun to come out, then you move to Spain and spend half your life trying to stop it getting into the house.
Fans
And then there are the fans.
I own six!
Every room has one, all running flat out, they don’t actually make the air cold, of course.
They just rearrange the hot air with great enthusiasm.
Every now and then one catches a frozen bandana or a damp bedsheet and gives you ten glorious seconds where you think, “Ah… this isn’t too bad.”
If a fan ever stops working, it will feel less like an appliance breaking down and more like losing a member of the family!
You stop doing normal things.
You park the car according to the movement of shadows rather than convenience.
You judge trees solely by the quality of their shade.
You develop an emotional attachment to air conditioning.
The phrase “there’s a lovely breeze today” now refers to moving air that’s only slightly hotter than a hairdryer.
Eventually something strange happens.
You hear that Ireland has had another week of rain.
Wind warnings.
Fifteen degrees.
People wearing coats in July.
And for a brief moment…
you actually feel a tiny bit jealous.
Not enough to move back, obviously.
I’m not completely mad.
But I’d happily take one proper rainy day.
Just one.
One day where I could open the windows without inviting the Sun itself into the living room.
One day where stepping outside didn’t feel like opening an oven door.
One day where I could say, “It’s a bit chilly today.”
Then I’d probably complain about the rain by lunchtime.
Some habits never die.
