Awareness of approaching autumn
I arrived back in Spain yesterday, after an encouraging few days with teachers and educators at our College of Education gathering in Norway. I had to get up at 2.45 am in order to be at Oslo airport in time for my morning flight to Malaga, and the early morning rain reminded me that I was in a more northerly part of the continent. I was looking forward to the warmer weather of Spain, after the more chilly temperatures of Scotland and Norway. And it is still warmer here, but there's nonetheless been a noticeable change over the ten days I was gone, and we're beginning to see the signs of approaching autumn. The air is a little cooler and a little windier; there are more clouds and we weigh up whether it might rain if we hang our laundry out overnight to dry. People are no longer sleeping on top of the bed, with a fan spinning all night to cool down the room. Instead, we're now sleeping under the sheets, or maybe even with a thin blanket.
Today I went to friends' home to water their plants while they are out of the country. Being at their place is always a good opportunity to have a quick swim in the pool, but I got a surprise today to discover that the water is quite a bit colder than it was during August. However, the nice thing about this time of year at their house is that the tree in their garden is full of delicious ripe figs.
Another friend has her parents visiting from Germany this week. Realising that the summer swimming season is beginning to draw to a close, we've decided to take a day off on Wednesday to take her family to the lakes near El Chorro. This is one of my favourite places to go during our summer season here. The deep turquoise blue of the lakes is always stunning, the water is warmer than in the sea, and you're not surrounded by the tourist crowds who sun themselves on the beaches of the coastal resorts.
We pass wind farms on the way there, and the windmills were relatively still the last time we went... but with autumn approaching, they'll soon be spinning fast again and generating power for this region of the country. Once the winter rains arrive, those windmills will be on a grassy green hillside, instead of on the dry, brown landscape that is so familiar to us in the summer months. The windmills look small when you see them as the backdrop to the lakes, but they're actually huge. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, and then look closely at the photo on the bottom left, you'll see how large the windmill is when compared to the bakkie (pick up truck) at the foot of it. That particular photo, by the way, wasn't taken here in Spain; it's one of a few windmills near Klipheuwel, South Africa, where our Durbanville PCYM students worked with children and youth in a local school. Cape Town is coming into springtime at the moment, while we in Spain enjoy the last of our summer and see the signs of approaching autumn.
