The way that the Spanish talk about their climate makes the British preoccupation with the weather look like a casual remark.  Each year that snow falls in Spain (as it does every year without fail) it is greeted as a unique phenomenon and one worthy of vast swathes of television time, showing presenters knee deep in the white stuff with a 'natural' background of snowball throwing kids.  The falling level of the reservoirs in the summer is painstakingly documented with drowned villages seeing the air again and spoken of in apocalyptic terms as if the rains of Februrary are never going to happen and fill them up again.  And so on for each season as highs and lows are lovingly relayed to appalled viewers who at least have a ready made topic of conversation for the rest of the day.

     This year we have, to be fair, had pretty bad weather.  At least we have if you are looking at the whole of Spain and not just at Catalonia and Castelldefels.

     Here in Castelldefels we usually get off lightly.  Snow in Barcelona (it does happen!) does not mean that anything falls on our little town.  Even The Beast from the East has not really had that much effect, though it has been cold and we have had torrential rain.

     In all the years that I have been living in Castelldefels I have never seen snow where I live, near the sea.  I have once seen snow on some of the surrounding hills, but in my front of back garden - never.

     It was therefore with something approaching shock that I looked out at the car park from my inside seat in the cafe in my local swimming pool and saw undeniable flakes of snow.  Not only did I note it down in my ever-ready notebook, but I took a (bad) photograph of it failing to stick on cars as proof that it actually did occur.

     It seemed fitting to note the occasion with a poem and the following is what, with the sun shining outside and the temperature at 16C or so, I have come up with.

     The last line is one of the main reasons that I live in Catalonia!

Castelldefels, one winter’s day

Light touch weather,

fleeting, not to stay.

The hills greyscale in mist.

The ‘snow’ a gesture of thrown flakes:

they’re countable.

The kids’ gloved hands,

are raised in

supplication to the skies

to catch the drifting cold.

The stark-pruned spikey canopies

await the promised picturesque.

Lo!  They come again!

Rain’s ghosts!

Zigzags to blot

in spots so slight

the cold evaporates.

Beach side

no flurry fell.

White rain is for TV

and not for us.

And all too soon

the mundane wet will come,

and then, the sun.